This year we put it up to you, the OCR Community, to tell us what you loved about 2015. We started with a nomination process where you told us who was deserving in each category. We got thousands of responses in the process, showing how much the industry has continued to grow. Our team at Mud Run Guide, pulled together your nominations then opened the voting.
The OCR Community Spoke
We asked you all to vote, and you answered with over 60,000 submissions over 27 categories from over 5,000 voters. You cast your vote from all corners of the globe and told us what you liked, didn't like and who you found most influential. Some of the categories came down to as few as five votes separating the winner and runner-up, each vote mattered in this poll.
Mud Run Guide Gives Back
In the process of voting you also helped Mud Run Guide contribute over $5,000 to these non-profits; The Malala Fund, American Diabetes Association, For Those Who Would, Global Giving, Operation Enduring Warrior, and the American Red Cross. Learn more about these charities here and why they were picked by the MRG staff.
2015 Best of OCR Winners
Some of the big winners of 2015 were Spartan Race, Amelia Boone, Ryan Atkins, and Matt Novakovich. You voted, and shoes were definitely on your mind when it came to the best new product of 2015. Tough Mudder's King of Swingers was your favorite obstacle out there to conquer. Be sure to check out all the winners on the Mud Run Guide Best of 2015 Results Page.
Thanks to everyone who voted this year, your votes not only tell us who you thought were the best in 2015 but also helped some great causes in the process.
If your favorites did not make the cut this year, be sure to voice your opinion next year when we will be recounting the best of 2016. Thanks for a fantastic 2015 and we look forward to an even better 2016!
The Norm guy isn’t even a Race Director. They just send him into the woods to carve logs with a chainsaw. The award should go to the folks that actually do the work.
Jill,
You are right they all should get awards, but thats not why Norm or any of them do it. Rather than start an 8th grade anonymous internet war, I’ll just leave it at that is what the public voted on. Without guys like Norm who kills himself to deliver the best of what he has, so others can say it took the best of what they had to finish his race is all he wants. Norm is a humble dude, 100% genuine and loves the sport. Yes lets not forget he loves his chainsaws and machetes, but he is scared of snakes.
Mind you a Beast to you is a 14 miles race that takes most half day of hell to accomplish. To Norm and the others (many volunteers) that build these races, it could be 9 days or more of building on mountains in crazy weather, racking up sometimes 80-100 hours before the event even starts. The build is followed by a weekend of managing upwards of 10,000 OCR nuts climbing all over a mountain, the responsibility of trying to keep people safe, toilet paper in the shitters, CPR from time to time, showers running, jump starting cars, repairing obstacles and making sure somebody else’s shitty day doesn’t become yours. When thats all said and done, Norm and countless others clean it all up, sometimes staying on till the following Wednesday picking up a myriad of OCR snake oil widgets and repairing these beautiful places to the condition they were in before the event.
As good or bad as some of these races may wind up, they are all a labor of love, built by a cult of maniacs that respect their peers doing the same thing in other companies. Nobody is getting rich with a chainsaw. Take the time and google around Norm and you might learn a thing or two about a guy that has given more than he has taken often motivating people to find that something they didn’t know they had or needed to finish that race can be life changing for some.
I’m proud to know guys like Norm and others after traveling the world to over 120 of these things. Why don’t you volunteer to work with him at a race near you if you get a chance. Its a pretty fun experience and I’m sure you will have a different perspective.
🙂
I guess I should be more sympathetic. I heard the guy has some learning disabilities and is illiterate, so they let him go play in the woods to make him feel like part of the team. That’s nice they do that for him.
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