BattleFrog Series obstacle races, mud run, and OCR information, distance, cost, dates, calendar, discounts, obstacles, reviews, and more

I volunteered and worked wedge wall. When masters class was released with elite racers they were coming through WAY early. I figured something went askew. Third place male, (I thought) accidentally cut off part of the loop near my wall. My fellow volunteers could not confirm that. In addition the results were completely skewed gender wise. My son Chazz Poutre ran volunteer 17 yrs. old under a female 39 Amy Crawford. I am 51 and ran under a male John Courtany 46. You by now know this happened, which is why people arn't claiming. Solution is to radio in 1-3rd. elite "male/female crossing "wedge wall" and continue that process at each obs.. I will be posting on my social media sites. Because this just got passed by and not even acknoeledged to "us".
Mud Titan messed up the week before. We still don't have results. We have no apology either. We are just referred to chronotrac. I am onChronotrac for Spartan races, so I know posts were not made. . I bought 2 hoodies, 2 sleeves,3 dog tags, and bumper stickers. Paid for gas slept out Friday night, to volunteer Saturday. Volunteers ran with no "person" at most stations. There is NO integrity in this. I wotked overwall at Spartan and had to call in a medical priority. He did not make it. However we were on top of the whole thing throughout. Volunteering is no joke. As far as racing volunteers usually work with more variables than elite and competitive runners experience wise at small races..Every racer deserves to have their obstacles manned. . Competitive points add up wrong for better or worse and none of this is addressed out if your corporate setting. (as far as I can see). Warriors fall when honesty is not relayed.

BattleFrog SF, My First OCR Experience

Last weekend I had my first OCR experience at BattleFrog SF, talked into it by my trainer (for perspective I am over 40, female, have been weight/interval training for a little over a year, rock climb regularly in the gym, and don't run at all). Although the week leading up to the race was rainy, Saturday dawned bright and clear, perfect weather. We had a pretty big group with matching team shirts, so that was fun. Start was a bit inauspicious as the power failed just at sendoff, so Coach Payne lost his amplification and the start arch deflated ... oh well, we just went around with a chuckle about one extra obstacle.

As for the course, for me the biggest obstacle was the terrain; they sent us up and down some insanely steep hills! Luckily my shoes did not slip, but it did make me a bit nervous as I've had one broken ankle and no desire to have another. The course itself was muddy due to recent rains, but there really wasn't too much in the way of deep mud/water obstacles. I found the obstacles for the most part doable, although I struggled to gain the top of the 8ft wall and ramp wall. The Weaver was a bruiser, everyone complained about that one! The only thing I did not complete was the rig; gave it one try and slipped off the first monkey bar section, decided I was too tired and had been out too long by that point to linger for multiple tries.

The best parts of the experience were the beautiful location/views and the great people; I lost my team early on but ended up chatting with and sometimes helping out a lot of random strangers at various points along with way. A few things to improve: need more water stations along the course, and those little stickers with what looked like a QR code did not stay on (I lost mine early and the trail was littered with them, I hope this was not critical to getting photos). Did not spend much time in the festival area because I spent over 4 hours on the course (the distance had to have been longer than 8K).

So overall a fun day, obstacles not too hard if you have decent upper body/grip strength and a head for heights, terrain was killer. Would I do it again? If it came back to the area, most likely, although maybe not if I had a chance to go skiing or rock climbing that weekend instead. :)

DISCOUNT CODE: BFW0683

Battlefrog Discount Code: BFW0683

20$ off! This code may be used multiple times and does not expire.
This was absolutely my favorite race series and I by far enjoyed that more than Spartan Race. This race is more technical and challenging resulting in a better reward for each racer. The videos and pictures you will receive afterwards are amazing! Thank you battlefrog!

