OCD FOR OCR

The North American OCR Championships held in Stratton, Vermont. First of all, Vermont is absolutely gorgeous with stunning views of mountains and countryside. Hosted by Adventurey, LLC who does a few events each year, including the OCR World Championships, and a 24-hour Enduro event (in Australia). With the North American and World’s event, they offered three different races over the three-day weekend. There is a 3k short course, a 15k standard course, a team relay event, and a charity 7k event sending a portion of the proceeds to the The Stratton Foundation.

• Venue:

The venue at Stratton mountain was absolutely perfect for hosting an event like this with a resort style village allowing participants to be able to stay at the actual location event and not have to leave and go anywhere. These locations add to the entire weekend atmosphere for a championship race with obstacles staged throughout the entire village. There are literally racers everywhere the entire weekend. In shops, at restaurants, lodges, etc.

• Pre-race MC:

The emcee (Justin T. Manning) was different. He spoke well, but at the same time didn’t really get me pumped up all that much for it being a championship race. He did, however, do all of the awards for the entire weekend as well as get every single race wave off.

• The Course:

The 3k short course event was held on Friday, the main 15k event course on Saturday, and the team relay and charity run’s on Sunday making for a very full weekend, and yes, a lot of people did all four races.

The short course was a very fast paced course with a very spectator friendly view of the course that adds a very good family friendly atmosphere. Actually, the main area is very action packed with views of quite a few obstacles back to back to back.

The 15k course was set up with the same setting, only much longer, taking racers up to the top of the mountain, down, and all around it. Oh, and back up and down a few more times.

The team relay is a really great concept, allowing racers to be able to race to their strengths that they have whether it be speed running, strength-based challenges, or technical obstacle completion.

The last race of the long three-day race weekend was the 7k charity race, which is more about having fun with old and new friends and raising money for a great charity. 

All three of these races are mandatory obstacle completion which means, if you have trouble getting through an obstacle, you can re-attempt it as many times as you want until advancing.

The obstacles were absolutely fantastic. Many of them were very challenging and technical, requiring racers to be proficient with grip strength and technique to be able to complete all the obstacles and keep their mandatory obstacle completion wrist bands. Unlike Spartan, to be able to podium, racers must complete every obstacle! All three courses (3k, 15k and the team relay) incorporated several strength-based obstacles, making it unlike most other race series.

The obstacles were a combination of ones that have proven to be worthy of a championship course for several years now and some amazing newer obstacles to the sport including: Gibbons (the obstacle most feared and talked about all race weekend), Valkyrie (not only challenging, but also intimidating due to the height it went up to and then back down), and what had to be at least a dozen Force 5 obstacles.

As noted above, if racers didn’t have a mastery for upper body, grip strength intensive obstacles, they were in big trouble, because there was many of them and typically in a gauntlet style, back to back to back. Some of the best racers in the sport struggled over the entire race weekend because they blistered badly during the 3k and/or 15k.

Now add in the monster ski mountain, which the 15k took racers up to the top and back down two times and this made all the above-mentioned challenges even harder to overcome and keep the coveted obstacle completion wrist bands, which I did for all three races (3k, 15k and team relay)!!

The combination of the terrain, mountain, strength obstacles and the abundance of technical challenging obstacles made all three races, some of the hardest/challenging courses in the sport I have completed to date!

• The Bling:

The medals that they give out for the participants are all top notch. Very good quality and the lanyards to go with the medal. They always to a great job in this department of a race. There are many people that only do these races for the special one of a kind finisher-medal. Also, the finisher shirts this year were fantastic. In the past, if you did more than one event, you would get the exact same finisher shirt in each event you did. Who wants four of the exact same finisher shirts? This year, they changed up the colors of every event specific shirt.

• Indian Mud Run:

Reflecting back now back on this race weekend and keeping my wrist bands, I was definitely more prepared for everything, but the mountain because Lori and I went and ran Indian Mud Run this past June. I was able to complete the Gibbon’s obstacle during a real pressure packed race and for the most part, IMR was the only other race with around the same abundance of technical challenging upper body, grip strength obstacles and challenging carry obstacles.

If you want to be better prepared for next year’s championship races, I suggest signing up for IMR, next June. IMR race director/OCR legend, Hubie Cushman has always made sure to add the latest and greatest newest obstacle(s) to IMR to help racers be more prepared for the championship races later in the year!

• Team MIT OCR:

I have to give a huge shout out to team MIT OCR. They had such a huge showing for this event. So much cheering and encouraging all the participants on all throughout the course all weekend. This is one of the best teams in OCR in my opinion. The upbeat camaraderie they expel and constant positivity to everyone is just simply amazing. #whoarewe.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

Overall ratings for the NorAm championship race in Stratton, Vermont is 6 out of 5 stars. If you have a chance to get to one of Adventurey LLC’s events, don’t hesitate. They put on one of the best events in the sport of obstacle course racing.

Article Written by: Andy Sneller and Lori Danko.