My name is Juan Carlos Obando, I am 42 years old from Toronto, Ontario, Canada and I am an OCR. I started doing OCR more than 5 years ago but got more serious about my sport about 3 years ago. Like many of us in the OCR community I have had many struggles, and many ups & downs, but my love for competing, my love for training is what lifted me every time.
For a brief moment I hesitated in writing this recap. This had nothing to do with the event itself, but more my disappointing results. I ran both days at Strong Viking, Odin race wave Saturday and a later 19km wave on Sunday. Or at least, I tried…
This year's OCR World Championships was once again THE event of the year for the sport of obstacle racing. With athletes from 43 countries descending upon the Blue Mountains of Canada, Adrian Bijanada and team did not disappoint - pulling together a phenomenal event with high scores in every possible category (venue, course, obstacles, awards, etc).
In the obstacle course racing industry when a race organization announces it is redesigning, restructuring, or reassessing the chances that the industry will see that group again is slim based on historical events. However, this fall, Civilian Military Combine reemerged from the ashes like a Pheonix rising on the southernmost tip of Brooklyn, New York.
Earlier this year I received an invitation from Don Devaney to participate in a beta test of his new endurance event, the RYNGE. I was promised an event that would challenge physical fitness, problem-solving skills, mental grit and teamwork. The event was described to me as a cross between live action role playing and an endurance race, with the participants writing their own story during the event.
There are many different events out there, and sometimes things don't go according to plan. If Agoge 003 was a glitch that suffered from bad decision making on the ground or an overabundance of ego, then Spartan Race and the Agoge directors need to own up to that, work to make it right, and ensure that future events don't follow a similar path.
Now that we’re within a month of WTM, we get to see the final set of rules! There was a lot of speculation behind these rules for this year's event. Tough Mudder recently sent out the updated rules for 2016 and the community starting chatting. When we sign up for crazy events like this, we’re allowing the HQ to define the parameters for our efforts to count, so it’s important to understand exactly what these rules are so we can do as well as possible on event day.
Athletes who raced last weekend at the OCR World Championships in Ontario, Canada all received a personalized card, patch, and postcard in their packets this year. The card was from the newly formed International Obstacle Course Racing Union (IOCRU). This Union was created by Adrian Bijanada, Amelia Boone, and Carrie Connors. The IOCRU was created with the purpose of serving the global community of OCR athletes, promoting and developing the sport of OCR, and fostering relationships between athletes, supporters, sponsors, fans, and race organizers according to the organization's website.
Sunday, the weather changed and the rain rolled in. In fact, forecasts were calling for high probability of thunderstorms in the area, and because of this, staff at the OCR World Championships had backup plans B, C, and D ready... as you can imagine, climbing metal obstacles on top of a mountain is not a wise decision if there is lightning in the area.
It has been about a year since Warrior Dash held their 2nd (and last) Warrior Dash World Championship (WDWC). The event was a standard Warrior Dash (WD) course but on harder terrain and for insane cash prizes. In 2014 it was held in Southern California and in 2015 it was held in Tennessee. Each year they gave away $100,000 (split between the top five men and top five women). A 5k with a purse that big is pretty much unheard of. But after only two years the event was put out to pasture by WD, focusing instead on their normal array of weekend races.
