Obstacle Running Adventures

A couple episodes ago we mentioned how Christian Brown-Johnson successfully achieved the World Record for fastest cumulative 50Ks on all 7 continents in 7 days! Before that, when he was on the show back in February to talk about Hannibal Race he hinted to this challenge.

We discuss what made him want to take on such a worldwide challenge, his training in the pistachio orchard, why he chose his fundraising attempts to benefit the Michael J Fox Foundation, the various 50Ks on each continent, and much more!

Please consider donating to his fundraising page (I just did...

DEKA World Championships took place in Fort Lauderdale, FL this past weekend and while we focus on being an OCR podcast, this event has my interest every year!

Since we didn't fly down to cover it in person (someday!), we looked for an athlete to have on the show to talk about their experience. It didn't take long to pick Brooklyn Nichols as our potential guest as she had an incredible race weekend being the first elite to win all events, especially in an increasingly stacked field!

We talk about her background in sport and...

We talked about the Taco Bell 50K in Colorado as a quick news story but then another one happened in Washington DC and I wanted to have someone on the show to talk about it!

Carlo Piscitello noticed that MaryJane Osuji was taking on the challenge and suggested that she would be a good potential guest to talk about the experience. We met her at World's Toughest Mudder earlier this year, we liked her, and so we immediately reached out to have her back on the show!

We talk about her background in OCR, what...

Katelyn talks to Kris Mendoza about his first place finish at the SLO CAL Spartan Ultra. His potential return to OCR - including the Killington Ultra and World's Toughest Mudder. They talk about his journey to becoming a dental anesthesiologist. Katelyn also asks Kris a round of rapid fire questions that include his go to karaoke song, his favorite ice cream and more!

Start – 2:59 – Intro

2:59 – 6:20 – Quick News

6:20 – 7:42 – Content Preface

7:42 – 1:53:18 - Kris Mendoza Interview

1:53:18 – End – Outro

Next weekend we will likely be having a returning guest in the same year which we...

Katelyn talks with Erica Jackman as she prepares to host her first ever chapter of Rucksgiving in Providence, Rhode Island! Listen to Erica and Katelyn talk about the importance of supporting local food banks and giving back to communities. Erica shares tips about Rucking and even gives a sneak peak into the velcro patch for completing this 9 mile rucking event!

Be sure to check out her rucksgiving event or a more local one to yourself and consider supporting in whatever way you can!

Start – 3:32 – Intro

3:32 – 9:10 – Quick News

9:10 – 10:16 – Content Preface

10:16 – 32:33 - Erica Jackma...

It has been a while since we've had the man who got us into rucking on the show and Jason Dupree was talking about how he would be live streaming his 24 hour rucking world record attempt!

I reached out to Mark Jones after his success because I wanted to catch up with him to talk about his adding rucking to DEKA events, his world record performance, and to hear about the Oscar Mike annual ball!

Be sure to follow Mark on Instagram, consider rucking a DEKA event, and support Oscar Mike!

Start – 2:47 – Intro

Savage Race reportedly had their best turn out to a race in the past 5 years! The elite side had a pretty great turn out with an increased payout at the event and when I saw that Tyler Veerman won, I knew that I wanted to have him on the show again!

We first met and interviewed him after he won the 15K at OCRWC, had dinner with him in Palmerton after the 3K, and have crossed paths with him at WTM a few times and he has always seemed like a nice guy.

We talk...

We have been wanting to do another episode with Jason Dupree ever since he started carrying North American OCR and hybrid live streams on his back!

We may be a bit bias because we have been friends with Jason for many years now but we don't believe he gets half of the credit that he deserves for what he does for both sports.

We discuss how he started live streaming these sports, how much money we are making/losing from this pursuit, how you can help support the live stream, his rebranded OCR Tech Talk...

Libbie Joyce has been in the sport of obstacle course racing for a long time and has been seen as a great hope for the future of the sport (no pressure)!

We had the chance to briefly meet her at World's Toughest Mudder where she helped rabbit the event helping The OCR Report. We explained that we have been wanting to have her on the show for a while and were looking for a time in the future to set it up. That time ended up being this weekend!

Hear us discuss her background in...

We went to Colorado for a wedding (congratulations Mike and Kierstin!) and wanted to cram in as much sightseeing as possible. We weren't able to go to the Red Rocks on Saturday due to an event but luckily Katelyn saw that the following day had the Run the Rocks 5K that we could participate in!

A quick Target trip later we were mostly ready to take on the event at 6,000 feet. It was a fun event fueled by great music and it was also for a great cause with it supporting the American Lung Association in Colorado...

We had the pleasure of meeting Alex Katz while working at the New England OCR Expo and loved learning about Neighborhood Ninjas and their incredible mission. Alex recently reached out to let us know about an upcoming event being held at Ultimate Obstacles which is the same venue where we've hosted the Expo for the past few years!

Neighborhood Ninjas is currently running their Pull-Ups for Playgrounds Fundraiser through the month of October. It concludes on November 1st with the aforementioned event at Ultimate Obstacles to take on the 10-minute pull-up challenge live! You'll also get to...

The FISO OCR World Championships recently had their 3rd event weekend in Sweden this year and by all accounts it was the best one by far!

This is admittely a low bar due to overflowing portopotties in Belgium and many obstacles not being built in Costa Rica, etc. However, by working alongside the Tough Viking crew they had plenty of experience to put on a proper word championship event!

Two members of USAOCR, Vivien Tran and Kevin Thompson, wanted to come on the show to talk about their experience at the event, differences from previous...

Spartan Trifecta World Championship took place a week before Spartan Pan American Championship and there was a badass woman who won both events!

