OCD FOR OCR

A warm spring day brought me to the home of the New York Mets for the first stadium venue Spartan Race in 2019. This was technically the first “Stadion” ever as the stadium races are now so branded. Adult responsibilities thwarted my ability to arrive in Queens in time to compete in Age Group, but my appearance at Citi Field was not all about me. It was my distinct pleasure to run an Open heat lap with my longtime friend and fellow University at Albany alum, Jason Block, who I managed to sell on the idea of tackling his first OCR ever, at least in part by dangling the carrot of him being able to taunt a Mets fan friend with pics of himself from the team room and the field itself. More importantly, Jason has made great efforts in losing weight and improving his fitness in recent years, so a Spartan Race Stadion near him seemed like the perfect goal to work toward in the gym and on the road. For me, nothing is more thrilling than sharing a sport that has given me so much with important people in my life, whom I believe might enjoy and benefit from participation in it as well.

• Registration and Festival:

Not really a lot to say about registration, that I haven‘t already put forth in my previous recaps of Spartan Races. The system is probably the most efficient out there and it’s hard to think of where they can improve it. The most glaring difference would be red headbands for the elite and age group runners, but I ran open so this difference would be lost on me today anyhow. Jason and I got through within minutes. 

The festival area was along the concourse of the stadium. You came up the escalators in the entrance of Citi Field and are immediately greeted by the merchandise table. All along the way to the start there were vendors a plenty. Jason has always liked to collect free stuff through our years of going places and doing things together and he seemed to take full advantage of all that was offered, of which there was plenty. 

Finisher beer was available at McFadden‘s, a bar and restaurant located within the walls of the stadium, but accessible only from the outside street. This is the norm for stadium events and many jovial finishers can be found eating, drinking and making merry over their accomplishments and adventures therein. 

• Pre-race MC:

Like I have stated in prior recaps (see my review of last Fall‘s event at Fenway) you don’t get much pep talk at the start line. There was a little more ad libbing from the start line MC than I suspect I would have heard, had I run a competitive heat earlier, but it was nothing that sounded scripted. Personally, I like something off the fly. A script is good, but only when the MC can and has the talent to deviate within reason and put his or her own flavor into it.

We did, however encounter Justin Manning right after finishing who had post-race MC duties, which were broadcast on the Jumbotron and over the stadium PA system for all to hear. Justin briefly interviewed Jason and I, as we made our way from the finish line to the exit from the course, which I really think made Jason’s experience even more special. I for one, was humbled by some kind words Jason made about my efforts to prepare him physically and mentally for this his first foray into OCR. 

• The Course:

For the uninitiated, the Stadion is a 3-mile OCR course that is a hybrid animal of sorts. You see several of the same obstacles you likely encountered in a standard Spartan Sprint, but you also get several obstacles that are stations of exercises, such as ball slams, box jumps and push-ups among other things. This helps make the Stadion an accessible event to the beginning OCR athlete, who can build confidence with movements familiar to them from their normal gym or training program mixed in with a taste of the obstacles that call for more OCR specific skills. My conversations post-race with Jason solidified my observations about this important feature of the Stadion events in being a gateway to Spartan’s other offerings in terms of distance and type of course or venue. 

As they began experimenting last year, all reps were in sets of 15 for the exercise rep obstacles, after years of watching it seemingly fluctuate from 20 to 25 to 30 and back and forth from one event to the next. Likewise, the Burpee penalties were held to 15 also implemented in the previous season. This makes the race more accessible for the beginner or the deconditioned participant, but also makes the race more fast paced and intense for the competitive athletes.

Taking part in an afternoon, Open heat, I noticed that the obstacle involving biking 15 calories on the Airdyne, an apparatus that is a hybrid of an exercise bike and a ski erg, was busted down to 10 calories just as was done last Fall at Fenway. This is understandable as having the open participants do 15 reps would have made for intolerable bottlenecks at that part of the course. What did get under my skin was that the low crawls had been eliminated entirely, and the Jerry Can carry was completely flat. I later learned, that the low crawl used tape rather than bungee cords and they were having trouble keeping them up as the day progressed. The stairs were taken out of the Jerry Can loop, due to a spillage making the stairs slippery and potentially dangerous. I was disappointed by the relative ease of the loop, but applaud Spartan for putting the athlete’s safety first as the largest portion of participants would be running the course. 

• The Bling:

The medal is a mixed bag to me, having come to this venue in the past. I miss the venue specific medals, we used to get here and at some of the other historic stadium venues. However, the yellow Stadion medal is a nice compromise over having a generic sprint medal as would have been the only alternative before the re-branding of this sub-series.

Likewise, I now own a yellow finisher’s shirt specific to the Stadion, which makes for another unique shirt, one can collect from finishing Spartans’ full cadre of race distances and types throughout the season.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I initially planned to rate it 4.5 out of 5 stars due to the above-mentioned modification to the Jerry Can carry loop and the use of cheap tape in the place of the simple to use and affordable bungee cords, used for crawls at every Spartan Stadium/Stadion I have done prior to this one. I thought a lot about this and decided it’s not fair to deduct points due to changes for the racers safety, but I really see no excuse when it comes to using tape in place of bungee cords for the crawls throughout the course and have to still deduct for that, raising the rating to 4.6 out of 5 stars.

I should know better, but I still was miffed that some of us racers got a watered-down course vs. what was presented in the elite and competitive heats. But overall, I enjoyed myself immensely and Spartan delivered a solid product that delivers for newbies and seasoned athletes alike. 

Article Written by: Brian Kellogg, OCR Aficionado