OCD FOR OCR

November in the central Florida area always has amazing weather. Nice and cool low 50’s in the morning and mid 70’s during the day makes the event a favorite. Florida is also the birthplace of Savage Race. I believe it is also their biggest two-day participation event of the year as well.

• Registration and Festival:

Registration has been money since they took our advice in the spring and split up the pro wave registrations for all lanes.

The festival area that Savage sets up at this venue was great! They really use the entire area for things. The Merch tent was right after the registration tents which means you have to walk right through it to enter and to leave. Great concept for increased sales, I’ll admit they got me on Sunday when I saw a Syndicate t-shirt that I had to have! They have plenty of tables set up with umbrellas for participants and spectators. There are also plenty of food options as well. They periodically host festival challenges throughout the day to allow participants to try and win a free entry to a future race that always keeps the crowd into it.

• Pre-race MC:

Savage emcee Matty T. is, well, awesome as always. He always does a wonderful job getting the waves pumped up to run the race.

Jeff, the DJ, always does awesome with the festival area, awards ceremonies, etc. He also did an amazing job singing our countries National Anthem!

• The Course:

Little Everglades Ranch is absolutely beautiful and gives you a great perspective of what Florida can offer for a race venue. From flat, fast, grassy fields, to slow, sludgy, ankle deep muck, to waist deep swamps, the place will definitely keep you wondering, “what’s next”.The Savage full race was 7.1-miles with I don’t know how many obstacles. I guess I should probably look into that when I go into these races. This course was also accompanied with their short race “Savage Blitz” (offered on both Saturday and Sunday) intertwined with the full distance. They did this to offer both distances on Saturday, as they are moving forward in the 2020 season with the majority of the races only being on Saturday, with the exception of the Florida venue (their home base venue). This provides a great option for people to experience, the shorter (faster paced) distance option before going for the full-length race. Blitz is a great for both newcomer(s) and experienced racers.

The race was so fast paced. The obstacles were placed perfectly apart to allow you to really get some good running in between them. Savage has done an awesome job with coming up with new and innovative obstacles each and every year consistently for numerous years now. They had a few of them for this race and had debuted one in Georgia a few weeks prior (Anchors Aweigh) which is an awesome obstacle. They also combined two signature obstacles from the past to make a new challenge, that was a lot of fun, called “Battering Bird”. A combination of “Battering Ram” and “Twirly Bird”. This is one of many aspects of Savage Race that makes them a unique, top notch, race organization in the world of obstacle course racing.Oh, did I mention that they have a partnership with GoRuck and they have special waves for the Ruckers, and a special GoRuck Savage event during the weekend?

• The Bling:

For the people that do races just to get the awesome medal, this is yet another category that points directly at Savage Race. Their medals are always designed great with awesome lanyards to go with them. Their Syndicate medal for doing two of their races in a year is one of the best out there. They also have venue, specific pins to go with the Syndicate medal. For competitive racers, they award an axe medal for fastest three in age group categories. It really is hard to beat Savage Race in this department. The bling really is #SAF

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

Overall thoughts on the Florida fall Savage Race, if you have the opportunity to make it to this race, it absolutely is a no brainer, do it! I give this race 5 out of 5 stars. From the weather, the beautiful venue, the incredible course and obstacles, this event is definitely one to put on your race calendar.

Article Written by: Andy Sneller and Lori Danko.