OCR Spartan Race battlefrog race series mud run 5k 16k 10k fun

BattleFrog SD

As the sun rose over the southern California Mountains on a chilly January morning, the excitement for the first ever west coast Battle Frog event was as tingling as the cold wind going up everyone’s shirts. It was clear from the get go that Ryan Atkins’ first event as RD was going to be a difficult one. Taking the mic at the start of the elite wave the unBFeated champ went over his rules of the course and introduced us to a couple new obstacles.
After Coach Pain got us on our way with his usual fantastic speech, we were off to the roller coaster hills of 212 Land Moto Cross Park. All told the course map showed us 30 obstacles of different varieties including OCR staples such as 4, 6, and 8 foot walls to climb, Over, Under and Through, Hump Overs, etc. The Battle Frog staple obstacles were all to be found along our route as well. 2 rigs awaited us of varying difficulty, both 40 feet long. The first was about 1.5 miles in and was the easier of the two featured two foot rings for arm rest. The other was about a half mile from the finish and was the harder of the two by far featuring a couple ropes, rings, u-bar, nun chucks and monkey bar transitions.
The two carry obstacles we faced were fairly standard and not overly difficult save for the up and down terrain under foot. The jerry can and wreck bag carry were both roughly 400 meter loops and the wreck back had your usual 4 foot wall climb.
Ryan’s new take on a balance obstacle was amusing to say the least. 10 feet of taught slack line in which elite racers had to use only one to balance on and get across. This took most racers more than one try to nail down the best strategy, which turned out to be taking 2 giant steps and leaping the last 5 feet across. It was a welcome twist on the all too familiar balance beam at most races.
The most unruly obstacles turned out to be the tunnel slide into the frigid water, followed closely by the weaver, an A frame structure in which racers are required to go over, under, over, etc. without touching the ground. The difficulty here was in the square bars which bruised every back and inner thigh on the thing. The water swim was not difficult, only mind numbing and upon emerging from the tube you were neck deep in the muddy, cold water. 25 yards later after climbing out of the trench you were lucky if you could feel your extremities and every male became worried about the future of their child producing capabilities.
Coming down the home stretch to the finish the BF staple obstacle “Tip of the Spear” awaited racers with a couple added twists to increase difficulty. The middle section of hand holds was now extremely tilted on angle and required much more quickness and efficiency, even with the small step in the middle. The real game changer however was the face of the obstacle was now constructed with PVC board instead of the traditional plywood. This made it nearly impossible to get a grip with your feet and it was all about grip strength and endurance.
A failed attempt at constructing a water slide down the hill to the finish was disappointing, but an early injury to a racer forced it to become a downhill sprint and jump into the chilly water, over the mound and over the finish line.
The overwhelming opinion of safety for this event was a great thing to see and hear. Almost no wood on construction being replaced with steel, and plenty of medical staff around especially in and around the cold water. I would say it was a very successful first design for Ryan and only see it getting better.
The festival area was true BF style and very organized. Registration for both racers and volunteers was a breeze although I’m sure the very small turnout had something to do with that as well. The merchandise tent was restocked with a few new items and plenty of the familiar favorite best sellers as well. You can’t really praise the BF staff enough, always friendly and courteous and excited to be there. A couple fantastic food trucks rounded out a great home base for racers.
If I have any reservations at all its that this event made it blissfully aware that BF is spreading themselves too thin, too quickly. If you catch a glimpse of the infamous Beard that is Chris Accord at a race consider yourselves lucky, as he will likely be off to the next city to be planning a future race by the time your event happens. Small things like not having a lighting setup for the usually fantastic prop portraits racers have come to love, make a huge difference as the photos now simply look like an in race capture.
I will always look forward to my next BF event due to being a fierce competitor and the courses are top notch and the most difficult out there. However I would hate to see BF lose the base of the passionate, fun loving weekend warriors that truly make our sport possible. Until Vegas next month….HOOYAH!

Great ORC

Loved it... I like how there is not too much distance between obstacles; if I'm running and obstacle race that's what I want... a high number of challenging obstacles and that is exactly what Battlefrog gave me.

Finished my 2nd BF race last weekend and was once again very happy with the event. The obstacles are challenging and the terrain is very unforgiving. We went with a team of 7 and every member had fun and found the event rewarding. The Navy SEAL inspired course was no joke and will test your mental and physical abilities. Train hard and do this event!!!

Bag check was the worst! The people working it were rude and unprofessional. It took longer than necessary. Get it together!

Thrown together

I agree with DJ k. Seemed very thrown together compared to 2014. Had same issue with bag check and even timing. Still a very challenging course but mainly because of the terrain, obstacles were not as difficult as I expected..no half pipe wall or monkey bars over water? I was fortunate enough to go through the water in mine. No headlamp but plenty of light to find my way through. No paintball this year? I stopped by the event Friday evening and was very surprised to see a number of things still needed to be set up. Hopefully enough people share the same feelings and 2016 improved. Still a fun race but I would be hard pressed to spend another $100 for the same course.

I have competed in many mud runs. This was the second time completing battle frog in Pittsburgh. I don't ever write a review but I needed to share .I truly feel the year prior(2014) was a lot better than the (2015) course for reasons listed below:
1. The mine obstacle was cut short due to broken head lamps and not enough lamps for the runners. So some runners went through it and the other runners who didn't get a headlamp got shafted.
2. The obstacles seemed to be blah and not many thought put into it. The last obstacle was blah compared to a half pipe water slide mud crawl through jacks in 2014. This year was a rope wall and a ladder wall .
3. I did the bull frog run with my 2 boys which was very confusing and the obstacles were put together in about 5 mins. At one point kids seemed lost and did not know where to go next. I notified the volunteer . The course was confusing and poorly marked.
4. I asked one volunteer where the check in bag tent was and he shrugged his shoulders and looked at me. It was three tents down from him.
5. I paid $165.00 for the three of us and didn't seem it was worth the money. I know and hope it will go to a good cause.
6. And to top it off the start/finish arch way that is inflated by a generator collapsed and the kids didn't even cross the finish line.

7. The line to get your bag after the race was so long that it took forever and not enough help to make it run smoothly.

8. All in all, the race seemed to be slabbed together and unorganized COMPARED to 2014!!!

Fantastic All Around

I'd like to echo what the other reviewer Dan said about this event. It really was a great event and the best OCR I've ever attended! The obstacles were VERY challenging. A great mixture of dirt bike tracks, grass, concrete, woods (it felt like you were in 'Nam at times!), tons of mud, the works! It was all around a great time. My wife and I have already signed up for next year's event cause we had such an amazing time!