Seven Days. 26.2 miles per day. A thousand plus obstacles. These are the obvious challenges that lay ahead for me as I embark on my OCR America journey. Over a week in June, I plan on running at 7 different OCR sites in 7 days.
Overall this is one of the best races around, aside from a great race, the proceeds go to providing clean drinking water to areas of the world that are in need. Aside from a few waits at obstacles, and with selling out 1,000 racers that can be expected, really can’t say anything negative about this race.
A few friends and I (Melba Garcia, Mario San Roman, and Jeremey Katopol, seasoned OCR athletes of varying levels who workout regularly together) offered up our services to check out some of these programs and facilities, meet and chat with the owners and give you our impressions of them. This is the first in what I hope will be a series of reviews of such training programs.
For weeks, Savage Race has been teasing a new sizable medal through social media with the word "Syndicate" on the ribbon. Yesterday, Savage Race released more information about this new addition to the 5-mile obstacle races offerings. The Savage Race Syndicate is the newest way Savage Race is looking out for their repeat customers. For participants who run more than one Savage Race a year, their loyalty is about to be rewarded.
OCRTUBE continues to capture the action from Europe this spring with Arnel Banawa stopping at Nuclear Rush over the weekend for Nuclear Rush Weekend. The event hosted a 6-kilometer race with about 50 obstacles, a 12-Kilometer race with over 96 obstacles, and the Oblivion 48-Kilometer race with over 384 obstacles which was four laps on the 12K course. In addition to the adult races Nuclear also hosted an entertaining Kid's Race.
Quantity over quality or quality over quantity? How about both? If you wanted to play in the mud this weekend, there was no shortage of events! From our tried and true staples, Like Double Spartan Races, An epic showdown at BattleFrog Series, Warrior Dash, Terrain Mud Run and Rugged Maniac, to more specialized races to get excited about, like the end of an era taking place at Mud Guts and Glory, the always highly anticipated Goliathon and a welcome reminder of what we love most about OCR at Conquer the Gauntlet – this weekend had it all.
Last week we sat down with Brakken Kraker to talk about the new training system he recently launched. Kraker first mentioned his new offering during a recent Obstacle Order Podcast. Kraker is currently part of a team launching a new OCR Coaching product for Leaderboard aimed at the obstacle racing community. Below is a Mud Run Guide exclusive with Kraker talking more about Leaderboard.
Last night the fifth episode of American Grit aired on Fox. The show took no time in getting to the Evolution. In this Evolution, the teams were tested on their survival skills. Teams had to build shelter, make fire, and purify water. The teams had an additional choice in this evolution a short or long route. The short route made the tasks harder and the longer route made the tasks easier. Also, each person will only be allowed to do a certain task.
Race companies cannot control everything but they can control some things like parking, site layout, obstacles, lines at registration, timing of the event, and festival. The one major one they cannot control is the weather. The weather wreaks havoc on the course which may have taken weeks to assemble but can be destroyed overnight. This was the case with BattleFrog Kansas City. A wicked storm crushed the course, raising streams and making some obstacles almost impossible.
Savage Race again returned to the beautiful Moonlight Stables and Equestrian Center, while some would think that this being the only place that Savage has held its events here in Georgia that they might want to change things up, having done each event here they always find ways to change things up, so the course is never the same.
