I set off from Newbury last night to travel up to a hotel nearby my race in the morning as I usual do when competing in an OCR (obstacle course race).
I was quite confident and excited for the race as I knew it was my best chance of reaching my podium finish target which most I'm sure many runners and athletes aim for too.
My fitness has been fairly good lately and my last race was a much longer half marathon distance (this one being 10k), which means that the endurance is definetly good enough.
*Spoiler Alert*: I official finished 3rd but I'll let you decide whether it should be higher 🤔, read on.....
With temperatures up to 30 degrees today 🥵, it was a challenge but Forest Warrior lived up to it's name with most of the course being through woodland with lots of shade for faster trail running.
I'd set off from the start/finish line at a reasonable pace and leading the pack for the first 3k or so before being choked up by a fly heading straight into the back of my throat 😣which lost me a position but these things happen (no that's not the point of my contesting the overall results).
The course was very hard and dry underfoot until you reach the bog of doom!
I'm not sure it's actually called that but perhaps it should be, I'm quite confident that many shoes will have been lost to the bog today.
There's a real issue in many OCR events with obstacle completion, especially in competitive waves.
Spartan races sets the obstacles as mandatory with forfeits for failed obstacles, whether that's a massive 30 burpees or a penalty running loop.
Even that creates problems as a penalty loop can sometimes be much faster than the obstacle itself so not ideal for the real OBSTACLE runners to favour the simply fast at running runners.
Forest Warrior however states that there are no mandatory obstacles so technically a person could simply skip out any and all obstacles if they so wish, I'm totally fine with this when someone is there to have a fun day and simply enjoy the course.
The problem is when one of those runners who skips out and/or fails obstacles to then take a podium finish, and 1st no less! 😕
This is when I think the rules need to be adjusted.
Please watch the video for an explanation, if you haven't already.
Whatever the rules and whatever the final outcome is, I'm thrilled with achieving my first podium finish! 💪🥰