One of the joys of running a new event series that promises to bring obstacles to a new level and enhance the competition of the event like we haven’t seen before is that we don’t know what we’re getting into. It’s like jumping off a 37ft cliff: it’s scary, but we’ll survive somehow. As a data scientist and detail-oriented person, however, I try to maximize our performance by controlling what I can control.
Victor Carrillo is no stranger to the world of obstacle course racing. In fact, over the last few years, he has made a name for himself and has turned his hobby into a passion and his passion into a business as the founder of Machete Madness, a group that hosts endurance events up and down the California coast and occasionally elsewhere.
The most famous thing about New Year’s Resolutions is that everyone fails at them. So why are they still a thing? They’re the product of introspection to identify things about yourself that you would like to change or improve. For many of us in obstacle racing, one of the functions of the offseason is to do just that: identify weaknesses and create plans for how to address them! That sounds a lot like a resolution.
The joy and challenge of a 24-hour event are that you don’t need to run fast to succeed. With slow, constant forward progress you can cover a huge amount of ground so that you will look back on your day and feel like you have accomplished something great.
Last year I was a last-minute addition to Pit for my daughter Kait Karel. In the two weeks before the event, I read everything I could - besides watching the requisite Pis’and’Cox Pit Crew episode - and talked to multiple athletes about how I could best help my athlete. I threw in a few of my ideas. Kait rocked WTM 2015, and I was thrilled to be a part of it and to help where I could. This past spring we resurrected our Pit-Athlete act at BFX24 in Miami.
Some people tend to learn more from their mistakes than their successes. But while mistakes can be educational, they can also be a painful way to learn. That’s especially true if those mistakes come during an epic challenge like World’s Toughest Mudder. If you’re tackling this year’s WTM, or considering giving it a go in the future, you might avoid some common mistakes by heeding the following advice.
With the 2016 OCR World Championships (OCRWC) complete athletes are already reflecting on their performances and planning on how to improve for 2017. Several comments have appeared on Facebook reflecting on which races to do to prepare for OCRWC next year. This raises the question, which race series should you fill your calendar with for 2017? That depends on your performance and areas of weakness in 2016.
The most common mistake that new endurance runners make is blowing themselves out early in the race. Without practice, it’s hard to know how hard is too hard. We’ve all gone through variations of this thinking: “It’s a race, right? So I should be in front, right? Okay!” Unless you’re superman, that thinking inevitably leads to that painful feeling near the end of the race that you’re dying and somehow can’t keep on going. For 100 milers, 24+hour events and other big endurance events, this thinking is what causes a good deal of Did Not Finish’es (DNF’s).
Evan does a beach workout with American Ninja Warrior & Spartan Race TV star (and all-around awesome person) Rose Wetzel.
Evan heads to Old Valley CrossFit to do a partner workout with 9-time American Ninja Warrior Brian Orosco. Could this be the first workout that makes Evan lose his lunch?
