OCR = Obstacle Course Racing
So the past few years I've gotten into running recreationally. I've never been any kind of athlete. I played 1yr of JV soccer in high school and wasn't very good (I'm 31 now, for perspective) I began running, like a lot of people, as a response to a bad breakup. It helped clear my head I guess.
I really liked trail running and started running with my brother, slowly increasing miles. Then he convinced me to sign up for a Tough Mudder, which was intimidating, but a personal challenge since it's not really a "race". Over the last couple years my brother and I have participated in some trail 5-10ks and I liked the challenge, especially when it involved a lot of steep hills. My brother and I have been pretty close in overall athletic ability, though were built differently (I was about 6'-185 kinda pudgy, he was about 6'3-200 and more muscular).
Then I had a huge wake up call that I wasn't in as good shape as I thought. We signed up for a Spartan Race Super event in Palmerton PA, July 2015. Advertised as 8-10 miles and a bunch of obstacles I knew nothing about. I was overconfident and underprepared. I'd done a couple Tough Mudders so I thought I'd be done in 2-3hrs and be on my way. Well that 8-10miles was up and down a 1000' climb (multiple times) with obstacles much more challenging than the stuff you do at TM. It took us over 4hrs to complete. After that I got a lot more serious with my training. I wanted to do it again and just crush it. I was hooked.
I trained all fall/winter, signed up for a cheapo gym membership so I could keep training for the winter (previous years I'd just stop and have to start over in the spring), slowly changed my diet to make better eating decisions, and started training under an OCR specific program. I signed up for 2 major events as motivation: a trail half-marathon with lots of hills, and a Spartan Race Beast event in NJ(13+ miles, 30+ obstacles), a week apart from each other. Over the next few months I dropped 20lbs and got a LOT faster and stronger. I mainly focused on running endurance and hill climbs.
Half stats: 13.1mi, 2200ft elevation gain
Beast stats: 14.8mi, 34 obstacles, 5500ft elevation gain.
From a personal standpoint, I crushed both events.
-In the half marathon I placed 12th/500 overall, and 2nd in my age group with a time of 2hrs:05mins.
-In the Spartan Beast I placed 37th/621 overall, and 3rd in my age group with a time of 4hrs:25mins Spartan has 3 classes, and they don't rank you against ALL 3, but looking at the times, I was in the top 100 or so out of the 2000 or so people that attempted it. The course also only had about a 40-50% completion rate due to time or injury.
So that's my story and I'm hooked on OCR. I've got 3 more Spartan races on my calendar this year, and a handful of trail runs, and I'll probably add some more. Was supposed to do a TM in June, but I'll be in Japan for work/vacation. Thinking about adding a battle frog event this year, we'll see.
So is anyone else as crazy as me?
So the past few years I've gotten into running recreationally. I've never been any kind of athlete. I played 1yr of JV soccer in high school and wasn't very good (I'm 31 now, for perspective) I began running, like a lot of people, as a response to a bad breakup. It helped clear my head I guess.
I really liked trail running and started running with my brother, slowly increasing miles. Then he convinced me to sign up for a Tough Mudder, which was intimidating, but a personal challenge since it's not really a "race". Over the last couple years my brother and I have participated in some trail 5-10ks and I liked the challenge, especially when it involved a lot of steep hills. My brother and I have been pretty close in overall athletic ability, though were built differently (I was about 6'-185 kinda pudgy, he was about 6'3-200 and more muscular).
Then I had a huge wake up call that I wasn't in as good shape as I thought. We signed up for a Spartan Race Super event in Palmerton PA, July 2015. Advertised as 8-10 miles and a bunch of obstacles I knew nothing about. I was overconfident and underprepared. I'd done a couple Tough Mudders so I thought I'd be done in 2-3hrs and be on my way. Well that 8-10miles was up and down a 1000' climb (multiple times) with obstacles much more challenging than the stuff you do at TM. It took us over 4hrs to complete. After that I got a lot more serious with my training. I wanted to do it again and just crush it. I was hooked.
I trained all fall/winter, signed up for a cheapo gym membership so I could keep training for the winter (previous years I'd just stop and have to start over in the spring), slowly changed my diet to make better eating decisions, and started training under an OCR specific program. I signed up for 2 major events as motivation: a trail half-marathon with lots of hills, and a Spartan Race Beast event in NJ(13+ miles, 30+ obstacles), a week apart from each other. Over the next few months I dropped 20lbs and got a LOT faster and stronger. I mainly focused on running endurance and hill climbs.
Half stats: 13.1mi, 2200ft elevation gain
Beast stats: 14.8mi, 34 obstacles, 5500ft elevation gain.
From a personal standpoint, I crushed both events.
-In the half marathon I placed 12th/500 overall, and 2nd in my age group with a time of 2hrs:05mins.
-In the Spartan Beast I placed 37th/621 overall, and 3rd in my age group with a time of 4hrs:25mins Spartan has 3 classes, and they don't rank you against ALL 3, but looking at the times, I was in the top 100 or so out of the 2000 or so people that attempted it. The course also only had about a 40-50% completion rate due to time or injury.
So that's my story and I'm hooked on OCR. I've got 3 more Spartan races on my calendar this year, and a handful of trail runs, and I'll probably add some more. Was supposed to do a TM in June, but I'll be in Japan for work/vacation. Thinking about adding a battle frog event this year, we'll see.
So is anyone else as crazy as me?