This was my first obstacle course race (OCR), ever.

I had not heard about the Rugged Maniac before this year. I found out about in my email, as I subscribe to Living Social deals. They were offering a discounted entry. I had already set out at the beginning of 2016 that I would complete my first OCR, and this one was set in Cloverdale (a borough of Surrey, about a 40 minute drive outside of Vancouver, Canada).

I knew that there would be obstacles and I knew there would be mud and I knew that it was 5 kilometres.

I had not trained specifically for the race however, I had been running consistently since April, three times a week. I took up indoor rock climbing in February, specifically to improve my upper body strength and agility, in anticipation for a race that I did not know existed yet! REALLY! I was also weight training at a local community centre gym, twice a week. So, I felt like I would be in pretty decent condition to complete the event. The caveat that sealed the deal for me was that we could skip obstacles, unless you were running in the elite category. Not exactly knowing what I was in for, this was relieving news for a first timer.

It was CRAZY HOT that day, 34 degrees C, so I relished getting wet because then as I ran, I would dry off and cool down a bit. I finished in a time of 1:15, which I thought was pretty good. The obstacles were super fun – some were more challenging than others, and I needed help with one at the end, which was what looked like a quarter pipe that you had to run up and jump up onto a shipping container. Sure, I had been training my upper body but I had not trained myself to run vertically or get enough momentum to jump and hang on and then hoist myself up! Thankfully, a few people stuck around and grabbed my arms when I leaped up and they pulled me up and over.

The race was lots of fun! As soon as I got the link to register for the event next year, I registered immediately! Turns out in 2017, the race is the day after my birthday, a month earlier in July.

I certainly feel like this race is great for beginners in obstacle course racing. I wore road runners and got away with it because most of the mud is water trenches – you can walk through most of them and hit mostly solid ground beneath you. There were over 20 obstacles and it felt like at least 30-50% of them involved wading through or landing in one of the water trenches. The water slide at the end was definitely the most fun!! The finish line was not much farther than the slide.

Here are some pro race pics taken by GameFace Media.

Here are some pics and video I captured:

This is the slide at the end

This was the entrance

This was the fire you had to jump over before running up that quarter pipe obstacle

This was the beer garden at the end. 🙂

And my before and after race shot