OCD FOR OCR

For the second year in a row, I was not only fortunate enough to qualify for my Age Group for the North American Obstacle Course Racing Championships, held at Vermont’s Stratton Mountain Resort, but to make the trip and participate in all three days of this amazing OCR extravaganza. Like previous events, put on by its parent company, Adventurey, LLC, this year’s NorAm’s really pushed and challenged my abilities as well as provided me a fun weekend with so many good friends, I have in the sport. 

NorAm’s consisted of four different races over three days.

Friday, featured a short course that is only 3 km (1.8 miles), but still provided a chock full of the upper body, grip-intensive obstacles you will find in the industry, rivaled only by the likes of Indian Mud Run (more about that shortly).

Saturday, was dedicated to the big event, a 15 km course where the first 3-miles climbed to the summit of the mountain, providing more challenging terrain, and all the obstacles from Friday, plus about 20 more that for the most part taxed athletic abilities beyond what you see in most races out there.

Sunday morning’s event started with a 3-person relay, with each individual athlete assigned to a section of the course that plays to an athlete’s specific forte (speed or running ability, technical ability or proficiency on the obstacles, and lastly strength)

Capping off the weekend’s festivities, was the 7k charity race open to all who wish to test their mettle on the course or just have one more chance to play on the obstacles in a lower stake, lower pressure atmosphere.  The charity race’s proceeds went to the Stratton Foundation.

• Registration and Festival:

Registration was indoors and was open on an ongoing basis to accommodate athletes arriving at all different times. I arrived Thursday night, around 8 PM and found that many people had the same idea as me to get in early (before checking into my on-site hotel) so the lines were probably as long as they would be all weekend. No worries about the length of time to get through the line as it was not race day yet and I was getting registration taken care of for three races at once. While in line I encountered two of my closest racing friends who had traveled up from NYC that afternoon, so catching up with them broke up the wait. All told, they seemed to handle the crowds with good efficiency.

There was not what I would call a traditional “festival area” for this event, owing understandably to two factors. Firstly, it is a championship event and caters almost exclusively to competitive OCR athletes and those who already participate passionately in the sport regularly. This is probably not the race you will invite your coworker or friend for their first-time racing. Apart from the charity 7k, racers require qualification. Even the Journeyman/Journey-woman divisions required a small resume of races completed throughout the season.  Secondly, the event was held at a major ski resort with several shops and restaurants on site with fine dining and bar service readily available.  It really adds to the atmosphere of being an “athlete village” for an event of this caliber and is actually one of the “little” things, I look forward to whenever I compete in a NorAm or a World Championship.

• Pre-race MC:

Like last year, we were treated to the emcee styling’s of Justin T. Manning. He always does his own thing and has his own style. He’s a great guy, works the crowd well and helps us stay motivated and take the bite off the pre-race jitters. 

He also introduced the head official who gave us the nuts and bolts on race rules and any last-minute pointers on course conditions from a safety standpoint. I easily rank Justin Manning as one of my top 3 emcees of all time and it’s always a treat to see him working any event I participate in.

• The Course:

As I alluded to above, the course was super upper body and grip strength heavy. Even the 15k, with somewhat tougher elevation and terrain coupled with some more carries and traditional obstacles was a very upper body-grip intensive course. I counted no less than 5 multi-rig type obstacles on this course and the upper body intensive did not stop there. We were also treated to Valkerie, which was basically a rig of all rings terraced much like Stairway to Heaven, which also made its perennial appearance. You basically had to do a series of unstable pull-ups to get across Valkerie.

Valkerie was no joke, but the talk of the town was Gibbons. I was very fortunate that I experienced Gibbons at Indian Mud Run (which I believe was the obstacle’s world premiere). I had lost my band before getting to it, so I admit I did not give it that much effort, but it tests your upper body strength and hand-eye coordination like nothing else. You must monkey hang on one dowel (placed in a holder) while transitioning and placing the other dowel in the next holder, repeating this process several times. By the second day, people had figured out a new technique (the chicken wing) for this obstacle so success rates were higher, but it was still a band cutter extraordinaire. 

You may have qualified like I did, based on a very different type of event favoring a different type of athlete (I qualified at a Spartan Stadium), but I cannot stress how important working grip strength is, if you want to do well here or even simply experience the best  of what the obstacles have to offer.  Also, get yourself to an OCR or Ninja type gym if you can. Merely going for runs and doing a lot of CrossFit will not save your ass!!!  Better yet, schedule some grip intensive races before you come to NorAm. 

Savage Race is a excellent one for that. Indian Mud Run, with its 70+ obstacles crammed into 10 km, is an even better choice! After the 15k, I was able to meet up with Indian Mud Run creator Hubie Cushman (a phenomenal athlete in his own right, sweeping his age group both days, here at NorAm) and tell him how my attendance at his race was not only a ton of fun, but how it really prepared me for what I would face at NorAm. 

Apart from the toll the obstacles take on your grip, the terrain was overall not too bad. The trails didn’t get all that technical and once you were past the first three miles the elevation was there, but nothing to crush a well-conditioned racer. If I were in charge, I might bring the number of high grip strength obstacles down by about 25 to 30 percent and try to find at least one segment of the 15k where the running is technical and really keeps runners on their toes. 

Carry obstacles were not overly difficult as compared to what I encounter in Spartan and even to some degree BoneFrog. Again, to make it the perfect course, in my mind, I would add weight or difficult terrain to at least one of the existing carries, but I also think this could be as much a personal preference as anything. Another consideration is that the events at NorAm are all band system races.  If you can get through all the obstacles and keep your band, you will beat all who lose it even if they outran you by a lot. The downside is that if you fail to complete even one obstacle, you could lose your incentive to try to succeed on subsequent ones. This is why, if I were in charge, I would implement a system where your ranking would be based on the number of obstacles you did not complete, much like is the practice at Indian Mud Run. For example, the top finishers would be all those who had a 100 percent obstacle completion. Next would be those with only one miss. Then after them, all those with two misses and do forth, with the course time being the secondary determination of what place you finish in.

• The Bling:

I love these finisher medals! They kind of remind me of the design of some recent Olympic medals. A modern design, but artful and not tacky and they’re big, but not stupid big (that’s what she said, lol). Another thing I noticed, was when Lorraine and I had our picture taken with 3k Women’s’ Pro winner Lindsay Webster our finisher medals weren’t that much different in size from her well-earned gold medal. NOTE: Lindsay Webster would go on to grab a silver in the 15k event as well as being part of the winning team in the Women’s Pro Relay.

The shirts are all right, tastefully designed, but I’m not sure I’m all about the newer all synthetic materials most race series are using for shirts lately.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

Again, this was a tough race for me that didn’t exactly play to my strengths. I feel privileged to be able to be there and to give it my all, nonetheless. The obstacles were fun, even if outside my comfort zone at times, officiating seemed to be done thoroughly and well. Everything seemed to move like a well-oiled machine and we were given the very experience we were promised. (except for the weather forecast, which looked beautiful and was for most of the weekend, but a freak rainstorm just had to blow through unannounced as I negotiated Northman Race’s La Gaffe Du Draveur, (just like last year and at Worlds, two years ago)

I can’t downgrade a race based on the unfortunate timing of weather, so I stand with a solid 5 out of 5 stars for NorAm!

Article Written by: Brian Kellogg, OCR Aficionado