OCD FOR OCR

This was my third straight year participating in the New York City – City Challenge Obstacle Race that takes place on and around Randall’s Island Park and both starts and finishes in the historic Icahn Stadium. I was raised on the upper East side of Manhattan and the walking bridge to Randall’s Island was only a short walk for my friends and myself, so we spent many days walking over the bridge and getting in trouble on Randall’s Island, so this venue and race always brings back good childhood memories.

• Registration and Festival:

I was racing the first wave of the day, so I arrived early and at least when I registered, it was fast and easy. They did place the registration way in the back of Icahn Stadium so I did have to ask someone where it was located, but that wasn’t a problem at all.

The race/event starts and ends in Icahn Stadium, so setting up the festival area has different challenges and complications than you typically see at an open area venue, but City Challenge has been able to set up a nice Festival area all three years.

• The Course:

For the third straight year, the course started out on the sprinters track in Icahn Stadium and took the initial left turn and continued on the track for the straightaway and then immediately exited the running track and turned onto a blacktop walking path. Once on the blacktop, the first obstacle came quickly and it was two Police Barricades to hurdle over. Just past the hurdles came the next obstacle, the CKO Bags, which is a staple obstacle for City Challenge Races and consists of a bunch of heavy bag punching bags that racers have to ram through. a short distance ahead came another Police Barricades to hurdle over.

The course was now under some tree cover, which was really nice, because it was already over 95 degrees Fahrenheit and only a little past 9am in the morning. The next obstacle was a 6’ ladder wall climb, and after a brief sprint came an 8’ ladder wall climb. The course made a U-Turn and headed back the other direction and we now had the East River just to the right of us. The next obstacle was only a short sprint ahead, was a Cinderblock carry for a decent distance loop that went both up and down in elevation. I didn’t do a good job of pre-hydrating my body and also only had about 3 hours sleep, so at this point, I was suffering pretty bad and cramping way more than I typically do.

The course continued on for a short sprint and no longer had any tree coverage and protection from the scorching sun and up next was an 8’ ladder wall climb. Not that far ahead was a challenging rope climb and then a short distance after that came the Berlin Wall obstacle that offered a section both with and without a rope for assistance. Keeping with the theme, of having short trail runs with obstacles (I am always a big fan of courses that do this), only a short distance ahead was the City Challenge signature obstacle consisting of both a Police car and Taxi Cab to hurdle/slide over. This one is always fun because who doesn’t want to jump on either a Police car or Taxi Cab and not get in trouble for it!

At this point, the course continued and the next obstacle was a sandbag carry that looped a short distance and then racers crossed over a small walker’s bridge over water and all I kept thinking was I wanted to jump off the small bridge an into the water/river, but that wasn’t allowed so I couldn’t. The course continued on another walking path and had several more ladder wall climbs and two inverted ladder wall climb obstacles and then made eventually making its way back towards Icahn Stadium. Other obstacles included two Cargo Net climbs, a Bear Crawl, Monkey Bars, and a Water Jug Carry and then it came time to re-enter Icahn Stadium and snaked from the bottom to the top of the stair cases in the stadium, finally coming to a Heavy Rope Jump and then just one more series of stairs to go both down and back up and came to the finish line!

• The Bling:

The bling included one of the best finisher medals in the sport of OCR and I don’t just say that because I have helped design the City Challenge Medals the last two years, but because they created the medal with multiple colors and an awesome Muhammad Ali quote on the back. The black City Challenge finisher shirt is a dri-fit type material shirt and really nice and one I look forward to wearing often.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

As I mentioned above, Randall’s Island has a special place in my heart and I always look forward to participating at the NYC City Challenge races, I also love that I see a melting pot/true diversity of nationalities at the City Challenge races and being someone that grew up in Manhattan, I just love to see that, and appreciate how City Challenge attracts racers I don’t typically see at other local obstacle course races.

As pointed out above, this was my third year in a row running the City Challenge race and I really do enjoy it, readers need to understand City Challenge Obstacle Race is a mud and water obstacles free designed course, so that does limit some of the obstacles they can and will use, but at this point the course has to many ladder wall climbs and I hope to sit down and talk with City Challenge owner Elvi Guzman and help him design a few new obstacles/challenges for his future races.

Based on the venue, the amazing bling, the staff & volunteers, and the course design, I am rating the event a 4.6 out of 5 stars. If I can get Elvi to add some new obstacles for future events, that rating could easily go up! I look forward to my next City Challenge Race in Hoboken, NJ on October 1, 2016 and hope to see some of you come and participate!

Article Written By: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)