New Jersey based MudManX held it’s second event of the year on August 9th in New Windsor, NY at the sight previously used for Survival Race, Cousins Paintball. With this location having a mixture of permanent structures and those brought in by MudManX, the course was slammed packed with obstacles at every turn. The rolling hills through a variety of different terrain was challenging enough to keep your heart pounding through this 3.1 mile course.
I hope my being completely honest can help even just one person that reads this, I truly know what it feels like to feel hopeless and helpless and not want to live life that way anymore but I promise you its better spend every day killing yourself a little than to call it quits and remember... The only easy day was yesterday, embrace your beast and always be insanely focused.
“Are you ready for the suck?” was a question posed almost half a dozen times to me within the first 30 minutes of arriving to the venue at Fort Yargo State Park in North Georgia. As a solid obstacle racer I was thinking “yeah, yeah, I've heard this phrase all too often lately” but I must admit I was in for a rude awakening! The Special Ops Series Green Beret Challenge was an endurance event to test both the physical and mental strength of even the strongest competitors.
The flagship race for Adrenaline Rush Sports LLC is the Black Swamp Dash, located near the banks of the Portage River in Oak Harbor, OH. This was my first trip out of the state for an event, so I was excited to see some new territory, and a new event. Throughout the week, a warning of impending weather was upon me, but that’s up to the weather gods, and not the OCR world. I imagine all/most of us have experienced a little “extra” in the way of weather when it involves our events. Hot/cold, rainy, windy, snowy? Once we are signed up for an event, it’s all hands on deck, regardless of the weather.
Sometimes your small regional races can literally kick your butt. Rugged Maniac is one of those. This race has been coming to Denver for the past 4 years. I believe they do a lot of things right.
It's one week before the first obstacle race of the season, I check the weather and UGH, it's gonna be cold and damp! Welcome to racing in Canada. We are the only country it seems where we can go from frost bite to sunburn in one day. We load the car and head off to the Hamilton/Niagara region, about a 4 hour drive.
The Dirty Dash racing series recently brought their 5k fun run to the New England area for the first time. Leading up to the event, a few other national races of similar ilk had fallen on tough times. The female only Dirty Girl race series, which held 50 events last year, cut that number in half for this year and recently cancelled a few upcoming races. The 5k Foam Fest that was affiliated with the same company as Dirty Dash also announced that they were closing its doors. This led to speculation on social media that the Dirty Dash race was in jeopardy. However, about a week before the scheduled event, we received an email with race logistics which quelled some of the fears.
In order to be eligible, racers must kick off their Triple Crown challenge by competing in the Killington, VT, Reebok Spartan World Championship, September 20, 2014, and finish with the first-ever Team Championship in Dallas, Texas, November 1, 2014. Competitors must round out their Triple Crown by competing in either the South Carolina Reebok Spartan Race Beast, or the Sacramento Reebok Spartan Race Super, both on October 25, 2014.
“Tough Mudder participants have been sharing their photos in record numbers on social media,” said Gameface Media CEO David Lavallee. “For brands like MET-Rx, this engagement allows participants to promote their involvement with the brand in a very authentic and legitimate way. They sample terrific MET-Rx products at the event and then extend their engagement with the brand on social media once they get home.”
Off to Tweed, Ontario we go. The location for the Doomsday Race was at the Trudeau's Park Resort about 20 minutes north of Napanee on Stoco Lake. This is a beautiful setting with a breeze coming off the water to keep racers cool. I had spoken with the Race Director a few weeks prior and he had some concerns with the amount of rain that they had been having, but he felt that they could accommodate the racers but may need to change some of the parking areas.