It's been a couple years since we have had Annie Dube on the show and I figured this would be a great time to reach back out and catch up on how life has been going!

We talk about her overcoming injuries, becoming a firefighter, the community reaction to her returning to the sport, what made her register for these events, how it feels to be the champion of both despite some...

Rylan Schadegg was a beloved member of both the OCR and hybrid racing communities! Our paths had crossed numerous times during our coverage of obstacle course racing and he stood out as always being very kind and respectful. We were devastated to hear the news of his passing and we wanted to do something for those that loved him.

We first had him on the show in September 2022 after winning the Spartan North American Championship but we had the chance to meet him and having him on the show in person at both OCRWC and the Spartan...

Rea Kolbl put out a post about doing her first Spartan Race since 2022 in her home country of Slovenia. In that post she expressed interest in potentially taking on the Spartan Ultra World Championships in the future but also disappointment in Spartan's continued broken promises regarding owed money!

We reached out to have her talk more about her feelings behind that post, more details of how her return to OCR went for her, how her life has changed since moving back to Europe, the various athletic persuits she has taken on, future plans, and much more!

We first met AJ Golik when we both taking on our first DEKA and covering the event at Underdog Fitness last year and more recently saw him at Belvoir Castle when he took on World's Toughest Mudder as a team with Kevin Gregory!

Katelyn and AJ discuss his experience at World's Toughest Mudder, both as a competitor and as a friend of the event's winner. AJ then shares about his time competing at Rally in the Valley, a multi-day, multi-event weekend held in West Virginia. The conversation then shifts to the challenges of making friends as adults...

It took quite a bit of rescheduling but we were finally able to have Mike Strobel on the show!

We talk about his background in sport, thoughts and experiences with adventure and hybrid racing, success with both the Spartan US National Series, World's Toughest Mudder, and more!

Be sure to follow Mike as he prepares for the Spartan Trifecta World Championship and more!

Start – 4:29 – Intro

4:29 – 12:03 – Quick News

12:03 – 12:30 – Content Preface

12:30 – 58:31 - Mike Strobel

58:31 – End – Outro

Next weekend we will be either the long awaited book interview or...

Back to Barre, MA yet again! With the venue being used for Battlefrog, Bonefrog, Savage Race, and Spartan Race, we have gone to over 20 obstacle races there now!

This trip we covered the event weekend with some finish line interviews from the Super on Saturday as well as the Teddy Bear Crawl and Sprint on Sunday. We also interviewed some of the vendors that took the time to come out to the event.

See time stamps below to see who we talked to!

Start – 6:04 – Intro

6:04 – 10:07 – Quick News

10:07 – 10:45 – Content Preface

10:45...

Just like the course prior to midnight, you thought you knew what was in store for you for our World's Toughest Mudder coverage this year! However the COO of Tough Mudder and Spartan makes an appearance similar to the Killa Gorilla reveal! Idk, still workshopping that comparitive joke.

Giles answers questions related to staff pressure, course set up, obstacle changes, penalty difficulty, and much more WTM related questions as well as some comments related to owed prize money, the Spartan Ultra World Championship location, and maybe OCRWC?

Prior to this actual final part of our...

After hearing I Am A Spartan's episode talking about the Spartan Para Championship down in Orlando, Florida I figured that it would be really cool to hear from an athlete who plans to participate!

Katelyn brought up Amy Haskell who we met along with her husband Andy through working on the New England OCR Expo

Katelyn talks with Amy Haskell, who is getting ready to participate in the Spartan Para Championship! Amy shares how she has built a team of incredible and supportive athletes to suport her during the championship, and shares about the everyday...

I had a few things planned that didn't work out yet but I went through my episode plans and bumped a future episode idea up earlier.

I have wanted to have Jeff Moulton on the show for his own episode because our paths have crossed at the New England OCR Expo, WTM, and Spartan New Jersey Ultra! He seems like a great guy and I wanted to learn more about him, his history of body building, and hear about his performance training. When he became the owner of a gym in Connecticut it gave us all the...

World's Toughest Mudder is more than just the event itself, it continues to the Champion's Brunch run by TMHQ as well as the bar crawl put together by the community on Monday as well!

This episode covers the bar crawl with interviews with 15 members of the community as well as some drunk chaos in between!

Check out these YouTube videos for more WTM 2025 coverage!

All Obstacles Preview

WTM Live Stream Hours 1-8

WTM Live Stream Hours 8-16

WTM Live Stream Hours 16-24

WTM Live Award...

World's Toughest Mudder is more than just the event itself, it continues to the Champion's Brunch run by TMHQ as well as the bar crawl put together by the community on Monday as well!

This episode covers the brunch with interviews with 25 members of the community and audio from the hour and a half ceremony with the removal of a lot of the clapping and lulls in between!

Check out these YouTube videos for more WTM 2025 coverage!

All Obstacles Preview

WTM Live Stream Hours 1-8

WTM Live Stream Hours 8...

World's Toughest Mudder has found a great home at Belvoir Castle and as many of you know, this was Katelyn's first time running it!

Episodes with lap by lap pit audio have been a listener favorite feature for the past 8 1/2 years of the show (WTM 2017, 2018, 2019, Ode to Laz, etc.) and as soon as Katelyn registered for this in November, I knew that we would do it again!

In addition to the audio of her experience I also did some interviews with athletes before the race as well as interviews with almost every volunteer on course...

World's Toughest Mudder is tomorrow at Belvoir Castle and as many of you know, this will be Katelyn's first time running it!

We have been really busy with pit set up, OCR Report live stream assistance, and etc so we pivoted to a short discussion episode again, this time released as a rare early Friday release thanks to staying up late and very minimal editing!

