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.
Allison Tai is an accomplished endurance athlete and obstacle racer. She shares her top tips for the 2016 World's Toughest Mudder in this video. Tai finished second at the 2014 World's Toughest Mudder while stopping to breastfeed her daughter during the race. Tai is the Co-Founder of VanCity OCR a training space for obstacle racers and fitness enthusiasts in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She recently won the Ultra Beast in Lake Tahoe.
Just two weeks before World’s Toughest Mudder 2016 (#WorldsToughest16), Tough Mudder (TM) put on both a full and half course at the same venue. Obviously, many of the local players made a strategic appearance to check out the course, get in some final obstacle training, and have a good time with great people. There is no guarantee that any of the course or obstacles will mirror that of WTM, but I find it hard to believe that they’ll dig new pits or rebuild certain key obstacles like Everest 2.0 or King of the Swingers. The other caveat is that there was a fire on course the night before the Saturday event and TM had to quickly reroute us to the other side of the venue.
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.
First off, Spartan Race (SR) didn't have to do this. When Spartan canceled, correction, when Hurricane Matthew canceled the Spartan Race in Okeechobee, FL. No one would have blamed them for packing up their trucks and moving on to the next race. Instead, they chose to put on a special Hurricane Heat at Virginia Beach on Virginia Key in FL. So, having always wanted to do a Hurricane Heat (HH) and rather than driving three hours to Okeechobee, I could do one virtually in my backyard....sign me up!!
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.
Athletes can start booking their travel for 2017 with the announcement today of the 2017 OCR World Championships heading back to Blue Mountain, Ontario, Canada. The fourth edition of the OCR World Championships is set to take October 13 -15, 2017. Pre-registration opens today to allow athletes to reserve their spot (prior to qualifying) in either the age group divisions or pro division.
It was a cool morning on the banks of the Gregorian Bay. However, we expected much worse from Mother Nature in October. We are in Canada! As I stood there in the start corral for the Pro Wave of the 2016 OCRWC, I found myself wondering...
This past weekend would be the third time this year I was at Historic Virginia Key Beach for an Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) event. It would also be the third time I was at an OCR event that was different than any I'd been to before. This past weekend was The Benjamin Dash. Interestingly, on the way over, I passed at least three other running/biking events going on and it reminded me just how hard it is to get the attention of people in Miami. There's just so much going on all year! So I was very interested to see just what this race was about, as there was apparently cash up for grabs...and not just for elite racers!!
When I first heard about Zombie Run for Humanity, I was a bit skeptical. I had tried zombie races before and many of them lacked either the characters (volunteers, makeup, costumes) or the obstacles were less than challenging. To my surprise, the Zombie Run for Humanity managed to do well in both categories.
