Obstacle Running Adventures

It's that time for New England to get savage again!  Mike woke at 6:15am and drove to Carter  and Stevens Farm in Barre, MA to cover the Savage Race Boston and as always he didn't regret it! He interviewed a bunch of elite athletes as well as the vendors who were there to support the event!   Savage Race has been one of our favorite OCRs since before they even came to New England with us only miss...

We drove the 3 hours to Greenville, NY to cover the Ultra Viking 8 Hour (Northeast Ultra Cup Finale)/ Final Raid/ whatever we called their last event ! The race director Asa Coddington aka OCR Yoda has been a prominant member in the OCR  community here in the northeast so it was a big blow that he announced that his last event would been this year.  Known for very difficult and historic obstacles,...

There was the final race in the Spartan USNS Series but there was also an athlete who ran Savage Chicago who I wanted to have on the show.  Mike put it up as a poll and Savage won with 62% (67% at the time he reached out)! Due to this Katelyn reached out and interviewed Kaeley Wynsma who just won Savage Chicago!   You may be familiar with Kaeley 's name due to us reading podium results in quick ne...

We had the winner of Spartan Ultra World Championships on the show, Luca Pescollderungg ! We talk about his background in the sport, his thoughts on being one of the best climbers in the sport of OCR, his other races that he focuses on, how the Spartan Ultra World Championships went, how he feels being both a World and a European champion, what is next for him, and much more! Be sure to follow him...

This week Katelyn talks to Chennell Berg , the first place female finisher at War X . Chennell talks about her life on her cattle ranch, the evolution of her training, becoming a runner and what her experience was like taking first place at War X last weekend (Spoiler: It was her first ever first place finish). She talks about the importance of having her mom's support at her OCR events. Chennell...

A few weeks ago Italy hosted the OCR European Championships !  While it can be difficult to have European athletes on the show due to frequent difficulties such as time zones and language barriers, the effort is worth it due to the abundance of talent that they have overseas! This time we had the privilege to speak to Dutch athlete Stijn Lagrand !  He is no stranger to doing well in elite OCR even...

Mike was able to return to Citi Field for coverage of the Spartan Stadium (still refuse to say Stadion), only this time he was able to run it as well which he has been wanting to do over a decade now! Without Katelyn helping, coverage ability was more limited but there is still a pretty good episode put together for you with 16 athletes and 6 vendors interviewed along with some start line audio to...

We all know Mike loves a good small local race so we drove down to the Gaylord Gauntlet to experience and cover it for the first time! This race is 3.3 miles long with mud and over 20 obstacles.  We knew that the venue was a hospital but we had no idea the extent to which the event has benefitted members of the adaptive community for the past 10 years. In the last decade the Gaylord Gauntlet 5k ha...

In the past we interviewed Des Linden when her book "Choosing to Run" and doing so opened up options for future book related interviews! Gwendolyn Bound 's publicist, Brianna Kusilek, reached out to us back in April but it took us a while to find a time to release a potential episode with her.  Luckily we made room this week and Katelyn interviewed her for the show! Katelyn and Gwendolyn talk abou...

We had yet another MudGear-Hannibal Race Pro Team athlete on the show, Vivien Tran ! We have been keeping an eye on her as an athlete ever since she joined their team and we have not been disappointed.  Some accomplishments are winning a Savage Race Axe, a Spartan Race , doing well in the Spartan US National Series , and achieving podium placements at many local events such as Abominable Snow Race...

When Hawk Call started getting into some big Spartan Races a few years ago it got a lot of us who have been in the sport for a long time pretty excited!  This is because many of us remember his father Hobie who is almost always in the conversation of who historically is one of the best men in the sport of OCR. Hawk is his own own athlete though, and I didn't want to have him on the show just to ta...

Evan Perperis is no stranger to the show due to his frequent appearances at our favorite OCR event to cover every year (World's Toughest Mudder), as well as our interest in his ultra OCR fundraising efforts over the years! We discuss his milestone of achieving 100 OCR podiums , which podiums stood out to him the most over the years, how the recent Toughest Mudder East went along with the new chang...