Check out the below YouTube videos for more WTM coverage!

All Obstacles Preview

WTM Live Stream Hours 1-8

WTM Live Stream Hours 8-16

World's Toughest Mudder is next weekend at Belvoir Castle and as many of you know, this will be Katelyn's first time running it!

We have been really busy with Katelyn's last week of school, chaos at Mike's job, a wedding on Friday and our travel to England on Saturday so we pivoted to a short discussion episode!

The next few weeks will be packed with World's Toughest Mudder episodes so make sure you're subscribed for the best podcast coverage of this event!

Start – 4:30 – Intro

4:30 – 6:29 – Quick News

6:29 – 6:57 – Content Preface

6:57 – 28...

World's Toughest Mudder is almost upon us ... which is a very strange thing to say in June since it has always been in either December or November!

I met Wil Chung last year at WTM and discussed having him on the show to talk about the venue of Belvoir Castle since he has had a lot of experience there as a prominent member of the European TM community! I also wanted to have Fran Chiorando on as well since she lives with an American and is hyper aware of cultural differences and knows about my interest in...

We have heard about "Chainsaw Rick" for years but our paths had never crossed before with him mainly racing down south and us primarily running and covering the north. Between him dominating Hildervat podiums and his recent cancer diagnosis, we figured that we should go out of our way to change that!

We discuss the reason for his nickname, how he found the sport of OCR, his favorite moments in the sport, how Hildervat has changed over the years, his support of Lionhearts Fitness and the importance of their work, how he is handling his cancer diagnosis...

We have done OCR eulogy episodes in the past but never a eulogy episode on OCR podcasts!

Mike used his first hand experience, Podchaser, and his own podcast app to find as many podcasts as he could find whether dead or alive. He compiled the show names, descriptions, hosts, how many episodes released, date range of the show, and personal thoughts and experiences where applicable!

There are well over 50 OCR podcasts discussed but apologies if we missed some. We are a 2 person team and this took a pretty decent amount of time to put together...

With World's Toughest Mudder coming up soon and it being both the first time the event is taking place in Europe as well as Katelyn's first time tackling the event herself, we figured it would be a good time to both selflessly and selfishly have an episode focused on first timer questions!

Josh Fiore had been answering first timer questions on the WTM First Timer facebook group so we figured that he would be a great guest due to him being knowledgeable and has shown to take time out of his day to try to help those...

We admittedly haven't had any episodes covering the US Spartan National so far this year so we looked at the third of four series races which took place in Big Bear and decided to change that!

Mike first met Sabrina Buhagiar when doing finish line interviews at Spartan Citi Field last year, he saw her again preparing before we started the Spartan New Jersey Ultra last month! When he saw that she took a podium finish at a Spartan Series race he reached out to have her on the show to be a guest via an interview.<...

A benefit to reviewing the podiums for a variety of races during quick news each week is that is helps us keep a finger on the pulse of the change in the elite field in the sport!

A name that has popped up more frequently and especially recently with the Toughest Mudder Atlanta win was Charity Borne so we reached out to have her on the show and learn more about her!

Hear us discuss her being one of 11 kids, her brief background in track, how she found OCR, her love for CrossFit and hybrid...

When Mike was preparing to run his first Spartan Ultra he reached out to some elites to see who else would be there. Joe Rucco explained that he was going to miss it in order to take on Toughest Mudder Atlanta ... well, he won it!

We have had him on the show a few times in the past ranging from hybrid racing to World's Toughest Mudder and Spartan Stadium races but we never had him on for his own episode so we reached out to change that!

You'll hear him talk about how he found...

Part of being a weekly podcast and playing the role of media in a sport means that your own athletic goals need to be put more in the background (Jason Dupree doing live streams for The OCR Report, Brakken Krakker recording and producing The Running Public, Matt B Davis heading Hybrid Fitness Media, etc.). That being said, there are still a couple challenges left that Mike has been wanting to take on in the sport of OCR. One of them being wanting to try a Spartan Ultra Beast for the past 8 years, now just called the Spartan Ultra.

The New England OCR Expo returned for its 4th year and it was the second time being at the venue of Ultimate Obstacles!

Katelyn spent the whole time at our table trying to get some more people to follow our social media and subscribe to the show. Mike spent the entire event interviewing all the vendors, some athletes, and plugged into the speakers for the speeches, and awards. The day went by way too fast and there were easily 20+ people who we wish we interviewed to have on the show as well!

This episode is...

The New England OCR Expo returned for its 4th year and it was the second time being at the venue of Ultimate Obstacles!

Katelyn spent the whole time at our table trying to get some more people to follow our social media and subscribe to the show. Mike spent the entire event interviewing all the vendors, some athletes, and plugged into the speakers for the speeches, and awards. The day went by way too fast and there were easily 20+ people who we wish we interviewed to have on the show as well!

This episode is...

FIT Challenge had their final obstacle course race in 2023 but later announced that they would making a return in 2025! It was unfortunately the same day that we had scheduled the New England OCR Expo but we have been running his events since 2014 and it was going to take more than it being a double event coverage day to keep us from supporting New England's most beloved and award winning event and of course Robb himself.

We were only able to stay for a couple hours in the morning (7:45-9:45) but we were able to talk to a...

We have been busy and didn't get the chance to do anything fun for April Fools this year, there also weren't any events that grabbed our attention that we could've done an episode on (other than maybe British OCR 3K Championship but time zone differences make it difficult)!

Due to this we are releasing our third reRUN rerelease episode on the first April Fool's episode that we ever released. The first half is actual coverage of an event that is unfortunately no longer around but you'll know the April Fool's part when you get to it ... or...

