OCD FOR OCR

XMAN race has always been one of my favorite OCR race series (worldwide) and I was super excited to run the first race of its three-race trifecta season!

• Registration and Festival:

XMAN has always offered pre-race packet pick up (the night before) which helps lower the numbers checking in race morning. They assign many staff/volunteers to registration, so that also helped keep the registration lines moving fast early in the morning, even when a larger group of racers were checking in/registering.

The ski mountain venue used for this race is not a very large venue, so that hinders how they set up the festival area, but they have used this venue for several years, so for the most part, they set the festival area and registration the same way every year and it’s a little tight but works well.

• Pre-race MC:

This section of Canada is a predominantly Canadian speaking, so the MC and DJ only speak French throughout the day and pre-race motivational speeches. I was unable to understand a word the MC said, but I still could feel and see the high energy she had and that it was motivating and firing up both racers and spectators!

• The Course:

The course started out in the festival area and immediately turned and went up the ski mountain. The course had a pretty-long trail run up the ski mountain, then partially back down before it came to the first obstacle. This course included many of the obstacles I have come to expect at XMAN races, including low walls to climb/hop over, XMAN’s version of the slip (slanted) wall to climb up (with assistance of a rope) and back down a slanted ladder wall on the other side. The course spent most of the race going up and down the main ski mountain. It included a nice and easy tires obstacle to happy feet through tires (tires were laying on the ground). Typically, XMAN courses have two barbed-wire crawls, but this course only had one and it wasn’t a tough one at all.

The course looped through the wooded trails and included a cargo net climb obstacle. One of the crawl obstacles was a crawl under a large tarp and trough carved out tunnels. The course had several balance obstacles, including a balance beam crossing with hanging large, heavy air-filled balloons to avoid as they would knock racers off the beams and second obstacle that was a balance beam crossing that had several zig and zag sections. The course also had a fun see-saw black plastic drainage pipe obstacle to climb up until gravity (and racers body weight) took over and brought the pipe back down which made the second half of the crawl easier to complete!

The course had several carry obstacles, including a sandbag carry, that went under a net and wasn’t fun because I didn’t take my hydration backpack off and it got tangled in the darn net! Another carry was a not very heavy white plastic water jug carry. As always, the XMAN course included a rope climb, several high wall climbs, a version of the over, under, and troughs obstacle, a paintball gun shooting challenge (this has become a signature obstacle of XMAN races), a version of the Irish table obstacle with various heights to attempt, the always challenging inverted wall, which the version that is used at XMAN races is always harder and more difficult than the one I have done at American Spartan races!

Other challenging obstacles were a series of hanging spinning wheels (like steering wheels) to monkey across, an obstacle that had a series of high hanging ropes that close to the ground had small wooden boards attached to Tarzan across and a very cool Rig that included some of Force 5’s latest rig attachments to monkey across. As always, what makes X-Man one of the best and one of my favorite obstacle race course series in North America is they don’t go insane with the distance and keep it around five miles in distance while always using the venues terrain to its fullest potential, while including a boatload of both fun and challenging obstacles. The only complaint I have, is in past years, this venue included a fun and safe zip line obstacle over a small pond, but this year X-Man didn’t have it and used a series of large floating plastic platforms daisy chained together that racers had to run or crawl across without falling into the water. I really enjoyed the old zip line and was sad when I saw it had been replaced.

The course included some technical terrain sections trough river beds (with cold running water) and eventually, one last time made its way back to the festival area where the last few obstacles included a challenging warped wall and a large rig type obstacle that included a fun and challenging climb up, across, and back down a massive cargo net.

• The Bling:

XMAN has always provided some of the best bling in the sport and this year is no different, the finisher medal is a nice size and a sexy medal. The finisher shirt is a dry-fit type shirt that like the medal is a unique color for this specific venue/race. They also provide headbands and car bumper stickers. Lastly, if racers complete all three XMAN races in 2018, they will get an awesome fourth trifecta finisher medal!

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I am nowhere near in the physical shape I was previous years, so going up and down the venues ski mountain and trying to complete all the obstacles wasn’t that much fun and a very humbling and depressing experience, but I still enjoyed the course and even with a langue barrier, all the staff and volunteers were awesome and friendly. I am still disappointed they removed the zip line as it was one of my favorite fun obstacles on any course I have done to date, but that pretty much was my only complaint.

The bling rocked, the volunteer/staff kicked ass, the course and obstacles were fun, challenging, and safe, and even though I couldn’t understand them, the pre-race MC clearly fired up French-speaking racers and spectators, so I am rating this race 5 out of 5 stars.

Article Written by: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)