OCD FOR OCR

Seven weeks post knee surgery and not being in the typical physical shape I normally am in (was unable to train/workout since early January due to injuries from a car accident), I considered not attempting the Ultra Beast and doing the Beast, but I decided to try because my buddy Raymond was going to do it with me and I hoped I would be able to make good time on the downhill sections of the course.

• Registration and Festival:

Raymond and I arrived early on Friday to pick up our race packets and we had to wait about fifteen minutes for registration to start. Once registration started it moved fast.

The festival area was pretty much the same setup as previous years at the same venue, as they are limited on how they can set it up.

• Pre-race MC:

The pre-race MC really wasn’t anything special and I was just happy when he was done and released our wave. Spartan has it’s MC’s sticking to a script and for me at least, I have heard it almost two hundred times and it’s just boring.

• The Course:

The course started with a climb up the ski mountain and the first obstacle, Hay Wall wasn’t that far up. The course continued on & upward and just prior to mile # 1, came to Overwalls. We continued to go up for another half of a mile and up next was Stairway, which was nice to get out-of-the-way early on into the course. After more trails and more than two miles into the course the next few obstacles close to each other were Invert, Atlas, and Tyro. The course continued and not far after passing mile # 3, it was time for Bender, which was nice and dry early on into the day.

At this point, the course had its longest section of trails without an obstacle andcontinued for at least a mile and a half. Finally, we came to the next obstacle, Olympus! The course continued for about a half of mile more and now five miles completed, and came to Six-foot walls. The course continued going down and came to what felt like one long obstacle, but was Rolling Mud, Dunk Wall, and last, but not least, the Slip Wall! The course turned and headed back up the mountain and it wasn’t long before we came to the Barbed Wire crawl, and just up ahead, the obstacle, The Armer, which was a small concrete medicine ball with a chain and handle attached to it to carry a for a short loop!

The course continued and after completing six miles total, up next was A Frame and just after that came the always fun Z-Walls, which were not that muddy, so it wasn’t as difficult as it could have been. Just a short trail sprint ahead, came Twister! The trails continued for a bit and it was time for the Monkey Bars. After another sections of trails, the course came to the Bucket Brigade! This was my first time doing this obstacle with the buckets sealed and my first observation, was the bucket was lighter. My second observation was, I no longer can fill the bucket to the very top and know I killed this obstacle, which with the current state of my right knee was a good thing (lol)!

At this point, the course continued a short distance further and turned to the Ultra Beast loop! After the first few minutes of the loop, I remember thinking, this isn’t that bad, and I should be able to maintain a good pace. We completed the nice and easy Low Crawl obstacle and almost immediately after, saw Spartan Course Manager Woody Peters, who asked, what I thought so far of the Ultra Beast loop. My response was, not bad so far! Well that changed fast, because the course turned and headed down a very technical section that seemed would never end, and my knee went from a level five pain to a level ten plus pain in less than a mile. I foolishly opted to try to deal with the pain by taking more than one prescription pain-killer and by the time we made our way to the bottom of the loop and completed the Spartan Sled and started back up the mountain. My head was spinning, my heart was pounding, and most of going back up the mountain was a blur and I only remember being in a great deal of pain and completely dizzy!

Somehow, we finally completed the Ultra Beast loop, including the eight-foot wall and I was struggling on so many levels, I kept insisting that Raymond leave me, as he could still make it to the cut off in time and complete the Ultra Beast and earn his belt buckle, but Raymond refused to leave, and we continued for about another mile and half passing the memory sign and completing Hurdles and Spearman. We came to the Sandbag Carry, and I was feeling worse than I can ever remember in any of my previous 199 prior OCR’s, so Raymond insisted we sit down and I rest for a moment. While sitting, Spartan’s medical staff showed up (to help someone who injured an ankle) and we asked them to check my pulse. The medic tried and advised, my pulse was beating way too fast for him to keep up and count it. He suggested I go back with them and if my memory serves me right, someone pointed out, I wasn’t going to make the cut off for the Ultra Beast, so it made no sense to continue.

It took a little convincing, but I convinced the medic, that I would wait at least forty-five minutes before continuing the course (to allow my heartbeat to calm down). We waited and when I felt like I could continue, I said to Raymond, let’s go, but Raymond refused and made me wait an additional fifteen minutes. At that point, we continued, and started back up the mountain, even though my chest wasn’t pounding, and I wasn’t near as dizzy, I still was struggling and in the last few miles of the course, I vomited at least five times! We slowly made our way up the mountain completing the Seven-foot Wall, Vert Cargo Net, and the Plate Drag. The course then turned and headed back down the mountain, which normally I would look forward to, but my knee currently doesn’t’ like going down at all. After about a mile down, and completing over sixteen miles, we came to the memory test!

At this point, the course made its way back towards the festival area, and up next was the Herc Hoist, which as always, I killed (can’t say that about much during this race). After a very short downhill sprint, we entered the festival area and the Multi Rig and Rope Climb were back to back! The course turned back up for only a few thousand feet and turned back to the Fire Jump and the Finish!

If we had made the cut off for the Ultra Beast, we would have skipped the turn to the Fire Jump and entered the Ultra Beast staging area and repeated everything, but the Ultra Beast loop. The Beast version of the course was everything but the three and half miles Ultra Beast loop that included three obstacles: Low Crawl, Spartan Sled, and eight-foot wall.

• The Bling:

The Ultra Beast Bling was a newly designed belt buckle that now includes some purple and it’s just gorgeous and very cool black dry-fit type finisher shirt. The Beast bling was the 2018 designed finisher medal and shirt, but I was confused, because I was under the impression, Tri-State NJ was part of the mountain series and provided a unique to that series finisher medal.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I have and never will be a very fast racer and as I get older and now am recovering from multiple injuries (from a car accident), I am slower than ever, so races with time cut offs are not something I am going to do very good at. I can handle pain and any unexpected struggles presented to me during a race and minus a catastrophic injury will always find a way to complete any race, but the time cut offs change that for me. This was a hard race on me both mentally and physically and hate that a I failed and let down my friend Raymond, so I am still struggling with my performance.

The course was one of the best Spartan has done in a while (I once referred to a Beast at the same venue as the “Beast with no bite”) and the Ultra Beast loop was no joke and game changer for a lot of racers, so I am rating this race/course 5 out of 5 stars!

At one point, this race became very scary for me and I have no one to blame but myself for taking too many pain killers. It’s something I know better than doing and I won’t make that mistake again in the future.

Article Written by: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)