OCD FOR OCR

I recently learned about The Titan Run in Long Island, NY and the more I learned about it, the more I wanted to participate! The Titan Run was OCR # 1 of the day and it didn’t disappoint!

• Registration and Festival:

We arrived early, and registering was nice and fast! The festival area was set up well and for a smaller race, it was impressive how many local vendors showed.

• The Course:

The course was set up well and utilized the local venue’s woods very efficiently, never traveling that far away from the festival area and packed a boatload of obstacles in on the three-mile course. The race started with a short trail sprint exiting the festival area and entering the woods and it didn’t take long getting to the obstacles. The course included three different rope climbs, spread out throughout the three-mile and each rope was different, so they really did give racers a chance to utilize good rope climbing technique.

The course also included several walls to climb up and over, so that was another area of racing that racers needed to have good technique! This was a course that combined many of the obstacles racers see at most of the larger OCR’s and a fair amount of Ninja Warrior obstacles as well, totaling over forty obstacles on just a three miles course!

Some of the Ninja Warrior inspired obstacles included: Salmon Ladder, which required racers to propel their body upward latching in a bar to the next level multiple times, which requires both technique and upper body strength and to make this one even more of a challenge, it was later in the course when racers had already used a lot energy and grip strength on other obstacles. A peg-board to climb up, which I personally used both my upper body and legs (wrapping them around the tree the obstacle was attached to) to complete! The course also included a grip strength intensive obstacle to monkey across notched hand rails, which was not easy at all!

The course was loaded with obstacles, I was impressed with the inverted wall, which was harder than the version I completed later in the day at a Spartan race! Also, on the course, was monkey bars, hand pegs to monkey across, a cargo net climb, and one of my favorite challenges of them all, a throwing ax challenge, what I liked about the throwing ax challenge, is they actually used axes that are designed and weighted to be thrown and stick in a target, almost all the other races that I have done that have had an ax throwing obstacle, used axes not meant to be thrown, which caused a very high failure rate. The course included several carry obstacles, which to reward the stronger racers!

This course included a crawling obstacle, a black plastic drainage pipe crawl, low slanted walls to frog hop across without falling off (I believe there were two versions of this obstacle on the course), a heavy plate push obstacle that came later in the course making it even more challenging. Another challenging obstacle I must mention, was the rope traverse, to traverse across without touching the ground! The course had a lot of really fun and challenging obstacles.

It was clear this course was designed by someone who has done obstacle course races and placed obstacles at points on the course to challenge racers more, but still be a really fun time.

• The Bling:

The bling was a very nice finisher medal, which I am happy to add to my collection and a choice of several beers to pick from.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

How many of us, have participated in an obstacle course race (on the weekend) and went to work on Monday morning and told our friends about our exciting weekends and thought, I wish I could create my own obstacle course race? Well that is how The Titan Run was created, two friends at work talked about making an awesome local OCR, and it turned from talking and dreaming, into an actual awesome race! I was very impressed with the course and the small staff that clearly works hard to put on a great race! This is a race that’s worth adding to your schedule and from what I learned will continue to make improvements to all its future races!

When I take everything into consideration, the course, the abundance of quality obstacles, the bling, the amazing group of polite kids (U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps) that volunteered at the obstacles, and a staff/team that clearly have a strong desire to put on a quality race/event, I am rating this race 5 out 5 stars. This was OCR # 1 of the day and I enjoyed this race more than the second race I did later in the day in Massachusetts!

Article Written by: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)