Many years ago we remember the Burmuda Triple Challenge being advertized on Obstacle Racing Media's podcast. When we found out that a friend was doing it this year, we were surprised to realize that it was still around!

This friend was Michael Kantor who went down to take on the events with his girlfriend Shannon Woodill. We figured that if we didn't know it was still around then many others wouldn't as well, so we decided to have them on show to talk about it!

We talk about their background in the sport, the island...

"If we want more books written about the sport, we need to buy books written about the sport" is a phrase that Mike and many others have repeated for years regarding OCR! Due to this we have had a few authors on the show ranging from Des Linden to Gwendolyn Bounds!

Tara Pipia reached out to us about her book "Sober Up: Spartan Style" which was published in December of last year!

As described on the website, the book "sheds light on how Spartan Race and DEKA, Spartan's partner sport, have reconnected individuals with themselves...

We have covered the Boston Run Show for the past couple years. This year, it combined with the Boston Outdoor Expo!

We weren't sure if we were going to go and cover it this year since it was later in the year than usual and events are starting up but we made the trip and booked a hotel to just cover Saturday.

Even though we just covered one day of the event we were able to get over 60 interviews causing us to split everything into part 1 and part 2 episodes. Check the time stamps below to...

We have covered the Boston Run Show for the past couple years. This year, it combined with the Boston Outdoor Expo!

We weren't sure if we were going to go and cover it this year since it was later in the year than usual and events are starting up but we made the trip and booked a hotel to just cover Saturday.

Even though we just covered one day of the event we were able to get over 60 interviews causing us to split everything into part 1 and part 2 episodes. Check the time stamps below to...

Mike and Katelyn did their first DEKA event at Underdog Fitness in Wallingford, CT to support Kevin "Bubbles the Clowne" Gregory and his wife and co-owner Jess! Not only was Kevin a coach for Mike for about a year but Underdog Fitness is known to be a prominent gym in the DEKA community. Due to both of those reasons, Mike wanted to continue his support for the gym by driving down to Hartford, CT and covering the first official DEKA ATLAS!

You'll hear from some athletes who competed in the DEKA STRONG and their thoughts on the...

We have had Evan Perperis on the show multiple times and he frequently traveled to compete at Hannibal Race, and we had Rachel Watters on to talk about her first time traveling and competing at the event. This year Christian Brown-Johnson went for the first time and did well in both the 8K and 300 meter races!

I wanted to have CBJ on for his own episode to hear about his first experience flying and competing in Hannibal Race in Kuwait. We discuss how it feels to join the MudGear Hannibal Race Pro Team, how to minimize the...

In the last episode (and a few before that), we kept talking about having an athlete on the show who we've mentioned a lot in Quick News because she's always popping up on the podium!

We finally reached out to Chloe Melikian, who's been a major podium contender at West Coast Spartan Races.

We chat about her athletic background, her thoughts on changes in the sport, the shifts in the Spartan Elite series, how the SoCal race went, the kayak carry obstacle, the importance of the community at her gym, and a whole lot more!<...

We planned to finally give Abominable Snow Race some well deserved attention with a couple guests but we were unable to find a time that worked out after 2 attempts at rescheduling. So after panicking for a while Mike resorted to another reRun episode, this time reairing our 4th episode which originally came out on January 29th, 2017!

Long ago when OCR was still doing well in the Northeast of the US we had winter snow races with both Blizzard Blast in Massachusetts and Spartan Greek Peak in New York! As someone who loves the cold, Mike misses one...

Sarah Hetzel took on the Dopey Challenge which is completing all of the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend events! This consists of the 5K on Thursday, 10K on Friday, half marathon on Saturday, and the marathon on Sunday!

We discuss her running background, Disney Favorites, how long she has been wanting to do this multi day event, how it went, and advice to others considering the multi day event!

Check Sarah out on social media to follow along with her adventures, and consider helping her out with her Amazon Wish List, it's tough out there...

Accountability Corner is a podcast created in May 2023 by 3 athletes (Darren Martin, Morgan Maxwell, and Chris Shipley) in England who wanted to keep themselves accountable!

Darren, Morgan, and Chris have progressed to also helping their listeners stay accountable!

Hear us discuss a bit about how they found the sport of OCR, origin of their podcast, how they feel the UK ranks in Europe as a competitive country in the sport, the impact on local federations, World Obstacle, complicated rulebooks, local OCRs, the style of racing in the UK, penalty preferences, WTM coming to Europe, personal...

So this is a first for the show and we don't plan to do this often but we are rereleasing an older episode for this week! This will be done during times where it's difficult to find a guest, continuous time zone issues, life circumstances, etc.

This features a rerelease or a reRUN of our first ever episode published January 8th 2017, that's 8 years ago! Back when there were 4 hosts of the show, it had a different name, and we didn't focus much on elites but more on our own team MStefano Running!

Hope you enjoy...

Every year since 2018 we have started the year off with a round table discussion with other podcasters in the sport of OCR. In the past we have had Heather Bode, Matt B Davis, Josh Chace, Scott "the Fayne" Knowles, Jason Dupree, Anna Landry, Kim DeVoss, Rich Ryan, Brakken Kraker, and Fran Chiorando!

This year we had Fran Chiorando from OCRWC Podcast, Dave Claxton from OFX Podcast, Scott "the Fayne" Knowles from I Am A Spartan Podcast, and Jason Dupree from OCR Tech Talk!

We discuss our thoughts on the Spartan and Savage series in the...

It is clip compilation time of the year again!

