I wanted to begin the 2014 running season with a few races to get my family involved in some type of racing to get their year off to a good start, and the Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge (ROC) happened to be available. So I decided to give it a try and take my son along to see how the course held up to our normal OCR standards.
Knowing that we were going to be running up and down mountains, I decided to take a slower pace at the beginning of the race. I didn't want to burn out early. From what I saw, it was pretty much the mass consensus once we reached the first climb. I have to hand it to Dan. He managed to find every single track trail that had a steep grade and long distance to climb. Calves and quads were to be tested this day! After about 2.5 miles of running up and then back down that same mountain on the long trail, we make our first loop back through the festival area for the Rolling Mud and Monkey Net obstacles.
I know there have been lots of articles this year about Tough Mudder getting easy. I won’t say that Tough Mudder as a whole is getting easy, TMHQ has some new awesome obstacles, both for everyone and legion members, but this is about a single event right now so let’s focus on Tough Mudder Nashville. Let me begin be saying that this article does contain a spoiler alert, I will flag it well so you can skip over it if you want to, not that I think anyone will, but someone might not want to know more about the TM Legionnaires Loop.
The race itself is a 5K trek looping through woods and fields and back to the main event area. This race is for those who like to run. It weaves through a variety of terrains but the obstacles are few and far between. Racers kept asking whether the fallen trees were obstacles or just the trail itself. The wooded section was the best part with hill climbs, ropes, mud pits and some over unders.
The overall course itself was touted as "Mud Kings", but I feel I could get muddier on my training runs! We began by wading through a large/rectangular "pool" before running over a small mound of dry dirt. The course then progressed to some other inflatable obstacles, and some fixed ones. The course itself was relatively flat with only one decent hill to ascend, and then a watered tarp to slide down upon the return. A 6' wall, and some angles walls with ropes were present. To that point, nothing too challenging. We then crawled through a few tubes, again with dry dirt in them, and small dirt piles to traverse prior to them.
Wow, with three races completed in a one week period, it was a hectic schedule so we decided to end with a FUN race where we did not have to take ourselves too seriously. Dressed in tutus and animal hats we shuffled off towards Buffalo to play in the foam.
In the ultimate of brand synergies, Reebok (finally) takes some steps to more closely align two of the biggest fitness advocations in the world, in one place, at one time. Of course you know I'm talking about CrossFit and Spartan Race, as I'm sure you read the subtitle above.
As the twelfth hour approached, my heart raced as I frantically searched the haggard HH12HR crew for any trace of Kyoul. I reminded myself he's a Hot Shot firefighter, and has been dropped in the middle of far more life-threatening situations many times in his career. He's on the Spartan Race team and a strong elite racer for god's sake - where was he and what the hell happened?
Organizing and starting your own event takes a lot of work - so you'd better be ready. We have some tips and plenty of things to consider if you're looking to step up and put on an event of your own.
