Wet, muddy, humid and hilly. These four words perfectly describe the Terrain Race in Slinger, Wisconsin. This race was held at Little Switzerland, a small midwestern ski resort located about 30 miles northwest of Milwaukee. When we pulled up to the venue, the hills really did not seem too intimidating, especially considering the standard 5k distance of this race.
Muckfest MS was held on both Saturday, June 9 and Sunday, June 10 at The Glen Mills Schools in Glen Mills and Thornbury Township Pennsylvania; we were there on Saturday. For those not familiar with the area, the venue is 30 miles outside Philadelphia and about an hour from my home in New Jersey. I raced with my twin sister Patti, my younger sister Chrissy and our friends Cara and Heather.
The Mogollon Monster Mudda 5k Mud Run has been held in Payson, Arizona every year since 2012 and has been rated "The most outstanding event in Arizona". This race is a local, inexpensive, family-friendly event that boasts over 40 obstacles and some challenging terrain.
Rugged Maniac launched it's 2018 season as it has in years past in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. This year it landed on St. Patrick’s Day, which made the free beer at the end seem even better and colder. The venue was the same at historic Boone Hall Plantation. The course winds through well-used paths that the plantation uses year round for things like tours and haunted hay rides.
Congratulations, you've registered for an Obstacle Course Race! Now it's time to put in the work and start training! For best results, give yourself a solid 6-8 week of training before your race date. I have developed 5 step OCR specific process to take you from where you are to where you want to be; the finish line.
If running were always as simple as "just run" then it would be simple enough for all of us to "just run", right? Instead, we add GPS, PR's, Pace, VO MAX, Negative Splits, Tempo Runs, Fartleks, Hill Repeats, and even #$^%* Wreck Bags to the mix in order to keep running interesting. To put it another way, running apparently isn't crazy enough for some of us by itself, somehow "runners" need to make it completely over-the-top insane to keep motivated. WTH?
For the umpteenth time, I was nearly killed by a car running a stop sign. Now, I've been actually hit and thrown across a hood at least twice in the past, and have been extremely lucky to avoid injury. Learning from those experiences, I now take a great deal of caution at intersections. Last night, if I took one more step I'd be extremely lucky to be writing this, and most likely would be doing so from a hospital bed. There's a good chance I may even be dead.
Spartan Race kicked off its 2016 season in Southern California last weekend with back to back races at Vail Lake in Temecula. Immediately obvious on arriving at the venue was the distressing lack of water in the lake; with a drop of at least 10-15’ of depth since our last visit back in September, it was clear that the long California drought is far from over. This also left exposed a vast mud plain that was once the lake bottom and would play a role in the race.
Leading up to the Spartan World Championship, and the International Obstacle Racing Federation’s first World Congress, there has been a lot of talk about the “sport” aspect of obstacle course racing.