The second of our two 2024 compilation episodes focuses on the important moments of each episode of the show from this year. There is also a compilation of all the names of the guests we have had on the show during 2024 to celebrate them as well. Hopefully this inspires you and starts you off right for a solid 2025 while you listen during your resuming work commutes or a really really long run!

Start – 3:04 – Intro

3:04 – 5:00 – Quick News

5:00 – 5:40 – Content Preface

5:40 - 14:58 - Name Clip Compila...

It is clip compilation time of the year again!

The first of our two 2024 compilation episodes focuses on the funny moments, bloopers, jokes, and post credit parts of the show from this year. Hopefully this brings you some joy or makes you laugh during long holiday travels or a really long run!

Start – 6:32 – Intro

6:32 – 12:09 – Quick News

12:09 – 12:53 – Content Preface

12:53 - 5:08:16 - Funny/Bloopers/Jokes/Post Credit Clip Compilation

5:08:16 - End – Outro

Next weekend will be the second of our two end of year recap compilation episodes covering all o...

We wanted to get an episode on the Spartan Beast World Championship again this year but it can be pretty difficult with language and time zone barriers!

Luckily we heard back from Richard Hynek who we have heard and seen a lot about over the past recent years!

We discuss what his athletic background consisted of before obstacle course racing, how he found Spartan Race, the choice to have surgery and the recovery from it, his successful history with the Trifecta World Championship, his more recent podium at the Spartan Beast World Championship, and much...

It started off as a quick news story but Mike figured that he would reach out to the local athlete and he is so glad that he did!

David Filar ran across the state of Massachusetts and raised over $10,000 for Christmas toys to go to the UMASS Memorial Children's Hospital!

That is what initially caught our attention but we also discuss his running background, the importance of growth outside the comfort zone, and his career of designing incredible shoes for some well known people!

Be sure to donate to his fundraiser, and support...

It is the end of World's Toughest Mudder coverage time ... for this year!

Mike flew down to Florida to help with The OCR Report live stream and to do a whole bunch of podcast coverage. So much so, that we got 4 episodes out of it, so make sure that you subscribe and follow along to hear more about the best OCR event of the year!

For this part four though, it focuses on the bar crawl on Monday where both the interviewer and interviewees may have been drinking a bit. You'll hear 15 more interviews to...

It is still World's Toughest Mudder coverage time!

Mike flew down to Florida to help with The OCR Report live stream and to do a whole bunch of podcast coverage. So much so, that we are hopefully going to get 4 episodes out of it, so make sure that you subscribe and follow along to hear more about the best OCR event of the year!

For this part three though, it focuses on the brunch on Monday. You'll hear interviews before the presentation, trimmed down audio from the presentation itself, and interviews after the presentation! All...

Still World's Toughest Mudder coverage time!

Mike flew down to Florida to help with The OCR Report live stream and to do a whole bunch of podcast coverage. So much so, that we are hopefully going to get 4 episodes out of it, so make sure that you subscribe and follow along to hear more about the best OCR event of the year!

For this part two though, it focuses on the event days of Saturday and Sunday. Interviews were done before the race with athletes, interviews and audio were recorded as I walked through the...

It's World's Toughest Mudder time!

Mike flew down to Florida to help with The OCR Report live stream and to do a whole bunch of podcast coverage. So much so, that we are hopefully going to get 4 episodes out of it, so make sure that you subscribe and follow along to hear more about the best OCR event of the year!

For this part one though, it focuses on Friday. Interviews were while athletes were preparing their pit spots and a few more interviews were done at the community dinner!

0:00 – 5:14 – Intro

5:14 – 8:37 – Quick Ne...

It has been a long time coming but we finally had Leon Kofoed on the show for his own episode!

He is one of the more popular social media personalities in the sport and one of the most well known Danish athletes in the sport of OCR. He was vocal about 2024 being his final year as a full time athlete so we discuss what that looks like, how it felt to take the win at an OCRWC event, his recovery from his Savage Race injury, the state of the sport in Europe compared to North America, how...

I have been wanting to do this for a while ... even though I'm not sure him or the others in The OCR Report believed me!

It's Jack Goras, the guy behind the camera at pretty much every major OCR that has happened in Europe or North America in the past 5 or so years!

We haven't had much time to talk in the past when covering events since we are usually busy doing interviews while he is taking pictures and editing. However we did get to hang out more at World's Toughest Mudder last year since...

A bit of a pivot for this week's episode since Mike had his "A race" of the year, the FIT Challenge Survival of the FITtest!

A couple years ago he planned to take on the 30 hour but due to an upcoming wedding, the final and most difficult semester of grad school, and some achilles pain the registration was moved back.

This is the raw and pretty unedited (especially since Audacity gave me issues with the episode and I needed to redo almost everything) journey of me being able to call myself an ultra runner again...

OCRWC was last weekend in Mammoth Lakes, CA and we wanted to have Ja Shua Ried on for his own episode to talk about his experience!

Ja Shua was a prominent member of the OCR in the northeast before moving to Colorado, we chose him to be one of our sponsored athletes back in episode 300, and he has been Mike's coach for the past few months!

Hear us discuss van life out west, his athletic background, how he found OCR, the thrill of making the world your playground through fitness, his experience at OCRWC, his...

This weekend was OCRWC in Mammoth Lakes, CA and you will totally hear about that ... next week when I have time to schedule an interview with an athlete but it is Tuesday and people are still traveling home!

Instead we finally had Kevin "The Mudman" LaPlatney, on the show who has been in the sport since 2010 and has seen a lot of events come and go during his time living on Long Island. He owned Obstacle Athletics which was a well known OCR gym in the area for many years, and continues to be a prominent member...

