OCD FOR OCR

The weekend leading up to Halloween is often a time for costume parties, pumpkin carving and drinks with friends. I engaged in all of those, but also enjoyed a doubleheader of late Fall OCR at Mountain Creek Resort in Northern New Jersey. Unlike past years, where only a Super was offered over one or two days, Spartan put on the Super distance as per their tradition on Saturday but introduced a Sprint Course for the first time at this popular venue, likely as a way to make up for less available race days at other nearby Sprint venues like Tuxedo but also to offer the shortest distance to new runners who might not be feeling the longer course just yet. A Nor’Easter roared up the coast Saturday morning, making for probably my coldest and wettest race experience in my eight years in the sport. By Sunday, when I returned to run the Sprint the storm was long gone, the sun started to come out and air temperatures were much more favorable, but the ground and the obstacles were just as wet and sloppy as they had been the day before.

• Registration and Festival:

I was treated to VIP Parking, so I was able to park right across the street from festival. Registration on Saturday seemed to be my longest wait at a Spartan event this year, but that could be due to how cold I was due to the pouring rain playing tricks on me, I only had two or three people in front of me for registration including Lorraine who came to the race with me. Sunday was a virtual walk-up with lower overall athlete turnout for the Sprint and significantly better weather.

On Saturday, I completely skipped the festival. It was pouring, I was shivering despite a metallic blanket that was thoughtfully provided at the finish line and Lorraine wanted to get out of the cold as soon as she could too. Saving my free beer tab for Sunday was rewarded with a choice of Blue Moon, Shock Top and Coors Light. Rejecting Coors Light was the easy part come Sunday and since I had two beer tabs, I didn’t have to make a tougher decision than which of the other two I wanted first. Merchandise area was the larger semi-enclosed version with a wide awning that gave it a mobile gift shop feel and no doubt was appreciated by prospective customers on Saturday.

• Pre-race MC:

My biggest gripe with pre-race emcees at Spartan Races as of late is that they are too constrained by the script and if you are a regular runner it just gets old and possibly annoying (this is an opinion shared by the editor as well). I didn’t feel that this time, even with running back to back races. The emcee working this weekend really managed to keep it fresh without going too far off the rails from what he is expected to do by the management. Great energy both days, not overly wordy but he gave you some good feelings and got my mind off the suck of getting started in the deluge that was Saturday morning.

• The Course:

Saturdays Super Course clocked in at just over 8-miles and was the same course pattern I have run there each fall in recent years. Including all the standard obstacles you see at most Spartan Super’s, except no appearance by the Twister. On a good day I can get over Twister but that’s been a big “if” much of this year and with the low temps and slippery conditions, I have a feeling it would’ve been a bigger burpee-maker than ever. In fact, I think this was my record for the most failed obstacles in one Super, but it was hard for me to feel defeated when I saw athletes who I consider to be equally or more skilled than myself joining me in the burpee pit, a common occurrence that day especially in the final quarter mile which was stacked with Spear-Throw, Multi-Rig, Olympus, Herculean Hoist and the Rope Climb, all in more or less the traditional home of the Bucket Carry, which was moved to the earliest part of the course I recall it ever holding court in.

The good news was that the Bucket Carry was not in the final part of the race, so I did not have to dread it through most of my run. The bad news was that since the buckets are now sealed, the door is now open to new terrain possibilities. Competitive and elite athletes were “treated” to the steepest, most technical bucket carry loop I have encountered yet. Couple that with a slick, muddy trail (due to the rain) and you had a fine line between brilliance, horror and all out mayhem. Once I came out of it unscathed, I felt like I could do anything that race could throw at me. Even failing a lot of obstacles and doing all the burpees was like recess compared to the suck of going up and down that greasy slope with the bucket, dodging wayward buckets and even taking an accidental back kick to the forehead when another competitor near me lost his footing. As sadistic and fun as it was, I did think to myself that this would be an even worse idea later in the day for the open heats as the rain continued and more participants came on course and the trails got even more ripped up. This could certainly result in many severe injuries as people lose footing and even lose control of their buckets. Spartan wisely agreed with my analysis as I later learned that most of the open heats did a rerouted bucket carry over flatter wooded terrain. The Sprint featured this scaled back bucket carry and while it was not anything like its original, the slop and the fallen logs on course did make for a decent challenge nonetheless.

For the Sprint we were given the same course as the Super up to the modified bucket carry. After the carry, you took a shortcut that cut out about 4 miles of mostly trail running but only eliminated about 6 of the 28 obstacles, such as the second barbed wire crawl (the harder one of the two), the Z Walls, the Armer (a carry obstacle introduced this year that reminds me of Chain Chomp from Super Mario Bros 3) and the 8-foot wall.

• The Bling:

It’s been a long season for me, having run 23 races since March with three more slated before I hang up my Salomon’s for the year. So, I don’t have much to say here that I haven’t already said about the medals, especially for the Mountain Series. It is the standard medal. I will say overall, I particularly like how Spartan medals are not overly blingy compared to finisher medals from other OCR series or even some half marathons and ten-mile road races. I like understatement and elegance, but I understand what I consider “tacky” might be “neat-o” to the next person.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I have a real soft spot for this course because it and the nearby Tuxedo Sprint, were my first two Spartan Races. These are the ones I always come back to and gauge not only my own progress as an athlete but to look at how the brand and the sport has evolved since my early days. The course has become more technical and somewhat more difficult to get a fast time over the past three years versus earlier incarnations. Still, I wish they would move or reverse the start and finish from one year to the next like they once did. I am beginning to feel like maybe I know it too well at this point.

I give it 4.5 stars. Despite the weather, which was obviously beyond Spartan’s control, I truly enjoyed myself and it was well operated and organized. Spartan also stepped up to accommodate athletes and fans in the cold and wet. I withheld a perfect score largely because of the derivative nature of the course vs. the past few years.

Article Written by: Brian Kellogg, OCR Aficionado