OCR World Championships Ok so here goes… Going to USA for OCR World Championships was an awesome experience and a real eye opener for us South Africans! I just firstly want to thank those who helped make this possible: STA Travel, Portable Shade, PURE Nutrition Technology, Inov-8, Jeep, Dax Martin and then Pieter and Carli Swart for taking me along and keeping the trip exciting!! Also Jean-Pierre Nortje for ensuring I was trained and ready and my parents for everything you’ve done to help prepare throughout my younger years of life… The Trip was really an experience I will never forget, we landed in Washington DC and roadtriped down to Masson Ohio where we stayed in anticipation for the race, the roadtrip was definitely a highlight as we got to see parts of America you don’t usually see, even some jeeptracks through the forests!! But wont bore you to much with the trip… Race Day Location: Kings Domain, Origonia, Ohio Distance: 14,08km Vertical Assent: 800m Shoes: Inov-8 Bare Grip 200 Tights: Dax Martin Compression gear The day started with the Elite batches going off at 8:00, this was really exciting to watch as we saw the best in the world bash it out with most of our athletes finishing right up there! My race (18-24 age group) started at 11:00 with 36 guys surrounding me from all over the world to compete for the title of OCR World Champion. The race started with a big bang, giving us all a fright, sending us off on the 14km course. The first section was fast and not to hilly with an American taking the lead, I was in second behind him with the eventual winner from Sweden behind me, after about 1,5km we were back at the start/finish area to complete some of the harder spectator obstacles. These were nothing to serious compared to our South African obstacles and were completed uneventfully, after this is where the fun was just beginning… The next 12km was really tough! We were running through the forests on the side of a mountain, more like a cliff at places, crossing rivers and running up ravines. Along the way there were plenty of natural obstacles we had to cross like low logs, running in the river, crawling under barbed wire (sometimes for 100m at a time), carrying wreck bags, tires and buckets all while having to take on their infamous climbs. It was on these steep muddy assents and decents where the Swedish athlete passed me, being very fast on the technical running he was able to pull a bit of a gap. After about 10km he caught the American in 1st with me being about a minute and a half behind them seeing them at the top of hills when I was at the bottom or at the end of bucket carry when I was starting. After a very steep muddy climb there was another one of the harder obstacles called Weaver, this is where I caught the American and overtook him (he couldn’t complete the obstacle due to his legs cramping up). The rest of the race was running in the river and a few more really steep climbs, with one needing a rope to get you to the top, this is where we got to the awesome 70m slip and slide!! After the slide I was about 1min behind the leader and was trying hard to catch him with about 700m to go and a few obstacles still to go, I made up quite a lot of time in another wreck bag (25kg sandbag) carry and did the next few with no problem but ended up finishing just behind him in a time of 1:38:57 just 4 seconds behind the leader. This was an awesome event with some very new elements for us South Africans to experience! Not knowing the strengths of your competitors or the terrain to be raced on were some of the main things for me... The terrain covered on the race was amazing, unlike anything we have in South Africa but although it was very tough it was awesome to run on. The race organisation, marshals and route marking as great! With the obstacles I loved the variety and large number of obstacles, just think that the harder obstacles should definitely have had different routes/rules between the men and women as its not fair for the elite men to be competing against each other on the ladies obstacles as then they arnt challenging enough. It was an awesome event and really loved every minute of it, especially that slide!!! Really looking forward to next year :D
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 09:54:46 +0000
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