Average Joe OCR Workout

Well I have talked about my workouts in the past, but I realized that I never really laid it all out for people.  So I'll talk about why I do certain things and how I think it will help my OCR goals.

Lets distill down what is involve in an OCR.  In the end it is a race and that involves running, but there are the obstacles as well which involve strength.  So there is no one thing that you can truly focus on to be good or even great at OCR.

When I started running I knew that I had to ease into it.  I had an ankle injury many years ago while playing football.   So I started small and short distance with breaks in between.  I knew that if I did to much to fast I would cause me pain and potential injury.  So I designed a way to run with breaks in between.  In order to train like a race I would need to throw some strength training into my running so that my body knows how to adapt to the sudden change.  I feel that this is what caused me to be so successful in my most recent race.

So as a start I would go only a half mile out and back for a total of a mile.  This was a good start as around my house has a lot of hills and this route had a large downhill, but also I would have to go back up it to get home.  Running hills is basically a must for OCR training.  I started to gradually add miles to my runs like many of the half marathon training schedules show.  Adding a mile every week so that your runs gradually got longer and longer.  What I did differently was add in what I called rotations in between my miles.  So that I would run a mile stop and do strength exercises before running a second mile.  This rotation continued until I was up to five miles and at that point I started to add miles between stopping.  The reason was because the longer OCR events had sometimes a mile or two between obstacle stops.  So my rotations stayed right around three strength rotations, but instead I would do two miles before stopping.

As my runs got longer I would continue to do more miles between stops.  In the end for my 13.3 mile training run I stopped and did a strength rotation every three miles.  So I ended up doing three rotations in between the running.

In the end I would run no more then three days a week.  Even that was only when I was trying to make sure I was in enough running shape to tackle a half marathon distance OCR.


So now that I have talked about the running part lets talk about the strength training part of the race.  Yes it is a race and running is important, but on most OCR companies failing an obstacle is punished in some way shape and form.  That punishment can be worse then the rest of the race combined.

So what kind of things should you train to do OCR?  Everything is really needed.  The best way to start is at least body weight exercises. 

Push ups with knees up or down will start building your push strength. 

Crunches help your core strength which will help support your back when carrying heavy objects.  

Burpees are a great full body workout that is required if you do Spartan OCR (its the punishment).

High Knees works your calves and hip flexors in order to aid in jumping.

Squats works your quads and gluts to also aid in jumping and the ability to move heavy things.

Lunges to work your stabilizing muscles in order to keep your legs healthy with all the running.

These are just a few of the exercises that can aid in an OCR race.  No if you noticed I didn't have any of the traditional lifting exercises above.  That is because these were the exercises that I would do in the middle of my runs.

Also during my runs every other week I would add either a bucket carry or a sandbag carry to my runs.  These were also planned to aid in my general strength and cardio conditioning to be prepared for the races.


Then I strongly believe that weighted exercises are very important to improve strength beyond body weight and also to improve grip strength.  Weighted exercises need to target muscle groups that you specially don't work with your body weight exercises.  Area's like biceps, triceps, back muscles and forearm muscles.

Bicep Arm Curls work the biceps which aid in pull strength.

Triceps behind the head raises that helps with your push strength like pushing yourself over a wall once you grabbed it.

Pull ups or Lat Pulls to work the back to aid in pulling yourself up to a bar or wall.

Dead Hangs to help grip strength so that you can hang from objects for long periods of time.

These are just a few of the exercises that I do in my workouts.  I do strength exercises at least twice a week.

In the end during the "off" season of my OCR training I did a rotation where I would run three days a week and lift two days a week.  Then the next week I would switch it around and lift three days and run only two.  I felt like this was great as it would keep my body guessing and caused it to have to adapt to changes faster.  I saw a great improvement from my last 2016 race two my first 2017 race. 

Of course I have recently seen a Stadium Race that I have signed up for in November and the obstacles look very different.  I am going to come up with a different training plan for this other type of race.


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Mud Gear Giveaway Winners!!

