The venue.
This is a permanent obstacle course located in the lush green hills of Oregonia, Ohio. Saturday's race covered about 5 miles through the woods and hills of King's Domain - a privately owned youth camp. The location is beautiful. Parking was about 5-10 minutes by a shuttle bus (which was running about every 5 minutes). The check-in was quick and painless. It was well organized and efficient. I think there were around 400 participants.
The course.
Hills, hills, and more hills. Although I am only a recreational OCR-er, I have run a few different Spartan courses and a number of local trail races. This was by far the most challenging course I have ever done in terms of terrain. I haven't done the Spartan courses in Vermont, but I'd guess (from what I've read) this may be similar in terms of hilliness.
The obstacles really made this race stand out as well. There were some unique variations of OCR staples: For example...a mud crawl under electrified tape instead of barbed wire (I got zapped once - it was enough to make me stay loooow for the rest of the crawl); a huge set of monkey bars that descended and then ascended quite a ways; a military style weaver obstacle, a high up and over structure climb (20' - 30'), a high vertical wall (9' or 10' - not sure, but it certainly seemed like 10' at the time); and an obstacle called the sternum checker - a jump from one horizontal log to another (several feet) higher horizontal log where the object was to get over the top of the second log - this one left me with more than memories, especially the left side of my rib cage. Some of the hills were so steep that a rope assist was needed - I'd guess a couple of them were at an angle of 60 degrees or greater. Pinnacle hill, the last big climb of the course, was about 100-200 feet of rope-assisted near-vertical climb - a grueling whole-body challenge after almost 5 miles of punishing course and obstacles. The final "obstacle" was a water slide - a little fun to finish the race. There were plenty of other challenging natural and man made obstacles placed nicely throughout the course.
The course was designed in 5 stages - with the option to "finish" at the end of any one of the stages - making it scalable for any fitness level. There were water stations at the end of each stage as well. There was also an open family course, which I ran twice with my younger 7 year-old son...a beautiful way to "cool down" after the race.
The competition.
Some of the top OCR competitors in the world were at Saturday's Race. Most notably the male and female winners, Junyong Pak and Amelia Boone. The elite and competitive heats were full of serious racers, but as usual, the OCR culture of helping other racers through the course was alive and well with this group. The race itself was a qualifier for the OCR World Championships, which will be held at the same venue on a modified, longer version of the same course in October 2014. There is another Mud Guts and Glory race scheduled for August 16, 2014 - a final opportunity to run the course before the world championships.
Overall impression.
The volunteers and staff were great. The grounds and festival area was spacious and clean. The facilities were close to the action. The spectator area was close to some of the action, but like many OCRs, much of the course was in the woods not accessible to spectators. If this race explodes in terms of participants, they will need to expand and streamline the administration and support very quickly. It was exceptionally well-designed for 500 or fewer, but not for thousands.
This was the most fun I've had out of the half dozen or so OCRs I've done (I think I can speak for my son on this as well). Apart from the usual huge blessing of being able to line up and run with my son, it was also the most challenging and prettiest course we've run to date. If you're looking for something challenging and a little different in terms of an OCR, this is it. There are even on-site accommodations and camping. I highly recommend adding this race to your calendar.
