OCD FOR OCR

This race was the focus of my training for the past six weeks as I had made the goal to podium in my age group so I was revved up and ready to go as the countdown finally ended for race day. I knew that Garfield Griffiths was designing the course so I was really excited to see what fresh misery would await us. What I did not anticipate, was Mother Nature tossing in some misery of her own with a starting time temperature of 34 degrees!

• Registration and Festival

Parking went smooth as did packet pick up. The festival area had multiple food vendors and local business booths as usual. Fit Bar Strong upped their festival game and had their new line of Fit Bar Free standing pull and monkey bars to play on. The most popular vendor of the day was defiantly the coffee truck as spectators and racers tried to stay warm and warm back up!

• Pre-race MC: 

The MC was Marc Montano and I personally think he did a great job. Short and sweet send off. No long drawn out monologue with lists of sponsors and plugs to spend money in the merchandise tent. For as cold as it was, it was beneficial to get in the corral and be sent off in a timely fashion.

• The Course: 

When the course map was released, I knew I was going to need a fast take off from the gate. The first obstacles were hay bales and a wall so no rig or chance for burpees to separate the pack. The moment I was dreading the most due to the frigid temperatures was soon upon me and we were sent into the lake waist deep-water for an extended water crossing. You thought you hit land in the middle only to find out it was a mud bog that had you sinking as you trudged through. The current in the water also added to the toll on the legs.

The course was a mix of open grass runs and muddy trails which kept my feet a lovely shade of numb. At one point, I attempted passing a person, thinking I was stepping into a “puddle” only to find myself chest deep in muddy water. I guess Mother Nature and Garfield’s misery just wasn’t enough for me. Due to the mud, the obstacles were slick at times creating some havoc on obstacles like Bender and the walls and I noticed due to slick clothing from the mud there were struggles at the box.

I felt there was a nice mix of strength with the bucket carry, atlas stone and heavy bags and technical obstacles, like the monkey bars, bender, and rings to bar. The AROO message spelled out in GPS from the bucket carry was a nice touch. The barbed wire crawl was a lovely uphill climb and the dunk wall placement at the end of the course was a brutal wet finish. The length of the course was slightly less than 7-miles.

Volunteers on the course were encouraging and appeared to be enforcing burpees and correct obstacle completion, which was appreciated.

• The Bling: 

The bling consisted of typical Spartan medal with the beast slice of the pie attached along with the Spartan finisher t-shirt which was cotton rather than the Dri-fit material from previous races. I did notice a difference on the back of the medal as it had trifecta qualifier across the top, and a scorpion outline in the middle. Age group winners were provided with a large gold, silver, or bronze updated Spartan medal.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating: 

I really enjoyed the layout of the race and obstacle placement. Spartan did a Super job on this build.

Rating: 4.5 out of stars.

Article Written by: Joy Moody