Well here we go I will draw the winners of the Mud Gear Compression sock give away.  Only a few people posted for extra entries into the give away and it seems that small is not a very common size.  There are a total of 3 applicants for the Small size, 12 applicants for the Medium and 17 applicants for the Large.

Just to reshow this is the socks that everyone will be getting;



I have a fancy random number generator (ok not fancy, but free).

How this will work I will plug in the number of people and let the random number generator go.  We will see who wins and who doesn't.  I am posting these on my Instagram story as I draw them.

Large Winners are : Nick M and David R
Medium Winners are:  Eric A and Amy
Small Winners are:  Tanya W and Vivian H

Congratulations to all 6 winners and I'm sorry to the people who didn't get free stuff.  I feel like this was moderately successful and might do another drawing again in the future.

The winners will be receiving an email tonight asking for information to send the socks.

Post Spartan Beast: What I learned.

Now that I am a week out from my Spartan Beast I am going to look back and see what I learned from the race.

The first thing I will say if you want to know my opinion of the race check out my Review. 

With this race I learned that I tend to lead with my right leg.  As my right Hip Flexor was burning at anything after mile 8 or 9 I feel like I need to do more yoga and hills.  I might need to increase my strength workouts with my Abdominal and Quads in order to prevent that from happening again with my Super.



My grip strength seemed to be good as I progressed substantially over my last race.  Last years races in August and November I failed the same obstacles both of those races.  What I failed was the Z-Wall, Multi-Rig and Rope Climb in August and then in November I failed Z-Wall, Multi-Rig, Olympus, Spear Throw and Rope Climb.  The majority of my failed obstacles were grip strength oriented.  As my review I only failed on the Rope Climb for the Beast, but I think I was impatient and or needed to work on my grip endurance as I felt like I might have been failing.  Working on my dead hangs should improve my grip endurance as it seemed like my only weakness so far.



In the end I feel that my training was spot on.  My running plan had my cardio in great position.  The hills that I run had my calves in great shape to deal with all the up hill running.  The weight training that I am doing seemed to have me strong enough to do the heavy lifts and carries with very little effort.  Even the bouldering I am doing once or twice a week seemed to make the hanging obstacles seem easy.

In the end just a little adjustment here and there and I should be solid to go burpee free for the next few races.

Montana Beast 2017

Well my first ever Spartan Beast is on the books.  I went into the race with one main goal and one extra credit goal.  The first goal was completed as it was only to finish the race.  I failed the extra credit goal of completing the race with out having to do any penalty burpees.  The main reason being I was impatient and the combination of obstacles made for a weakened grip.  We will get more into that later in this post when I talk about the obstacles.  I finished with my sister and nephew at 5:23:11.

Location:  Big Fork Montana is a beautiful location and Glacier National Park made for some nice views.  The area has very dense vegetation all over and is basically a valley that is surrounded on all sides with hills and mountains.  The race itself was like going hiking, but instead of following the trail you go off the train and plow your own way.  I must thank my affiliate Mud Gear.  I wore my Mud Gear compression socks and hardly felt any of the branches, bushes or small plants that were constantly hitting my legs.  I'm sure some people that weren't wearing socks would have gotten a lot of small cuts through out the course.

As you can see below the location is quite beautiful. 


Altitude at the location was 4200 feet above sea level.  Now I train at approx. 500 feet above sea level.  I worried that the altitude would cause me problems, but other then having to breath hard from time to time it didn't seem to cause me any grief. 


Race:  The race was labeled 10 miles on the picture above, but during the race I saw a Spartan Beast Mile 11 on the course.  Of course for people that haven't run a Spartan Race before the obstacles don't count in the distance of the race itself.  That means that if you have a .5 mile bucket carry as an obstacle that .5 miles doesn't count in the overall distance.

The course itself was a wonderful mix of up hill and down hill running.  There were hills that had running water going down them and it also had many area's that there was no trail to speak of and you just had to trust the tape that lined the course.  Two of the ascents and descents were steep enough that even trail running shoes with deep tread would slip on.  One descent even had ropes and a danger sign before it, but in my opinion that descent was not as slick as others that didn't have any warning signs. 

