OCR News Weekly recaps the top news stories from around the obstacle racing industry. This week, Tough Mudder makes changes to Toughest Mudder rules, Marena Sports partners with Conquer the Gauntlet, The Urban Trails acquires BattleFrog Social channels, Spartan Race’s AGOGE 004, and race results from around the globe.
January 2017 marked the end of an era as the Tough Guy Race in the UK put on its last event. In reading about it and watching videos I began thinking about the idea of “Toughness” and how this notion of being “tough” or at least trying to teach this attribute has actually spawned the entire industry of obstacle racing (OCR). In fact, this belief that an OCR is basically a sport of suffering is eloquently described in detail in Scott Keneally’s documentary Rise of the Sufferfests. Tough Mudder has doubled, actually quadrupled down on this idea with their creation of the Tougher Mudder, Toughest Mudder, and the World’s Toughest Mudder events. The question is what does it really mean to be “tough”?
The official rules for Toughest Mudder have been announced! We have less than 40 days until the first event, so now we’re shaping up for the competitions. It’s time to look in detail at the prize structure and what they’re offering/requiring for Toughest and World’s Toughest this year. Let’s jump into it.
Melissa is in a few words a loud and proud woman in the OCR community. Many of us know her as Sharkbait but how many of us actually know her? It’s never easy as a newer writer in the OCR community to reach out to amazing athletes such as Melissa, but I was floored when I sent her a message on facebook and she agreed to let me interview her.
From surviving a road biking accident that left her with many broken bones, to nursing her children while on the course it seems like there is nothing that Allison can’t or won’t do. I have the honor of interviewing her for this piece, as everyone has their “layers”. Allison is a super nice person, but when it comes down to her coaching and training, she is not afraid to push you outside of your comfort zone.
This morning members of Tough Mudder's Mudder Nation rejoiced as they opened their emails this morning to receive last minute early pricing deals on World's Toughest Mudder 2017. Past emails have been sent to participants but this email included the most important and until now secret - the location. According to the email, this morning Tough Mudder is returning to Lake Las Vegas in 2017.
In the OCR world, there are some women that stand out more than just your usual face in the crowd. These women are known for their athletic skill, the “never give up attitude”, helping others, and just being an overall positive and gracious person. Doing my research for my article series, I learned that Amanda “Pinky” Neil is not just your typical girl in pink, she is much more. I was excited to learn a bit more about “Pinky” and her love for OCR. This lady loves the OCR community and what it has done for her, and wants to continue to do things that set her soul on fire.
It’s difficult to begin speaking about a product that has nothing like it on the market. I can’t say – “Hey everyone! Here’s a new version of ‘bleh’ that you can try out in its new and improved form!”. With that, I’m just going to jump into it and tell you all about my experience with Wear Bands. First off, I’ve had this for about 6 weeks now. I’ve put this through some strenuous testing in every possible way I could think of, and I’ve intentionally not been nice to the equipment.
Yesterday, the International Management Group (IMG) the global sports and event management company announced that Tough Mudder is heading to China in 2017. The first event will take place on May 20 -21, 2017 in Shanghai. See the full article first published in China.org below.
Yesterday, Sports Business Journal/Sports Business Daily reported that Tough Mudder is looking to expand into gyms in 2017. According to the news source, Will Dean said during a panel discussion a SportsBusiness Journal conference that "Tough Mudder will launch a chain of fitness boutiques in the U.S. in 2017".
