Review - Monster OCR
I ran the first 5km of this OCR in Oxfordshire as a group with some OCR virgins and the second 5km lap solo. This gave me the opportunity to try out the course for fun and different levels of experience as well as for speed.
The event is held in a variety of locations, I ran Oxfordshire's Cornbury Park with it's wonderful undulating gentle hills.
I really rate this OCR. It feels like it is run by people with experience of what we all want. The obstacles were big enough to challenge, but with easier options to feel achievable for all. I take my hat off to the organizers for providing one of each of the classic OCR obstacles (except monkey bars). The result was a smoothly run, fast paced run with plenty of good use of the hilly terrain and lots of laughs. The competitors seemed to be mostly larger groups of charity runners, this didn't feel like a championship course, more like a fun day out.
OBSTACLE RATING: 7/10
I've given this a higher score to reflect the clever layout including pretty much one of everything, getting progressively harder obstacles once you have warmed up on the lovely long hill start. The score was impacted by the limited amount of work upper body.
Some of the obstacles:
Meatgrinder - tyres to crawl through
Bag drop - inflatable bag to land on when you jump from the platform
Mud crawls - deep mud with tape or barb wire above
Walls - a variety of some with foot holds and some without. Options of heights to challenge all levels of competitor
A-frames - some domed, some pointed, all of sufficient height to entertain
Wooden structures to climb up inside - of a wonderful height
Water plunge - one swimming, one chest height
Raft jump - jump from one raft to next to cross lake
Weight pull - pulley system with a kettle bell on the end with 2 different weights
Good use of terrain
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: 5/10
Nice challenging obstacles with easy options available. Good use of hills.
MUD RATING: 4/10
Some mud to thigh height, plenty of water to wash it off before the end. What can I say, superb planning!
ORGANISATION LEVEL: 10/10
Well done. Couldn't fault the excellent course and venue layout, marshaling, course marking, & communications. Speedy too, the results & free photos were out the next day!
Summary: If you want to try an OCR, this should be it. If you are an experienced OCR competitor you may wish to look elsewhere for a trickier course, but if you are going to do this with mates in the sunshine, it is a definite contender. All 6 of us said we would run this course again - says a lot!
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