This race I would classify it as a calf killer.  Thankfully I train on hills everyday and even though several times my calves would start to burn it was usually at the top of the hill.  My calves were able to recover by the time the next ascent came around and I can only thank my training.  Even with that training I wasn't unstoppable.  By the end of the race my right hip flexor felt like it had a miniature sun buried in it.  I can only assume that it was because that I tend to lead with my right leg during the many climbs. 

There was a bit of mud on the course and it seemed to be very strategically located right before a climbing obstacle of some sort.  It wasn't nearly as muddy as the Portland Sprint in 2016, but the mud still caused some challenges when trying to jump over the several walls.

The most shocking thing that I found during the race was just how many people were very unprepared for the race.  People that sprinted past us in the beginning we caught several miles later they were cramping terribly.  I also noticed that many of the people that were having cramping problems weren't carrying packs with food or water in them.  I understand if you were an elite and going to finish in under three hours you could run without extra electrolyte, but anyone other then that should really have something with them. 

I believe that my success for my first ever Beast was the fact that I was carrying electrolyte in my back pack.  I drank water at most stations because I was sweeting a lot, but the PowerAde that I had filled my pack with made it so I wasn't cramping at any point in the race. 

Obstacles:  So there were 34 obstacles listed on the map.  The only problem is that some obstacles listed didn't seem like obstacles and we also felt that there were some obstacles that weren't actually listed on the map.  The first one listed High feet we didn't even do anything that resembled high feet.  The first obstacles that we encountered where a wall that was probably 6-8 feet and a hurdle.  The Z wall was the next obstacle and one that I had never been able to complete.  That was until this race.  I believe it was my bouldering that allowed me to make it through the Z wall as the turn around the outside corner was difficult.  It required both feet to be on the same small block at once in order to go around. The inverted wall was just like most walls in that if you can get a leg up you can get over them. 

The next hurdle or gut check was just like before and only took getting a leg over to get past it.  The next obstacle was a small sand bag carry that had a light sand bag and a short route.  This was just a warm up carry that was only the beginning of the carry pains.  The Atlas Log Carry I found much less difficult then the Atlas Ball as the logs had area's that you could grip.  It made picking them up much less difficult.

The Tyro Traverse was interesting as my socks were wet and just slid along the rope.  I was able to speed across the rope over half way before needed to walk my feet at all.  The next obstacle was shallow water that you had to wade across.  The water was quite cold and didn't require much skill unless you were short and had to nearly swim.  I imagine that it is supposed to freeze up your legs, but I found it quite refreshing as it was fairly hot out.  There was another wall that I believe was 8-10 feet, but as it was classified I am unsure of the height. 

The Monkey bars were next.  I find the varying heights of the bars interesting, but I have little trouble and could actually skip several bars in order to save my grip strength.  The vertical cargo was where the first time check was and we cleared that with flying colors.  I thought about trying what the elites do and flip over, but my fear of heights prevented me in the end I climbed down.  The rings were I believe the next obstacle and I find this much much less difficult then the multi-rig.  It mainly takes momentum and timing to cross, given that you have the grip strength.  The horse tie off was you duck under a bar and then climb up and over a series of wooden steps that started at chest height.  It was like a less difficult Mount Sparta. 

I knew I was out of the Beast section of the course as I approached the next series of obstacles, because they were tightly packed together that I only saw during the Sprint courses.  First was Olympus another obstacles I had never completed.  I completed it easily using the chains for holds, but I think this might have been a mistake as it started the process of my eventual only failed obstacle.  Then second in the series was the Herc Hoist.  The weight wasn't anything all that taxing, but being directly after Olympus I found that after finishing my hands hurt with the effort.  The final in the trio was the rope climb.  I had a climbing rope in my back yard for months and was use to climbing.  I was able to scale the rope quickly and through I was in reach, but in retrospect I should have stopped to ensure that I was in reach.  I swung at the bell and completely missed, I believe to the inside of the bell.  I did rush and had what I felt was failing grip strength, but with my feet locked in I could have probably hung for longer and made sure I would have completed the obstacle. 