We have been aware of Noel Medina and his sweat checks for a while now but it was him joining the MudGear-Hannibal Race Pro Team that really got our attention! There wasn't good timing to have him on the show before now but when we saw that he was traveling to the Ultra House in Durango, CO to train with Anthony Kunkle we figured it was a great opportunity to learn more about him and plans moving...

We were unsure as to what to do for this week's episode until we saw a post in the Southern Spartans Facebook Group about a guy who had just completed 400 Spartan Races ! His name is Tom Maming and I was excited to reach out to have him on the show to hear more about him, his achievement, and what he has planned for the future. We discuss how he first got into OCR, Pinoy OCR, #eatmorerice, favorit...

Once again, we just had the third New England OCR Expo and it is easily the most involved Mike has been!  In 2020 we were just vendors with a table, last year Mike helped with getting athletes to show up and give short talks.  This year Mike was on the board, attended biweekly meetings for months, and worked to help get more vendors and sponsors out to the event! We are splitting up content from t...

It's the third New England OCR Expo that has been put on and it is easily the most involved Mike has been!  In 2020 we were just vendors with a table, last year Mike helped with getting athletes to show up and give short talks.  This year Mike was on the board, attended biweekly meetings for months, and worked to help get more vendors and sponsors out to the event! We are splitting up content from...

Mike finally traveled to New York to participate in and cover Obstacle Wonderland's Boogie Wonderland Event ! Wanting to both support a small northeast race and get some good mileage in, Mike registered for the 6 hour race.  He ran 3 laps, interviewed the 3 hour finisher athletes with some midrace brain fog, ran another lap, interviewed the 6 hour finisher athletes while freezing in the windy cold...

Back in the day Spartan Stadium races were our favorite to both run and cover as media.  We remember seeing a large man in a clown mask doing well at most of the events that we went to.  Over more recent years Kevin Gregory/Bubbles the Clowne has grown to be even more of a threat in the hybrid racing scene! Kevin has also become a friend of the show, as well as Mike 's coach for about a year.  Mik...

just a totAlly normal ePisode, Really nothIng to see here. compLetely normal! 0:00 – 6:56 – Intro 6:56 – 14:07 – Quick News 14:07 – 14:13 – Content Preface 14:13 - 15:23 - Interview with Timber and Appa 15:23 - End – Outro Next episode is planned to be coverage of the Deka Strong at Underdog Fitness, home of Kevin Gregory aka Bubbles the Clowne (well not actual home but you know what we mean)! ___...

We haven't done one of these episodes in a while, and we were totally okay with that! With recent changes in the industry (unfortunately most being negative), we wanted to have an episode where we share our thoughts and feelings on some events that are not with us anymore like Warrior Dash and Rugged Maniac or have extremely unclear futures like Terrain Race and Bonefrog . The videos referenced we...

Paul Lachance recently ran his 200th Spartan Race at the age of 82 this caught The OCR Report 's attention for a post which then caught our eye for a potential episode. We were excited to reach out to him both for the impressive accomplishment, and because he represents a unique age demographic who take on OCR.  Older OCR athletes have always been inspirational to us but we haven't had an episode...

We have been wanting to have Alisa Petrova on the show for a while now with us first reaching out to her back in December 2022 to talk about the Spartan World Championships that year!  Her being 9 hours ahead of us made it pretty difficult to plan a good time to record but it was worth recording at 5am our time to finally have her on the show! Alisa talks about how she wasn't medically allowed to...

This week Katelyn sat down with Hannah Franciosa ! They talked about  Hannah 's exerience both as a special education teacher, as well as a substitute teacher. She shares about being coached by Kirk DeWindt and what a typical training week looks like for her. Hannah also discusses her experinces with completing ultras, marathons, rucks, hurricane heats, and her recent podium at the first race of t...

Another episode idea from my episode ideas list was to focus on another demographic in the sport that deserves more attention and support and to do this we had Heather Jo Cox from Grey Betties on the show! We discuss how she found the sport, her background with roller derby as well as body building, and all about the Grey Betties which is a team created for 40+ year old women in sport to both crea...

Something that we have had on our potential future episode list for a long time is an episode on adaptive athletes in the sport of OCR.  Once I started looking, it seemed like Andy Reid was the man to have on the show to talk about it.  He is the founder of OCR Adaptive Athletes and has created a community on facebook to suport each other and to reach out to various countries around to world to tr...