With immense pride and passion, the Hesco Bonefrog was held in Stanhope, New Jersey on June 16th, 2018. The Hesco Bonefrog is known for being one of the best OCR events around thanks to its creators and designers, the Navy SEALS. As expected, the event did not disappoint or hold back on creating a challenging, but fun course that also displayed patriotism.
Bonefrog has expanded their race lineup once again. On 4/29/18 they hosted a brand new race in Virginia Beach, VA. The race took place at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, a large facility dedicated to various sports events. Equipped with massive open grass fields, field hockey pitches, and even an athletic field with stadium seating this venue is well suited to handle any sporting event and it did not disappoint.
The event style that is taking hold of the obstacle racing world are endurance events, more specifically the multi-lap format. Enter Bonefrog Challenge’s Endurance event. The endurance distance was introduced last year and is very reminiscent of another company that also had a frog mascot. In this breakdown, I will be digging into my experience to help compare this event to other OCR endurance events.
Moving into their 6th season, Bonefrog (formerly called Bonefrog Challenge) continues their sponsorship with Hesco and adds many new elements to the only U.S. NAVY SEAL owned and operated obstacle course race. New for 2018 are venues in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Barre, Massachusetts, and Stanhope, New Jersey.
I can’t applaud Bonefrog enough for really exploring and utilizing all the best areas for this race. Bonefrog runs three simultaneous distances Sprint (3-miles), Challenge (8 miles) and Tier 1 (11-ish miles). Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I signed up for Tier 1.
BONEFROG is extending their SEAL-designed, developed, & operated challenges with their new 8-hour BONEFROG: Endurance option. Competitors will begin by completing TIER-1, an 11+ mile circuit of the 8+ CHALLENGE course and the 3+ mile SPRINT course. From there, BONEFROG: Endurance athletes will complete as many SPRINT laps until the 8 hour time limit runs out - or their bodies do!
After much work and discussion, we, along with BONEFROG, the OCR World Championships, and the USOCR Championships, have reached the following solution: BONEFROG will hold their event on April 29 in Austin, Texas. Conquer The Gauntlet will hold our event on October 21, at YO Ranch HQ.
I had high hopes for my second Bonefrog Race ever - both for myself and the Race Series. Having competed in their Florida event in 2016 (albeit a different venue) I was curious to see what changes and improvements Bonefrog had made.
While the news of Battlefrog closing down its races midseason was a hard note to swallow, Bonefrog Challenge made its first, and hopefully not last appearance in GA this last weekend. Bonefrog found a great venue that has not been used by the OCR companies often, last big OCR event there was in 2011, when one of the big two made its first appearance in GA.
Brian Carney founder of BoneFrog Challenge is the guest on this week's episode of the New England Spahtens Podcast. Carney is the former NAVY SEAL who founded the BoneFrog Challenge in 2012. The race series which has made a big expansion this year started in western Massachusetts. Paul Jones of New England Spahtens talks to Carney about his labor of love and why BoneFrog is such a unique event.