Unfortunately at this point my fatigue had started to idle my brain and I stopped taking notes of the obstacles completed.  I know that around this point was a log carry and I found a long skinny one that rested nicely on my shoulder.  I felt bad for people running without a shirt as I'm sure the logs dug into the skin badly.  There was another wall that wasn't nearly as tall as the prior.  Then there was the double sandbag from hell.  It started with a giant mud pit that I'm sure ate shoes for every meal of the day.  It sapped energy quickly right before a long climb up and back down.  Then you had to cross the same muddy hell to finish the carry. 

A-Frame cargo was also in there, but as far as that obstacle goes I believe it is mainly to induce fear of heights then being difficult.  There was also a farmers carry that you had to carry two logs that had chain handles down and around a marker and back.  I felt that the logs weren't all that heavy and could have gone farther, as my hands had a good rest and my strength was back. 

The Bucket Brigade was the obstacle that caused me the most grief as by the half way point before traveling back down the hill I had to stop and set down the bucket.  My lower back was on fire and screaming out at that point.  I didn't feel that the bucket was all that heavy, but the climb up must have put me at an odd angle and my back was unhappy.  After a short rest I was able to finish the obstacle.  The Spear Throw was around here I believe.  I am thankful that I did track and field in high school as I nailed the spear throw so hard I heard a loud THUNK with my throw.  The volunteer at the obstacle yelled out "NICE" after which was a confidence boost. 

The Bender was around this point.  The horizontal bars that were several feet off the ground and tilted like the inverted wall where slick with mud, but overall not very difficult.  There were several barbwire crawls at this point.  I feel that they weren't separated as different obstacles, but all lumped together even though other obstacles separated them. Like the hurdles and the slip wall.  The slip wall was mixed up as there were only short one or two foot ropes at the very top.  I was able to run up the wall and grab the rope fairly easy, but I then turned and while holding the rope dropped my hand down to help my sister up.  It was a difficult maneuver as it stretched my cross body pull strength to the limit, but we were able to do it.  I stayed and helped several others before moving on. 

After another barbwire crawl the final obstacle was the Twister.  I had seen video's of this obstacle, but never attempted.  I knew the general idea and thankfully my grip strength was back in form.  The twisting of the handles took some getting used to, but once a rhythm was made it was easy pickings.  I had seen others complain about the Twister tearing up hands, but I was confident in my hand and callus care that I wouldn't have the problem.  After finishing the obstacle I looked at my hands and were shocked at first to see they were completely BLACK?  I have no idea why they were black as the handles didn't feel like they were coated in anything, but I also noticed that I had a large tear on my left hand.

It wasn't the worse tear I had ever had, but the first since the November Sacramento Sprint and I started truly taking care of my hands.  I was shocked, but it didn't stop me from jumping over the fire jump and finishing the race. 

Last Impression: In the end my sister, nephew and I all felt that the Beast wasn't as difficult as we had all thought it was going to be.  The running and the hills made it difficult, but with good hill training and keeping up with your nutrition that problem is fairly negated.  The other thing we felt was that with the large running gaps between obstacles you had plenty of time to rest the muscle groups that you used.  I actually almost find the Sprint races more difficult as they are jam packed with obstacles and very little running in between that you don't have nearly as much time to rest in between.  I feel that for the Super distance I should go burpee free, but the Sprint course I am much less confident as I am not sure I'll have the grip and muscular endurance to go burpee free.

In the end I had a great time and felt like this length is a good length of a race.  I am excited to try the Super course and see I feel the same about that length or if it feels short or what.  The Sprint races are probably the most popular, but after doing a Beast I feel that they are almost the most difficult as well.  I had a blast and will totally be doing another next year.

Motivation 05/01/2017