Five teams, each with four team members with one member doing the endurance leg with a race cutoff time of 3.5hrs and 3 members doing the sprint legs with a race cutoff of 1:45hrs. Each team member going off at 8:00, 11:30, 12:15, 15:00.
With 5 people on course at any given time this was going to be a great race with the main goal to do as many laps as possible within the time limit. You can start your final lap as long as you're out on course before the cutoff time.
Hosted by Rumble Fitness in Milton Keynes and put on for members of the obstacle race team. The course was a 1.7m lap broken down into sections which amazingly accounted for different aspects of obstacle course racing.
1mile run on flat trails
3 technical obstacles in the Rumble barn
0.6m run around field with undulating terrain with elevation and also a 4.5ft wall and cargo net crawl
Proving Grounds lap containing technical and functional obstacles. It also had scaled options for ability with the hardest obstacles being the quickens options and listed below:
10ft Irish table wall
Hurdle
Weaver
Hurdle
Low rig
Crawl under
7ft wall
Balance Beam
Z-wall
50lbs sandbag carry
That's seems like a lot to remember but Rumble put on the best pre-race briefing I have ever experienced. Over Zoom the day before. The course was talked through in detail, we even had drone footage to see the course on screen.
On the day was also marshals in and around the course directing us to keep us all on track. Also to make sure we keep track of our lap times.
I arrived early to not only support my team mate Dave but to also help with the marshalling. It was an early start considering I wasn't racing until 15:00 but it was so good to be part of a race again. I was able to see Dave, Shelley, Ricky, Jon and Louise go through the gruelling 3.5hrs of laps specially with the sun heating up, but music was on, teammates were cheering everyone on and the sweet sound of an obstacle being completed was ringing around the course.
The time cutoff meant that you had to keep track of your lap times so you knew how much time you had left before the cutoff and didn't eat into your teammates' time on course. Your teammate couldn't go until you had finished your last lap. So a bit of strategy involved to get the fastest lap times.
The day went without any trouble with all of the Rumble team testing out our new fitness post-lockdown as many of us have stayed motivated and determined to train and follow our programmes. Everyone putting in incredible performances.
For me I had loads to prove to myself and was treating this like a championship race with preparation, warm-up and mindset. I wanted to test every aspect of my newly built fitness and this course was going to be a great test before the big races in June.
As to be expected I would start and race beside Morgan Maxwell and David Tucker, two amazing athletes. I really thought through my strategy to race my own race, go out fast to start, then settle into an uncomfortably comfortable pace. I went out strong keeping Morgan in my sights, couldn't miss his ghost white back running away from me in the distance.
The 1mile run was there and back so it was great to keep an eye on the gap between myself and Morgan and to make sure I was making up ground on David. Both are so fast and strong and we all race totally different so it was going to be great for the marshals and teammates to see us battle it out.
Lap 1 was quick and myself, Morgan and David putting down the quickest lap times of the day. I managed 00:12:30 which was almost 3 minutes quicker than the average lap times.
This didn't last though, I started to burn time on Morgan and at lap 3 he was two and half minutes ahead of me; yes I kept track of it. But on lap 4 I noticed the gap wasn't widening and I started to speed up. Morgan had some issues which slowed him down.
By the start of lap 6 my gap was down to 1minute and midway through the 1mile run I picked up the pace to pass him, in hindsight I should have paced lap 6 a little better as it ended up being my second fastest lap, but who can blame for getting excited.
As I passed Morgan who is an incredible athlete I had a short but inspiring thought of the hard work I have put in and it hasn't come easy, with training every day in rain, ice, snow and after long days at work, this is what it feels like to put in the work and see results.
Amazing support on course from teammates kept me going throughout, although I couldn't talk at the time I really did appreciate this and it was made even better that the marshals on the day were my brother and sister, who were incredible support.
Lap 7 and 8 were where the fatigue started to set in and the pace I had started with was not sustainable and I started to slow with every stride. I managed to keep my distance from Morgan which was the main goal now. I wasn't concerned with quick lap times anymore, just as long as I could keep away from Morgan.
I wasn't ready for an 8th lap, but I knew that Morgan was going to make the cutoff so off I went. I did notice that he started to make ground on me but happily it wasn't enough and I came in broken and shattered walking the last sandbag carry to finish the lap.
We both ended up completing the 8 laps in under 2hrs with around 14miles ran. I was broken, I needed at least 20min on the floor to recover, the heat, the pace and the course took me to my limit, but knowing what that physical limit is was the reason for this race and my strategy. I wanted to see what 100% of my physical and mental effort could do and I wasn't disappointed.
In every race there is an opportunity to push that little bit more, but you have to be sure to do it at the right times. Doing it at the start and then on lap 6 was just a great strategy from me and over the moon with my performance and the commitment, effort and pure enjoyment of all the Rumble Racing team.
I am incredibly lucky to have an OCR training centre around the corner with amazing coaches and teammates and I can only recommend that you head up to Rumble or any of the great OCR facilities in the UK on their next events and see what you're capable of.
Testing your fitness and pushing yourself to your limits is something to be done in a controlled format such as a time trial or race. Just make sure you're prepared and the test is specific to your fitness and goals. An OCR facility such as Rumble is one of the reasons that OCR will continue to grow in this country and hopefully produce more incredible young athletes.
Please take the time to visit one before your next OCR, you won't be disappointed.
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