This week's episode of Obstacle and Adventure Weekly focuses on OCR World Championships Race Manager, Brad Khola as he talks about his Run to Remember Campaign where he ran 100 races in 1 year to raise money for Alzheimer's Association and Awareness.
Dryrobe is a UK based company. Surfer Gideon Bright from North Devon UK, took his 30 years as a surfer and created a cover-up to change in parking lots and other public places. Quickly after the initial designs DryRobe picked up traction with those in the triathlon world and most recently in the obstacle racing world.
Since the beginning of obstacle racing has been more like a chain of islands than a unified sport, each company working independently trying to grab as much of the market as possible. This side of our sport has been chronicled over and over again but this article is not about the infighting or which company is trying to outdo another. This article looks at what is happening at the grassroots level of the sport...
For the first time ever, the OCR World Championships organized groups of “Ruckers” in cities all over the country to participate in a “Rucksgiving” where people would carry food, warm clothes, and care packages in back packs and bags on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and give back to their communities by donating these items to shelters and homeless people on the streets.
Schlachter, commonly referred to as "the most connected person in the sport of OCR" or "center of the OCR universe" takes on the role of Supreme Editor-in-Chief of Mud Run Guide (mudrunguide.com) on top of her duties as host & producer of Obstacle and Adventure Weekly, co-host on OCR Warrior, founder of Dirt in Your Skirt, subject matter expert & columnist for obstacleracing.About.com, and writer for Mud & Obstacle Magazine.
I was able to walk around and get a good look at a lot of the obstacles and terrain, and then had the opportunity to practice on the “Platinum Rig”, along with other racers in the dark. The energy even on Friday night was amazing and beyond anything I had experienced to date, including both my Vermont Beast's.
As I was reflecting and perusing photos from this weekend's Reebok Spartan Race World Championships, I couldn't help but visibly notice the lack of standardization in a race where so much was on the line. Spartan Race, I do sincerely love your events and believe you guys put on some of the most difficult and awesome physical sporting events in the entire world... this is a constructive piece of criticism that I've been distilling with my observations over the past few years with the growth of this company and sport.
Since earlier in 2014 when OCRWC announced their intentions to develop a world championship that isn't tied to one specific brand of events, there have been a few jabs that have been thrown in their direction from Joe, in conversations and interviews he has used variations of "we only acknowledge one OCR World Championship, and it's held in Vermont each September." This was completely to be expected, Joe and his ever-growing team has sunk millions of dollars into developing and advertising the Spartan brand all over the world, it only makes sense that he would protect his investment when asked about a direct competitor. He's spoken with so much vitrol in the past about his distaste for the tactics of Will Dean and Tough Mudder's when both races were fighting to develop a foothold in the industry. His dismissive comments when asked about OCRWC clearly didn't seem like he was lowering the boom on the fledgeling event. Or did it?
The OCR World Championships (OCRWC), obstacle course racing's first independent championship, furthered its reach into international territory with today’s announcement of new qualifying events and digital media partners. This marks another important moment in what is anticipated to be the most collaborative event in the sport’s history.
The Spartan Beast, known for its punishing hills, will be the stage for the elite competition heat where the athletes will race head to head through the early morning mist on Saturday, September 20th. Racers will tackle a gauntlet of challenging obstacles, including wall climbs, aerial traverses over water, challenging rope climbs, and barbed wire crawls.
