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Emma McCrea introduces the club to OCR
Wednesday 16th October 2024
Obstacle Course Racing
There’s a growing new sport called Obstacle Course Racing, often referred to as OCR. The easiest way to get your head round it is to imagine trail running meets Ninja Warrior. Take a look at a local race, The Nuts Challenge, to see what it’s all about.
Obstacle course racing is mostly held outdoors across multiple distances, ranging from 100m head to head sprints (similar to Ninja Warrior) to ultra marathon distances. The terrain is usually off-road or multi-terrain and involves technical footwork over mud, hills and rough terrain. A variety of obstacles are encountered during the race:
- Technical obstacles: rig-style obstacles like monkey bars and rings, that may have ascending and descending elements that demand grip strength and endurance plus upper body strength
- Strength obstacles: carrying heavy things such as sandbags or atlas balls, dragging huge chains or weighted sleds and hoisting weights
- Agility obstacles: obstacles such as hurdles, slanted walls, high vertical walls, cargo nets, crawls under barbed wire or muddy ditches
When an athlete is unable to complete an obstacle there are penalties that must be completed before finishing the race. The sport demands a delicate balance of speed as a runner and strength, particularly upper body.
Obstacle course racing is set to grow as a sport, and will feature in the 2028 Olympics as part of the modern pentathlon. You can find out more from British Obstacle Sports, the national governing body (NGB) for obstacle course racing (OCR) and ninja sport in the UK. There are races across the country, national leagues, and European and World Championships. Here’s a particularly muddy World Championships that were held here in the UK back in 2018.
Emma has been doing obstacle course racing for over a decade and now competes for the National Team. Her most recent and successful race was a 10km with 25 obstacles at Pippingford Park in East Sussex where she took silver.