We had Yaris Cruz on the show once before while doing interviews at OCRWC in 2021, having her on again for her own episode was long overdue!

Yaris as an athlete is known to be a force to be wreckoned with whether it be OCR, ninja, or even hybrid racing. We discuss her background in sport before finding OCR (or lack thereof), the importance of mental health as an athlete, how her position as the vice president of Puerto Rico OCR Association has changed her perspective on the sport, her thoughts on World Obstacle's OCR World Championships in...

We have been hearing about Baylen Bean for a while now, after his recent victory at Spartan Pan-American Championships we figured that it would be a perfect time to finally have him on the show!

We talk about his athletic background, how he found obstacle course racing, the qualification process to join the elite field, his favorite race distances, how his championship event in Seattle went, how that ranks in his all time racing accomplishments, potential interest in World's Toughest Mudder in the future, and much more!

Be sure to support the sponsors who support...

Well, we still can't believe this is the first time that Josh Fiore has gotten his own episode but here we are!

Josh has been involved with OCR in the northeast for well over a decade as a weekend warrior, volunteer, motivational speaker, and as an elite. He has been on the show 7 times previous to this (episodes 114, 194, 328, 358, 360, 382, and 401) due to seeing him at Spartan Greek Peak, Kismet Cliff Run, FIT Challenge, World's Toughest Mudder, New England OCR Expo, and BoldrDash!

This time however, we focus on his background of finding the sport of obstacle...

There were some big events that happened this weekend with Tough Mudder Infinity in Pittsburg, the final Conquer the Gauntlet under the Mainprize ownership, the first of the Savage Point Series races in Maryland, and the Spartan European Championships, but we covered the final BoldrDash OCR in Exeter, RI!

BoldrDash as a race series had a huge role to play in our overall OCR history! It was Mike's 9th ever OCR, and Katelyn's 7th ever OCR back on May 3rd 2014 (video here). We have also volunteered more at this race than any other, whether it was Mike...

Another huge milestone of the show, hitting 400 Episodes! Don't quote me on it but I can't think of any other OCR podcasts that have made it this far (other than Obstacle Racing Media) ... yet!

We celebrate with a live recording of the intro, the naming of a new "sponsored athlete" some Q&A, audio clips that Katelyn had sneakily asked for congratulating us, some more Q&A, a compilation of times we were mentioned on other shows, and a live outro!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 7 years and 8 months...

Lots of events happened this weekend so it was difficult to figure out which event to focus on and which particular athlete to have on the show. I try not to have the same guest on for their own episode too many times, one of the big events had a lot of issues and I'd want to have more of the dust settle before we consider having an athlete on to talk about it.

Then Mike saw that Jenny Overstreet won Toughest Mudder Chicago! He first met her at the end of OCR America 2 during the KC...

The New England Spartan Super and Sprint weekend came back to Barre, MA and it felt good to be back! Most are pretty familiar with the ~10K Super and the ~5K Sprint so those don't need too much description.

In addition to taking on both of these events though, we also completed the Teddy Bear Crawl which is a 7am wave where adults crawl the kids course to earn a kids medal and kids could bear crawl it to earn a Sprint medal! This event is free but it is recommended to make a donation in order...

After Evan Perperis interviewed Mike to talk about OCR in the Northeast on Strength and Speed (listen to episode here), Mike pulled an uno reverse and asked Evan to come on our show!

We have heard of some events that take place in the center of the country but to have a much better idea of the state of the sport in that region it takes someone more local to the area. With Evan living there for the majority of his OCR career, he was the perfect guest to talk about these events. We discuss 29 different events...

It's that time for New England to get savage again! Mike woke at 6:15am and drove to Carter and Stevens Farm in Barre, MA to cover the Savage Race Boston and as always he didn't regret it!

He interviewed a bunch of elite athletes as well as the vendors who were there to support the event! Savage Race has been one of our favorite OCRs since before they even came to New England with us only missing their 2021 and 2023 events. After doing interviews, Mike went out to do the Blitz course for a sweet green medal!

We drove the 3 hours to Greenville, NY to cover the Ultra Viking 8 Hour (Northeast Ultra Cup Finale)/ Final Raid/ whatever we called their last event!

The race director Asa Coddington aka OCR Yoda has been a prominant member in the OCR community here in the northeast so it was a big blow that he announced that his last event would been this year. Known for very difficult and historic obstacles, interesting penalties, and excellent medals the loss of this race will have a large impact on the sport. There was also a night trail race that we...

There was the final race in the Spartan USNS Series but there was also an athlete who ran Savage Chicago who I wanted to have on the show. Mike put it up as a poll and Savage won with 62% (67% at the time he reached out)!

Due to this Katelyn reached out and interviewed Kaeley Wynsma who just won Savage Chicago! You may be familiar with Kaeley's name due to us reading podium results in quick news and honestly this was a big factor in wanting to have her on the show. Technically we interviewed her briefly at...

We had the winner of Spartan Ultra World Championships on the show, Luca Pescollderungg!

We talk about his background in the sport, his thoughts on being one of the best climbers in the sport of OCR, his other races that he focuses on, how the Spartan Ultra World Championships went, how he feels being both a World and a European champion, what is next for him, and much more!

Be sure to follow him on Instagram to keep up with his adventures and consider giving his sponsors some love!

0:00 – 5:44 – Intro

5:44 – 8:31 – Quick News

This week Katelyn talks to Chennell Berg, the first place female finisher at War X. Chennell talks about her life on her cattle ranch, the evolution of her training, becoming a runner and what her experience was like taking first place at War X last weekend (Spoiler: It was her first ever first place finish). She talks about the importance of having her mom's support at her OCR events. Chennell also talks about Mothman and the weather phenomenon of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds.

