Events

There's been some discussion recently regarding the Virginia Super Spartan...a commentor on one particular web site that I follow referred to it as complaining.  Sorry, but I don't necessarily think that just because you share your experiences with others that it should be considered "complaining".

I've posted before on Event Flavors, and I've had a lot of friends ask me, "Which is harder...the Spartan or the Tough Mudder?"  I don't think that's an apples-to-apples comparison, really, because each event has their own "flavor".  For example, what first drew me to these events was the Tough Mudder's "no participant left behind" approach...not everyone is going to be an expert at every obstacle, and some folks may need help.  And at some point along the course, you may need help, as well.  I love the challenge and the idea of enduring through the challenge with others.  Remember, the Tough Mudder doesn't have timing chips, and they tell you from the very beginning, it's not about your time.  The first event that I ran, I found it harder to help 4 or 5 people get up the Everest obstacle than it was for me to do it.  A lot of these events require a great deal of pulling strength to get over obstacles, and you can really get a good push workout helping people over walls.

The Spartan Race has a different flavor.  The obstacles are different, for the most part.  Take the monkey bars for example...at the Super Spartan this passed weekend, the bars were all horizontal, with only about 9 rungs.  I saw women whip through it, and I saw dudes fall off at the second rung.  At the Tough Mudder, there is an incline that you have to climb up, a nice sized gap to cross, and then a decline to come down.  The first time I did the Tough Mudder, the bars you grabbed had a larger cross section than most monkey bars, they were wet and muddy, and they rotated...they weren't secured so that when you grabbed them, they didn't move.  You grabbed them, they rotated and instead of hanging on by the meat of your hand, you had just your fingers.  The Savage Race this passed summer added a twist by having a saw tooth in the middle of the monkey bars.

Now, the night before the Super Spartan, at dinner, a participant was pontificating on events, saying that the Spartan events are for "elite" athletes, and the Tough Mudder and the Warrior Dash are for folks who want to party.  This may be one man's view, but I tend to think that not only does each event have it's own flavor, but what each participant brings to the event is different.  Some folks run as individuals, others will only run with a team.  Some go out with little preparation, others dedicate significant time, effort and resources to their training.  Some create mock-ups of the obstacles that they see so that they can develop their technique, and others simply take each obstacle as they come.

Every event has a different flavor, and every event is approached differently by those who participate.  I think that the best you can do with respect to comparisons is to look at one runner's approach to two different events.

On a side note, I did pick up The New Wave of OCR's post recently, and I have got to tell you, I think that this is great.  This is NOT a saturated market, not by a long shot.  In fact, I really think that even with all of the different types of events that we're seeing out there, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I really hope that this continues for a long time.  I'd like to get to the point where, when I'm to the point where I'm not jumping off of something, I'm cheering on my grandchildren as they do so.

To demonstrate how much room remains in the OCR market, here is the link to the MudRunGuide's list of races and events in Virginia.  I checked the site just before 9am, EST, on 26 August 2013, and the event that I'm looking at doing on 14 Sept isn't even listed.  My point is that there are so many of these events, and so many different types, that we don't even have web sites yet that consolidate all of the scheduled events for a particular area.