The good:
So many of the core OCR runners were hear, it was great chatting and hanging out with the elite runners from Inov8, Obstacle Kit, Muddy Kit and RPC, and also a huge amount of the usual faces from mudstacle, muddyraces, muddyducks.
I was shamelessly cheesy and went over and say hi to Tim 'Livewire' Shieff. I've saw him a few years back winning the World free running championships and follow the incredible stuff he puts on youtube. He's one of my stepson's heros too, so it was realy cool to go over and chat with him and find out his role captaining the european Ninja Warrior Team. SUCH a nice bloke! It was awesome watching him and his team at the event playing on the monkey bars and obstacles.
Again, another moment to curl your toes at, but i went over to ex ITV Gladiators Hunter and Panther and got a photo with them and got chatting about OCR and some how onto my tattoos and scarification work. Was very funny lifting my race vest to show those 2 my ink, scars, and podgy belly. Again, really nice people who where a pleasure to meet.
I loved racing on the BMX track this was so unusual and hard to get the right pace and stride length sorted, the monkey bars where the perfect distance, small rungs and very stable.
You couldn't beat the facilities, showers, clean toilets, hot food, good coffee, plenty of seating to watch the action, huge free carpark, supermarket with walking distance.
The concept is great too, we have all watched the military videos of the head to head obstacle racing ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMUIJmHCMjA ) and would love to have a go. This event looked like it was going to be somewhere close to this.
The Bad
The obstacles were just too narrow, the overhang wall would only fit three people on at a real push, there were lots of flying feet, near misses and queueing! This obstacle needed to be much wider. Same deal with the haybales although it was single file here due to the bottle neck cuased by the overhang.
There wasn't enough obstacles either, there was plenty of space for pipe crawls, cargo climbs, extra walls.
some of the waves in the mens race had 30+ runners, this was way too many caused massive bottlenecks in a 'sprint' environment.
The lack of communication was very frustrating, things started late, no one knew what races where happening, the format of the races. This made it very difficult to time eating and warming up. There just seeming to be no sense of a plan.
Too much time and effort had gone into, too much padding, no one really cared about having Ex-Gladiators, Strongmen, Tug-of-war, Cheerleaders, and XFactor singers. They just made it into a very long day.
One of the things I LOVE about OCR is its accessibility, anyone, with any level of fitness can partake, However this event had really only appealed to the superfast and to the OCR addicts, which is a real shame.
The Ugly
So much waiting around just wanting to know what is happening, when are the next races?
I never heard booing at race before, or cries for people to be disqualified, but this is what happened. With out briefings and clear course rules there were competitors that made false starts, competitors that ran through the safety padding rather than attempt the monkey bars. time penalties were put in later on for monkey bar failures.
With a large pot of money on the table people's aggression seemed to come out, flailing elbows and arms from the startling made some unpleasant viewing, but this would have been suppressed if the waves were smaller and more space given on the starting line.
Recommendations
Smaller waves is a must in a sprint environment like this you can't have more than a single row of people on the start line.
Qualifying and seeded, knockout waves.
Use timing chips and mats at the start and finish, open up the course for 2 hours to all the competitors, and have F1 style qualifying, where you can make as many practice runs as you like in those 2 hours.
Then waves of 10 runners:
1 from the top 10% time
1 from the 11-20% time
This creates waves of mixed ability allowing all the fast runners to make their way through to the next rounds
the top 50% of each wave make it through until you get your final 10 athletes.
This works as even if you are knocked out in the first round, you have had 2 hours playing on the course and 1 competitive round.
Obstacles MUST be completed, if you fall you go back to the beginning of the obstacle. and try again.
So many of the core OCR runners were hear, it was great chatting and hanging out with the elite runners from Inov8, Obstacle Kit, Muddy Kit and RPC, and also a huge amount of the usual faces from mudstacle, muddyraces, muddyducks.
I was shamelessly cheesy and went over and say hi to Tim 'Livewire' Shieff. I've saw him a few years back winning the World free running championships and follow the incredible stuff he puts on youtube. He's one of my stepson's heros too, so it was realy cool to go over and chat with him and find out his role captaining the european Ninja Warrior Team. SUCH a nice bloke! It was awesome watching him and his team at the event playing on the monkey bars and obstacles.
Again, another moment to curl your toes at, but i went over to ex ITV Gladiators Hunter and Panther and got a photo with them and got chatting about OCR and some how onto my tattoos and scarification work. Was very funny lifting my race vest to show those 2 my ink, scars, and podgy belly. Again, really nice people who where a pleasure to meet.
I loved racing on the BMX track this was so unusual and hard to get the right pace and stride length sorted, the monkey bars where the perfect distance, small rungs and very stable.
You couldn't beat the facilities, showers, clean toilets, hot food, good coffee, plenty of seating to watch the action, huge free carpark, supermarket with walking distance.
The concept is great too, we have all watched the military videos of the head to head obstacle racing ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMUIJmHCMjA ) and would love to have a go. This event looked like it was going to be somewhere close to this.
The Bad
The obstacles were just too narrow, the overhang wall would only fit three people on at a real push, there were lots of flying feet, near misses and queueing! This obstacle needed to be much wider. Same deal with the haybales although it was single file here due to the bottle neck cuased by the overhang.
There wasn't enough obstacles either, there was plenty of space for pipe crawls, cargo climbs, extra walls.
some of the waves in the mens race had 30+ runners, this was way too many caused massive bottlenecks in a 'sprint' environment.
The lack of communication was very frustrating, things started late, no one knew what races where happening, the format of the races. This made it very difficult to time eating and warming up. There just seeming to be no sense of a plan.
Too much time and effort had gone into, too much padding, no one really cared about having Ex-Gladiators, Strongmen, Tug-of-war, Cheerleaders, and XFactor singers. They just made it into a very long day.
One of the things I LOVE about OCR is its accessibility, anyone, with any level of fitness can partake, However this event had really only appealed to the superfast and to the OCR addicts, which is a real shame.
The Ugly
So much waiting around just wanting to know what is happening, when are the next races?
I never heard booing at race before, or cries for people to be disqualified, but this is what happened. With out briefings and clear course rules there were competitors that made false starts, competitors that ran through the safety padding rather than attempt the monkey bars. time penalties were put in later on for monkey bar failures.
With a large pot of money on the table people's aggression seemed to come out, flailing elbows and arms from the startling made some unpleasant viewing, but this would have been suppressed if the waves were smaller and more space given on the starting line.
Recommendations
Smaller waves is a must in a sprint environment like this you can't have more than a single row of people on the start line.
Qualifying and seeded, knockout waves.
Use timing chips and mats at the start and finish, open up the course for 2 hours to all the competitors, and have F1 style qualifying, where you can make as many practice runs as you like in those 2 hours.
Then waves of 10 runners:
1 from the top 10% time
1 from the 11-20% time
This creates waves of mixed ability allowing all the fast runners to make their way through to the next rounds
the top 50% of each wave make it through until you get your final 10 athletes.
This works as even if you are knocked out in the first round, you have had 2 hours playing on the course and 1 competitive round.
Obstacles MUST be completed, if you fall you go back to the beginning of the obstacle. and try again.
