OCD FOR OCR

With this being the last Newbsanity event of the year and being more of a fun run, I wasn’t expecting much.

• Registration and Festival:

Registration was under a tent where you just signed a waiver. The festival area, I would consider that the big bon-fire, they had going, pre, mid and post-race. That’s where we all gathered to stay warm as it had started to snow a little bit before the run started.

• Pre-race MC:

Jarrett Newby did the pre-race announcements. This being a zombie run, laid out the ground rules of the zombie area and how to finish each zone with 3 or 4 obstacles. Straight to the point, which was needed on this cold day.

• The Course:

This was my first chance to experience the Newbsanity course. After years of conflicts with all their events, I was really excited to finally go out and see for myself what all the buzz was about Newbsanity. The course was broken down into sections. There was the main zombie section which was right in the middle of the course that you had to cross through to get to each zone. There was a red zone, blue zone and green zone. So, for instance, you would start in the red zone, complete one obstacle, then had to run back through the zombie zone, to get to the blue zone and keep crisscrossing back and forth until all obstacles in all zones were completed.

Now you didn’t have to crisscross. If you wanted to get the blue zone done all at once, you would complete one obstacle, then have to run the middle of the zombie zone and touch the barrel in the middle and then you would be allowed to go back to the blue zone to complete another obstacle.

Each racer had 3 flags on their belt, which is standard for a zombie run. If all three flags were taken away, you were considered not a survivor, or infected.

As the event went on, Nerf balls were introduced to the course. As a runner, if you had a Nerf ball, and you entered the zombie zone, you could throw the Nerf ball at the zombies. If you hit the zombie, without them catching it, you could pass through the zone untouched. Kind of like Dodgeball. It really brought an interesting strategy to the run.

Now with this event, we didn’t get to see the entire Newbsanity course.  Below is a list of the obstacles that we had access to and were able to complete.

Joker Lane – About 30 or so feet of tires just thrown on the ground that you had to traverse your way across. With some light rain, snow and sleet, it wasn’t easy. 

A-frames – Think tip of the spear from BattleFrog, except you have to make your way around from right to left, and in the middle is another wall you have to traverse to get to the other side.

Jerry – Is a sandbag that’s attached to a rolling monkey bar contraption.  As you grab on to each bar, the Jerry pulls up the sandbag.

Royal Flush – Five walls on angles that you had to climb over. They had shorter walls (about 4-feet) and taller walls (about 8-feet) for the more adventurous.

Fortress Walls – A Set of three 10-foot walls that we had to climb over.

Inch Worm – was an apparatus built, that you had to traverse, up down and across without your feet touching the ground. There were pegs along the obstacle that you could grab onto and use as steps for your feet.

Rat Trap – An obstacle that had 3 difficulties.  First, you could climb a ladder up to the top, use ropes and a step to get to the top, or use climbing grips, which also had another obstacle, with part of the wall actually sticking out about 4-feet near the top.  Then once on top, you had to work your way back down to the bottom, with a maze-like design inside the wall.

Cheese Grater – Low crawl over some rocks.

Grip Rig – Newbsanity’s version of a rig. Again, with 3 difficulties. They had a lane of floating walls, just rings, rings and then lastly a lane with rings, and various attachments.

Rip Curl – Their version of a warped wall.  They had just painted it and it was very slick.  Getting up with the use of ropes or cargo nets was very difficult.

Grandpa’s Beard – A under and up cargo net climb.

Area 51 – You started by pulling yourself up a black tube, into a rope climb to the top. Then you have two balance beam logs with empty barrels on ropes that you have to traverse across.

Peg Leg – Sounds just like it says. It was an obstacle that you had to crawl under, using hands and feet on the pegs while crawling upside down.

Vertigo – A 20-foot ladder climb in the middle of the woods.

Pirate’s Pass – Which was balance beams to a wall traverse in the middle of a pond.

Storm the Gate – A slant wall up to a cargo net that you had to traverse across before coming down the other side of the slant wall.

Also, a little different, is each person was given a punch card to carry with them. Every time you completed an obstacle you went back to the start of the zone and had a volunteer punch your card, verifying you completed an obstacle. While carrying the card seemed awkward at first, I ended up just sticking it down the top of my socks, I thought it was kind of cool. Some may think of it as a deterrent or not necessary, but it did give you a chance to catch your breath before heading back into the zombie zone.

• The Bling:

While there was no medal, they did provide a hodge-podge of swag. They had Newbsanity bandannas/buffs, some different colored rubber bracelets and a can/bottle opener in a leather pouch.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

Man, let me tell you this was like an appetizer. The buzz I’ve heard for years, lived up to the hype about the Newbsanity events. Not even running the full course, and I would still say this is a fun race series that everyone should attend. Back to the actual zombie run, this was very fun. It was unique, in that you had to cross through the specific zombie zone each time after you completed an obstacle, rather than encountering zombies randomly through the course. I liked this feature a lot. 

The obstacles were legit and unique. Build was solid. With the New Jersey Spartan being the same weekend, as this event, some of the Newbsanity regulars weren’t there.  Considering the weather, and the late season event, turnout wasn’t that great, but that didn’t stop any of us from having a really fun time, laughing and trash talking each other, especially the zombies. I like to have a little more contact with the zombies and the physicality was there if you wanted it.

Would I recommend this run? Absolutely! Everyone knows zombie runs are crazy fun. I mean, who doesn’t like being chased like we’re kids again? Jarrett even followed our team around as we came from Buffalo and gave us some tips on how to complete a few of their obstacles.

The Newby’s are some of the nicest people and RD’s you will find in OCR. I can recommend this event and all their events for that matter. I personally cannot wait to go back in May and try my luck at the Mud Gauntlet event. I hear they’re working on building a pavilion with a more centralized festival area and might have a couple other things up their sleeves.

As far as Zombie run OCR’s go, with the obstacles and terrain at this event, I have to give this a 5 out of 5 stars. Zombie runs are harder and harder to find nowadays in OCR as it really is a niche area in OCR.  It’s not an actual race, more of a fun run/event. You get to try your hands at some of their signature obstacles, without any pressure of racing for time or completion and just enjoy yourself out there.

Article Written by: Eric Wisniewski (Hair)