News: Events

The first Spartan race of the year went down over the weekend. This SoCal race has been in Chino, CA and San Bernardino, CA in prior years. This year they had a new venue in Lake Perris, CA. We wanted to compare participation levels as it’s been consistently the first OCR event of the year. Given that Spartan changed this to a Trifecta weekend, adding in a Beast event as well as a second Sprint event, comparisons are tough to review, but we’ll do our best.

Participation numbers used were obtained from the Spartan results page. I’m not sure on the accuracy of all results listed there, but it’s what’s available. If anyone knows a better way to find the data, let us know!

We would expect that the regular Spartan registrant in SoCal who was interested in their Sprint/Super weekends in the past would sign up regardless of it changing to a Trifecta weekend. But on top of that, we think this event would draw in some additional people because it offers that Beast race and Trifecta option. Plus, offering an extra Sprint day should add to the total, so we definitely expect total registrants and results to be higher than before.

Was it higher as we expected? Yes… but still rather weak in comparison to those pre-covid levels.

Another thing to note. This Lake Perris location appears to be the furthest venue to big populations. Chino was the closest (2hr from San Diego and 1hr from LA). Then San Bernardino (2.5hr to SD and 1.5hr to LA). Lake Perris is 2.5hr to SD and 2hr to LA.

Is Spartan Race slowly dying off? What are your thoughts?

News: Media

• The OCR Report has released their 2024 Live Coverage schedule. Check out the Schedule below and follow their YouTube page.

News: Athletes

• The guys over at Race Brain officially announced Ryan Atkins as the G.O.A.T in December, overtaking Hobie Call. We believe Jon Albon who has been listed as 3rd on that list for a while, listened to that episode and started feeling a little jealous. Jon has decided to come back out of OCR retirement and race Ryan at the Tough Mudder 8-hr Infinity in AlUla. If Jon beats Ryan here, what does that say about the OCR rankings list? Should he move up?
• And I know it’s only January, but Rylan Schadegg might have just won the “Wildest Training Plan of the Year” award. He plans to get more YouTube content out there and we’re stoked about it.

News: Products

• MudGear launches a Speed Ruck shoe. They say it’s a Rucking Boot meets Trail Running shoe, designed for Competitive and Elite Ruckers, designed to move Heavy things Further and Faster. They are listed at $179.99 and taking pre-orders.
• It looks like Veejay Jones is starting a new gear company. I’m not sure if this means clothing or what, but I personally own several running shorts from Virus Intl. who Veejay used to be sponsored by, so I’m excited to see what’s to come. Follow his new venture here.

News: In the Community

• If anyone’s looking to switch up jobs this year, Savage Race is looking for someone to join their Field Team crew.
• Apparently ocrdirectory was not the only website that showed up in January for OCR. I recently talked with the owner of OCR Podium and checked out the website. I was extremely impressed. The site offers where to find coverage of all OCR and Hybrid events over the years. The search function works great, and the video pages themselves show the top 10 winners and maps of the course. If you enjoy watching OCR coverage, you definitely need to check this out.
• The Spartan 4-0 group had a good turnout at the Spartan SoCal event and shout out to Tom Maming who’s back out there this year and just completed his 370th Spartan race!?!?!
• Spartan enjoys switching things up every year and for 2024 we have combined Elite and Age Group morning waves at most of the regular events. It seems like the overall view is that this is a good call, but we’ll see how people are liking it in practice this year. If you want more deep dive on how these competitive heats work, check out Obstacle Racing Media post on it.
• Spartan SoCal Positives: We’re hearing that the trifecta medal is really freaking cool and people had a great time at the Lake Perris venue which was next to a lake, had great views and super flat.
• Spartan SoCal Negatives: The community doesn’t seem thrilled about paying for pictures this year…. and we’re hearing that pictures from the weekend were very hit or miss.

News: Coming up

• There’s a Spartan National Series event February 25th in Jacksonville, FL. Check out The OCR Report for live coverage. It had potential to be a big deal, but it’s being completely overshadowed by…
• Tough Mudder AlUla, which will be the one to watch in February. It’ll be super interesting to see how athletes perform here. Training styles are all over the freaking place. Ryan Atkins and Jon Albon are hiking deep snow and climbing in the mountains ALL DAY LONG. Rylan Schadegg is doing intervals up snowy mountains and paragliding back down. Leon Kofoed was seen perfecting his 100m course skills this month. And Ida Mathilde Steensgaard was witnessed racing actual airplanes. The only training that makes some sense is Anthony Kunkel showing up to the SoCal race and cruising through the course for a Beast win, but then sprinting barefoot across Legos for recovery. Which Training program will win out in a few weeks?

Let us know your thoughts and leave a comment.

If you have any news to share with us for our February edition, feel free to Contact us.