I just got home from Unleashed Obstacle Fitness & Functional Training Center. I am sweaty, dirty and even bloody. My EVERYTHING hurts; in a good way. The plan was to drive two hours from central Connecticut to Unleashed in Rhode Island and spend a couple hours improving my obstacle skills. The reality is that I am now an Unleashed fanatic after spending nearly 8 hours there today.
The OCR World Championships (OCRWC), obstacle course racing's first independent championship, furthered its reach into international territory with today’s announcement of new qualifying events and digital media partners. This marks another important moment in what is anticipated to be the most collaborative event in the sport’s history.
May 2, 2014, Phoenix, AZ - Competitors will clash this Friday night in a head-to-head challenge on the grounds of Wild Horse Pass Casino in Phoenix, AZ on a specially designed 1 mile obstacle course - complete with walls, mud, barbed wire, cargo nets, and even fire - competing for cash, prizes, & fame. Each battle will be captured live by over 30 high definition cameras on the course, and even by a custom drone in the air above the racers to provide a birds-eye view of all the action. Only the strongest and fastest male and female will crush their foes to be crowned OCR Warrior.
The IORF has been launched by Spartan Race in consultation with a number of industry leaders to address these concerns, establishing unified rules of competition, safety protocols and admission processes for member organizations meeting the IORF’s standards of excellence. In addition to enhancing safety and quality control standards across the obstacle racing industry, the IORF intends to focus on member benefits both at races and beyond, including establishing an international ranking system. Upon achieving certain operational milestones and 501(c)(3) (non-profit) status, which it is currently working towards, the IORF will operate independently. The Federation’s website is currently soliciting interest from prospective judges, officials, athletes and others within the space and will more fully launch later in the year.
In an earlier article, Mud Run Guide started the conversation as it pertains to OCR sanctioning & the Olympics, and Margaret Schlachter from Dirt in Your Skirt followed up with a piece about the Future of OCR. Somewhere in between, an ancillary debate started on the safety of events on the whole following Avi Gupta's death at Tough Mudder and the apparent "softening" of that event since then. Inevitably, electric shocks, jumping through fire, high jumps, dark tunnel crawls were discussed which led to stories of zaps that caused faceplants, stumbles that resulted in burns on fire obstacles, stitches from exposed screws, broken bones, near-drownings, and near-misses that make your heart leap. A handful of Mud Run Guide fans virtually got together and shared some stories, here are a few (with most event names redacted).
You're probably asking what the heck this has to do with Obstacle Racing, right? Well, if one of the 3 groups fighting for different forms of sanctioning have their way, there will be at least one branch of OCR (or OR) that will strictly adhere to a rule book with hundreds of pages of guidelines about every bit of minutiae that could possibly affect an athlete's time on the course.
Step inside the mind and habits of Reebok sponsored SPARTAN Athlete Alexander Nicholas as we talk about what it takes to be Warrior in health, fitness, and the rest of your life.
Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), the world leader in helping individuals with physical challenges get involved – and stay involved – in sports, and Spartan Race, Inc., the world’s leading obstacle racing company, announced today that CAF will be the official Charity Partner of the 2014 U.S. Reebok Spartan Race.
For me, the best section of the book was the ‘Turning You Backyard into a Training Center". I am always looking at ways to build or provide ways to get more of an actual race experience at home, and this section of the book gave me a ton of tools to get my training above and beyond what I thought it could be. I will be working on my own wall very shortly with the easy steps provided in this book.
In the ultimate of brand synergies, Reebok (finally) takes some steps to more closely align two of the biggest fitness advocations in the world, in one place, at one time. Of course you know I'm talking about CrossFit and Spartan Race, as I'm sure you read the subtitle above.