If you're ever in the White Sulphur Springs area, make sure you check out Chennell's Fitness...

A few weeks ago Italy hosted the OCR European Championships! While it can be difficult to have European athletes on the show due to frequent difficulties such as time zones and language barriers, the effort is worth it due to the abundance of talent that they have overseas!

This time we had the privilege to speak to Dutch athlete Stijn Lagrand! He is no stranger to doing well in elite OCR events but this OCR European Championships he took first not only in the short course, but the standard, and the men's relay team event as well...

Mike was able to return to Citi Field for coverage of the Spartan Stadium (still refuse to say Stadion), only this time he was able to run it as well which he has been wanting to do over a decade now!

Without Katelyn helping, coverage ability was more limited but there is still a pretty good episode put together for you with 16 athletes and 6 vendors interviewed along with some start line audio to put you, the listener, in the stadium with us!

0:00 – 4:41 – Intro

4:41 – 7:11 – Quick News

7:11 – 8:32 – Content Preface

8:32 -13:07 - Announcement...

We all know Mike loves a good small local race so we drove down to the Gaylord Gauntlet to experience and cover it for the first time! This race is 3.3 miles long with mud and over 20 obstacles.

We knew that the venue was a hospital but we had no idea the extent to which the event has benefitted members of the adaptive community for the past 10 years. In the last decade the Gaylord Gauntlet 5k has raised over $800,000 for the Gaylord Sports Association which provides adaptive sports for individuals with physical and visual disabilities, as well as...

In the past we interviewed Des Linden when her book "Choosing to Run" and doing so opened up options for future book related interviews!

Gwendolyn Bound's publicist, Brianna Kusilek, reached out to us back in April but it took us a while to find a time to release a potential episode with her. Luckily we made room this week and Katelyn interviewed her for the show!

Katelyn and Gwendolyn talk about changing perspective on life, growing older, overcoming adversity, golden retrievers, and much more. Gwendolyn's book "Not Too Late" is available for pre-order now or...

We had yet another MudGear-Hannibal Race Pro Team athlete on the show, Vivien Tran!

We have been keeping an eye on her as an athlete ever since she joined their team and we have not been disappointed. Some accomplishments are winning a Savage Race Axe, a Spartan Race, doing well in the Spartan US National Series, and achieving podium placements at many local events such as Abominable Snow Race, Mythic Race, and this weekend's ASCO Spartacus Dash!

We discussed how she found the sport, thoughts on the rest of the women's field, her experience in...

When Hawk Call started getting into some big Spartan Races a few years ago it got a lot of us who have been in the sport for a long time pretty excited! This is because many of us remember his father Hobie who is almost always in the conversation of who historically is one of the best men in the sport of OCR.

Hawk is his own own athlete though, and I didn't want to have him on the show just to talk about his dad. It didn't take long for him to start to make a...

Evan Perperis is no stranger to the show due to his frequent appearances at our favorite OCR event to cover every year (World's Toughest Mudder), as well as our interest in his ultra OCR fundraising efforts over the years!

We discuss his milestone of achieving 100 OCR podiums, which podiums stood out to him the most over the years, how the recent Toughest Mudder East went along with the new changes to the team format, Lebenese food, and what he plans to do in both sport and life moving forward!

Listen to his podcast "Strength and...

We have been aware of Noel Medina and his sweat checks for a while now but it was him joining the MudGear-Hannibal Race Pro Team that really got our attention!

There wasn't good timing to have him on the show before now but when we saw that he was traveling to the Ultra House in Durango, CO to train with Anthony Kunkle we figured it was a great opportunity to learn more about him and plans moving forward!

We discuss how he found the sport of OCR, a bit of his life before, his most...

We were unsure as to what to do for this week's episode until we saw a post in the Southern Spartans Facebook Group about a guy who had just completed 400 Spartan Races!

His name is Tom Maming and I was excited to reach out to have him on the show to hear more about him, his achievement, and what he has planned for the future.

We discuss how he first got into OCR, Pinoy OCR, #eatmorerice, favorite moments in the sport, Buc-ees, favorite venues, and of course his impressive milestone!

Follow along with...

Once again, we just had the third New England OCR Expo and it is easily the most involved Mike has been! In 2020 we were just vendors with a table, last year Mike helped with getting athletes to show up and give short talks. This year Mike was on the board, attended biweekly meetings for months, and worked to help get more vendors and sponsors out to the event!

We are splitting up content from this event into two so we can have an easier week next week and Mike can focus on his own race but in...

It's the third New England OCR Expo that has been put on and it is easily the most involved Mike has been! In 2020 we were just vendors with a table, last year Mike helped with getting athletes to show up and give short talks. This year Mike was on the board, attended biweekly meetings for months, and worked to help get more vendors and sponsors out to the event!

We are splitting up content from this event into two so we can have an easier week next week and Mike can focus on his own race but...

Mike finally traveled to New York to participate in and cover Obstacle Wonderland's Boogie Wonderland Event!

Wanting to both support a small northeast race and get some good mileage in, Mike registered for the 6 hour race. He ran 3 laps, interviewed the 3 hour finisher athletes with some midrace brain fog, ran another lap, interviewed the 6 hour finisher athletes while freezing in the windy cold on and off rain, the DJ, Gabe Capobianchi, Asa Coddington, and then recorded a personal recap while driving back to New Jersey!

We highly recommend you check out an Obstacle Wonderland event...

