For much of the country it has been a wet spring, rain has plagued many races this year and made for extra muddy courses. Over the weekend Warrior Dash was at the mercy of mother nature and her force was strong. Combined with severe weather, flooding, and limited access to the course by the medical staff Warrior Dash was forced to make the tough decision to cancel their event yesterday.
This is the third year that the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office has opened up their state of the art Law Enforcement Obstacle Training Course to the general public, and this little Local event keeps getting better. While not a traditional OCR where you run for short distances in between obstacles that are spread out, this is more like a 5k trail run around the jail with a nicely challenging obstacle course bunched up at the end.
All eyes this weekend were on Breckenridge Colorado at the Spartan Race Sprint. Athletes from around the world flew in to take on the event many were calling a World Championship matchup. Savage Race debuted a new obstacle in Ohio this weekend that had everyone swinging. Warrior Dash battled the rain in Illinois. As well as fifty other obstacle races and mud runs took place throughout the world. Be sure to check out the OCR World Standings and see where your favorite athletes stack up.
Obstacle racing is both heating up and cooling down this weekend in the United States with races all over the country. Over fifty obstacle races and mud runs are taking place around the US and beyond this weekend. A few races are catching the eyes of many in the industry.
MuckFest MS is a family event, so the festival area was loaded with lots of families, friends, and couples all having a good time. Music played throughout the event and this only helped make for fun times and smiles.
Last night the sport of obstacle racing took a huge step forward. Many obstacle racing enthusiasts tuned into ESPN2 for the first of the three part series covering the BattleFrog Collegiate Championships. The format featured 16 college teams from around the country competing in a head-to-head relay on a short obstacle packed course.
Community is what most point to as the best thing about obstacle racing. Meeting old and new friends is often the highlight of race weekends. Even so, the community has evolved from the earliest days. A recent article in Men’s Fitness Magazine hinted at the evolution: “Before it was a slick, Reebok-sponsored international obstacle-racing phenomenon, the Spartan Race was a quirky, little-known adventure race in Vermont’s Green Mountains”.
Generally, when people think about the frog in the World of OCR, their thoughts are about the flashier, highly marketed Battlefrog. I admit, I was guilty of these same thoughts. There is no doubt that it is a respectable race and I was all in on that frog, until now. The lesser known race called Bone Frog, founded by Brian Carney (33) born and raised in Western Massachusetts, 13 year Navy and 9 year Seal veteran, is an absolute power house in obstacle course racing.
This was my first Krell Adventure Games and I was very excited to be doing the event with my friend Franklyn Newby. The Krell Adventure games not an obstacle course race but something closer to orienteering event or adventure race. The course did include several obstacles as part of the twenty challenges, but the majority of the challenges were challenges, not obstacles. Franklyn and I were pleased with the course and that it wasn’t your typical obstacle course race.
TomTom announced today their commitment to obstacle racing, one of the fastest growing sports in America, becoming the essential way to train for Reebok Spartan Race. Like the 4.5 million-strong Spartan community, TomTom is continually pushing boundaries and discovering new territory in a fun, bold and adventurous way to help people reach their goals.
