Sunday, September 24, 2017

Rugged Maniac New England 2017

If you ask people in the OCR space what their first obstacle course race was, often the answer will be Rugged Maniac. A New England based company with their first-ever race in nearby Southwick, Massachusetts, made it big on Shark Tank, and now has races across the country.


I came to run Rugged Maniac this year in a somewhat surprising way -- because of work. While the NE Spahtens sent a nice contingent to Rugged Maniac, and I formally sign-up with the team (and socialized with them before and after the race), my invite to run Rugged came from the head strength and conditioning coach at Amherst College. As a result, my first even Rugged Maniac was in the company of fellow Amherst College employees -- both Coach and the Chief of Police (the latter of whom was kind enough to drive us to and from Southwick in his ultra-cool orange Mini convertible!).

Rugged Maniac is a 5K course, and this Sunday's race fit this expectation measuring in at 3.5 miles. The race is a fun OCR and thus is only clock timed and features obstacles more focused on fun than intensive physical challenge. That being said, you can absolutely challenge yourself at this race. It's 3.5 miles of running at a motocross. The entire course lacks the huge climbs of a mountain, but running up and down the motocross mounds is no joke when it comes to cardio.

We arrived in Southwick at the venue at a little after 9:00 a.m. and in plenty of time for our 10:00 a.m. start. Parking was onsite and cost $10. It was about a two minute walk from the car to the main festival area, where check-in was a snap. I showed my waver and ID and got a bib (for photos -- no timer, as you may recall) and a finishers t-shirt.

The festival area has about a half dozen vendors, bathrooms were plentiful, and there were nearby changing tents for post-race. Rugged had let the Spahtens set up a team tent. I headed over right away to say, "Hello" to folks and quickly change my shoes. Rugged utilizes both inflatables and lots of black tarps for water pits, so my regular Icebugs were out and my Reeboks were in. Fortunately, the Reeboks were the shoe for the right shoe for this race. They drained amazingly well, gave me enough traction on the dirt of the motocross, and mercifully did not cut up my heel this time, like they did at Savage Race. (The shorter distance may have been a factor here.)

At around 9:50 a.m., we headed over to the starting line, where we did something that I don't routinely do -- we lined up at the front. Note to self: Lining up at the start is awesome! The signal to go occurred, and I was able to head off at a good clip without having to weave around other racers. I love that everyone runs at their own speed but today at Rugged, I wanted to push to run as quickly as a could and as glad to be able to get in front of the group. This translated to zero waiting at any of the obstacles and an overall course time of 42:32 (12:09 minutes / mile), which I'm happy with for a course will obstacles and rolling hills.

As I've mentioned before the 3.5 mile course was spread over a motocross, which meant that we were constantly working our way up and down small hills. This was definitely a good deal of work, especially cardiovascularly, if you wanted to run the race. I kept up a good pace, especially in the first mile as I tried to keep up with Coach, but he was too fast, and in the second mile, I definitely lost him. (Note: Coach finished in around 37 minutes and Chief finished in 51 minutes, so I was in the middle with my 42 minutes. Not bad.)


The obstacles at Rugged Maniac were fun. Water crawl abounded, but on a day with hot temperatures -- it was in the mid-70s even at 10:00 a.m. -- water was welcome. There were over 25 obstacles in all and while the challenge level was modest, there were some really fun inflatables, two great slides, and a few innovative obstacles -- think trampolines -- that I hadn't seen before. Here's the breakdown as best as I can recall:

1. Quad Burners: Quick rolling hills in rapid succession. 
2. Barricades: A short wall -- think 4'. At the top, there was a rolling piece of pipe to add some interest.
3. Jacob's Ladder: Ladder wall.
4. Guillotine: This was interesting! Think of the walls that people on American Ninja Warrior have to lift and then roll under. This was like that.
5. Jump Start: Another ladder wall but this time with a traditional wall below, causing racers to have to jump to grab the first rung.
6. The Trenches: Three or four trenches in succession. For best result, I tried to jump over as many as I could.
7. Swing shot: For this obstacle, you had to grab a bar and swing across water the other side. I actually had a bit of a mishap on this obstacle, landing wrong on the dismount and twisting my right ankle. This had me limping along to the next few obstacles, after which, I was able to shake things out and get back to running along with a more normal stride.
8. Claustrophobia: Crawl through covered trenches. These were tall enough, I could almost walk through very bent over for speed. 
9. The Gauntlet: Very interesting. We had to run across a floating pad on the water and try to avoid swinging bags. A balance challenge to be sure.
10. Pull Your Weight: This was a hoist with a chain on the end. It was no problem, even for me, in terms of weight.
11. Tipping Point: Two sets of teeter totters.
12. Frog Hop: Another interesting one, where you had to jump from floating platform to floating platform without falling off. Another balance challenge.
13. Fenced In: Racers had to crawl through a water obstacle that was covered with a fence. This reminded me of  a similar obstacle at Tough Mudder, though with more clearance and with shallower water.


14. The Crag: In Rugged's words, "To conquer The Crag you have to climb steep inflatable cliffs and then squeeze your way through the logs on top before climbing down the other side." This was a fun one! The logs at the top did require some maneuvering to get through.
15. Antigravity: Trampolines! Racers had to jump there way along a pair of trampolines to a wall where you climbed up and over.
16. Bang the Gong: This obstacle required jumping to hit a gong suspended over water. They were high, and I totally had no chance, but I did get to cool off.
17. Pack Mule: This was a short carry with a 25 or 50 lb. Wreck Bag.
18. Accelerator: The first of two water slides, and it was a fast one!
19. Commando Crawl: A barbed wire crawl through water.
20. Pipe Dream: Crawl through a large pipe.
21. Pyromaniac: This was one of the best fire jumps I've seen! It was not one but three and they were all really blazing. Fingers crossed for an epic picture. Eh, I am squinting too much -- need my glasses. 


22. The Ringer: This was a set of rings over a water pit. The rings were quite tall, almost out of reach, but rings are my jam, and there was no way I was missing these. I barely reached the first and started kipping until I got a good swing going and was able to make it across.
23. Head Scratcher: A barbed wire crawl through water.
24. Leap of Faith: This was jump a jump into water, but it was no high -- just at ground level.
25. Let's Cargo: An a-frame cargo climb.
26. The Warped Wall / Mount Maniac / Accelerator 2.0: This was a multi-part obstacle right at the finish line. I ran up the warped wall and was grabbed and pulled over my a team that I had been exchanging places with for the last mile. Nice guys. From there, it was up a quick inflatable ladder and down another water slide that took me to the finish line.


I tried to push myself with the running as much as possible today. In the hot weather, it definitely allowed me to create a challenge of a course that featured fun and manageable obstacles. My verdict. If you're looking to introduce a friend to OCR, Rugged Maniac will be a great choice. It's fun and friendly. It won't scare them away and at the same time offers a fun change of pace for a regular racers. If you want to push yourself you can. It's a runners' course, so allow this to be a time to work on speed and cardio. Rugged was a fun time -- I liked the opportunity to work on my running, partake of OCR with some new folks, and enjoy some wacky inflatable obstacles. Do it again? Sure!