Back in the day Spartan Stadium races were our favorite to both run and cover as media. We remember seeing a large man in a clown mask doing well at most of the events that we went to. Over more recent years Kevin Gregory/Bubbles the Clowne has grown to be even more of a threat in the hybrid racing scene!

Kevin has also become a friend of the show, as well as Mike's coach for about a year. Mike vowed that his first hybrid fitness race would be at his gym Underdog Fitness in Wallingford, CT...

just a totAlly normal ePisode, Really nothIng to see here. compLetely normal!

0:00 – 6:56 – Intro

6:56 – 14:07 – Quick News

14:07 – 14:13 – Content Preface

14:13 - 15:23 - Interview with Timber and Appa

15:23 - End – Outro

Next episode is planned to be coverage of the Deka Strong at Underdog Fitness, home of Kevin Gregory aka Bubbles the Clowne (well not actual home but you know what we mean)!

____

News Stories:

Switch Away from Google Podcasts before April

2024 New England OCR Expo on April 20th (use code "obstacles" for $5 off)

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We haven't done one of these episodes in a while, and we were totally okay with that!

With recent changes in the industry (unfortunately most being negative), we wanted to have an episode where we share our thoughts and feelings on some events that are not with us anymore like Warrior Dash and Rugged Maniac or have extremely unclear futures like Terrain Race and Bonefrog.

The videos referenced were our 2014 Rugged Maniac, 2016 Warrior Dash, 2016 Rugged Maniac, 2017 Warrior Dash, 2017 Rugged Maniac, 2018 Bonefrog, 2019 Terrain Race, and 2019 Rugged Maniac so check one, two, or all of them out!<...

Paul Lachance recently ran his 200th Spartan Race at the age of 82 this caught The OCR Report's attention for a post which then caught our eye for a potential episode.

We were excited to reach out to him both for the impressive accomplishment, and because he represents a unique age demographic who take on OCR. Older OCR athletes have always been inspirational to us but we haven't had an episode focus on it before.

We discuss how he found obstacle course racing, his family's military background, favorite and least favorite Spartan venues, medical barriers that...

We have been wanting to have Alisa Petrova on the show for a while now with us first reaching out to her back in December 2022 to talk about the Spartan World Championships that year! Her being 9 hours ahead of us made it pretty difficult to plan a good time to record but it was worth recording at 5am our time to finally have her on the show!

Alisa talks about how she wasn't medically allowed to engage in sports at a young age but eventually got into speed walking and later became involved with Hero Race. In...

This week Katelyn sat down with Hannah Franciosa!

They talked about Hannah's exerience both as a special education teacher, as well as a substitute teacher. She shares about being coached by Kirk DeWindt and what a typical training week looks like for her. Hannah also discusses her experinces with completing ultras, marathons, rucks, hurricane heats, and her recent podium at the first race of the Spartan US National Series in Jacksonville!

0:00 – 3:36 – Intro

3:36 – 13:51 – Quick News

13:51 – 15:45 – Content Preface

15:45 - 56:34 - Hannah Franciosa Interview

56:34 - End – Outro

Next episode is may...

Another episode idea from my episode ideas list was to focus on another demographic in the sport that deserves more attention and support and to do this we had Heather Jo Cox from Grey Betties on the show!

We discuss how she found the sport, her background with roller derby as well as body building, and all about the Grey Betties which is a team created for 40+ year old women in sport to both create a community and help reduce intimidation at the start line!

0:00 – 5:00 – Intro

5:00 – 12:47 – Quick News

12:47 – 13:06 – Content Preface

13:06 - 4...

Something that we have had on our potential future episode list for a long time is an episode on adaptive athletes in the sport of OCR. Once I started looking, it seemed like Andy Reid was the man to have on the show to talk about it. He is the founder of OCR Adaptive Athletes and has created a community on facebook to suport each other and to reach out to various countries around to world to try and get their events to be more inclusive!

We discuss what it means to be a pioneer in helping...

She has been mentioned by a couple athletes during interviews and has recently been added to the MudGear-Hannibal Race Pro Team so we were excited to have Sarah Grippi-Snyder on the show!

She is pretty new to the sport but has had a great start in both obstacle course racing as well as hybrid racing. We discuss her life traveling in an RV, how she feels about joining a pro team in the sport, and her business of 3GX Mental Performance Training, and more!

0:00 – 3:44 – Intro

3:44 – 14:21 – Quick News

14:21 – 14:45 – Content Preface

14:45 - 1:20:12...

We returned to The Boston Run Show expo for the second time!

Just like last year, we are splitting all of our interviews into two episodes due to how much audio there is, and how much of a break we deserve for working this hard covering such a large and exciting event!

In this part 2 we have every vendor and speaker who we interviewed on Sunday. These ranged from many small and big vendors and sponsors who were present as well as the head of the Badass Lady Gang Kelly Roberts, ChiRunning founder Danny Dryer...

We returned to The Boston Run Show expo for the second time!

Just like last year, we are splitting all of our interviews into two episodes due to how much audio there is, and how much of a break we deserve for working this hard covering such a large and exciting event!

In part one we have every vendor and speaker who we interviewed on Saturday. These ranged from many small and big vendors and sponsors who were present as well as some impressive athletes like Scott Jenkins, Pete Kostelnick, Coree Woltering, and crew extraordinaire...

After reading her name at least a dozen times when reviewing podiums during quick news last year, we finally had Cassandra Gill on the show!

She is fairly new to the sport but has found some pretty great success in the sport lately which led to her making the top 5 of Jack Bauer's post highlighting the leaderboard of elite Spartan Race podiums across 2023. She is also both an animal, and a serious ice cream lover so she is one of our people!

We discuss her athletic background, how she found obstacle course racing, support from...