The OCR community is growing rapidly. You hear the figures each year as to the millions of people doing an OCR and they continue to grow. With more and more athletes seeing the rapid growth in this new sport more and more races are creating competitive heats to please the thrill seeking competitive OCR athletes.
The elite OCR community has become more of a family as you see more and more athletes traveling across the country to hit every race they can. With Spartan Race being one of the first to offer prizes for both male and female top finishers, many others have been following Spartan’s lead. Superhero Scramble, Mud Guts and Glory, MudManX, and now Warrior Dash have all started running a competitive heat of some sort to give these elite athletes another race to head to and compete.
Even with only a small majority of these extreme athletes getting a chance to stand on the podium you will see many of the same faces travel all across the U.S. to compete and feel part of the OCR family. Just last week seeing many faces from the east coast show up at the SoCal Spartan Race (even myself from PA) it makes the environment seem very friendly in such a competitive sport. It creates such a superb experience both at the start line and finish. Each person telling their story of the race, how they did, any failed obstacles, and what they thought of the overall race. You are out on the course competing, but then once you cross that finish line you are sharing these stories with other racers you know and some just meeting for the first time.
The elite runners go out there and do their best to see where they stand at the end of each obstacle, each race, and each season. Overcoming the injuries, expenses, and the training that comes up to travel and race every chance they get these are the true elite athletes out in the world of sports. There aren’t deals for millions or huge sponsors out there, just the excitement of the race and perhaps even winning a free race for the most pull-ups in a minute the reason we come out and compete is to be a part of the Elite OCR family.