Spartan Race Build - Atlanta 2015 - The Land of Mud…and Ants

Wintergreen, VA was the land of groundhogs…Asheville, NC was the land of giant granite quarry blocks…and apparently Union Point, GA is the land of ants!  Don’t get me wrong, the venue…Durhamtown Plantation Resort, another ATV Park…is a beautiful venue with rolling hills and lots of mud.  But there are ant hills everywhere…and not just at the venue…everywhere you drive you see these ant mounds popping up.  Thinking about it, that might also account for the giant ‘daddy long-leg’ spiders all over my tent this morning.  Since spiders eat ants…right??  Well, you need to pick up the pace a bit guys, because you are losing this battle!

"Half-dome"

I bring up the ants so that racers can be prepared with basic 'ant safety' procedures in case of accidental contact (or intentional I guess if you’re an idiot).  So, in the event that you do face-plant into an ant pile during the course of the race (or at festival after a beer of two), follow these two simple steps.  One…jump up screaming and running in circles.  This will draw attention to you and will bring medical personnel or at least other racers to help.  Except those running for time…of course.  Two…run face first into the nearest  obstacle, or tree if an obstacle is unavailable.  This will render you unconscious and, more importantly, immobile and quiet so the meds and racers can attend to your ant problem unhindered by your panic.

Now, about the build!  For anyone following the weather in this area, there has been torrential rain for about a week before I got to the venue.  Bad news for everyone having to work it before I got there.  Even those of us coming in Wednesday were still greeted by the leftover mud…everywhere.  Just getting into the parking lot was a challenge in off-road driving…forget the volunteer tent.  It was going to be long day!

This particular build day was spent again in the festival area.  I’m not sure what sort of  attendance they’re expecting, but these festival areas just keep getting bigger and bigger.  Great for letting a crowd spread out a bit, not getting that claustrophobic or overcrowded feeling that might cause people to leave prematurely.  But not so great when you have to walk from end to end…seemingly all day.  I can’t be sure, but I believe they arrange for the materials we need to be dropped at the furthest point from where they need to be used.  Never mind the trucks…we’ve got volunteers to move it”.

We moved barricades and fences all over that place!   And I swear, the festival area must be at least 150 yards long…and we walked it endlessly.  We moved and put up barricade banners.  And we even set up the bag check area…again!  I must have ‘Bag Check Installer” on my forehead.  This is the fourth one I’ve set up and each one was different.  Who’d have thought  One thing though, I am now fully qualified to set up bag check on any venue…anywhere…let the phone calls begin!  And with all that barricade and fence moving, grip strength workout for the week (month?!)…done.

Thankfully, we had a nice size group of volunteers!!  As always, meeting and working with the other volunteers/racers is always a highlight.  John, Michael, Kevin…just to name a few.  And there were some newbies there too.  Of course, all the veterans offered their advice on prepping and helpful hints for racing, along with a rundown on the course and obstacles.  I’m not sure why, but those newbies may not be back Saturday….go figure.  And Chanel….after mulling it over, I don’t think you made a bad decision for the course.  In fact, I’m pretty sure you were set up.  They knew you would have to choose the tougher option (after all you are a Spartan!) and even if you hadn’t, they would have anyway.  See all (or most) of you guys on Saturday!

Which brings me to another thing I’ve noticed during my OCR travels.  Spartan Race (SR) volunteer crews are usually larger than most of the other races’ entire build crews!  This came in handy too, because we also ended up moving some tents.  And I don’t mean some 10x10 pop ups…I’m talking about the big ones, the 20x20 big-top monsters!  3” posts you can barely grab…and only one person can get each leg, as you stumble through the mud and dried out ruts to get it in just the right spot.  Then swinging that sledge to re-stake the tent?…that would have been a video worth watching…twice.  Luckily, we did all this late in the afternoon when we were pretty much shot already. 

Last…but definitely not least…I wanted to mention the Spartan crew leaders.  Seeing some of the crew from previous builds was great….Steve Oh’ (and hey, thanks for the sweet tea!), Drew, Taylor.  Wednesday though, I got to work with two different crew leaders.  Tracy Thayer was our initial leader and we worked with her for most of the day.  It takes special people to be able to work someone’s ass off, and still keep things from becoming oppressive.  Tracy is certainly one of those few and we were very fortunate to work with her!

So is Henry, the other crew leader we worked with that day.  Apparently we must have worked together at the Spartan Race demo in Times Square back in 2013.  Also, apparently, Henry is an aspiring stunt driver and feels four wheels is an extravagance and two is more than enough for driving in mud.  Although, to be perfectly clear, his driving with ‘us volunteers’ was utterly safe!

Even though I didn’t make it out to most of the course, from all reports it will be a good one.  The terrain is rolling hills, so it should not be the killer some other SR courses have been lately.  But there is a wild card in there.  Weather reports indicate a good chance of rain Saturday.  Given that…and the fact that the mud has barely dried from the last storm...if it rains, this is going to be another total mud-fest.  Call it Savage Atlanta Fall 2015 II….except it will be even worse, because it will be another three miles of mud and obstacles.  Oh joy…..

See you all there on Saturday!!!

Back To The Basics - Building a Savage Race - Atlanta 2015

I suppose I should have been expecting the unexpected.  But having worked on a half dozen race builds already, it seemed that a Savage Race build would be just another variation on the theme.  Obviously, that was not the case!  Savage Race has been recognized by Inc Magazine as one of the top 500 fastest growing private companies in the U.S.  Savage Race also has a more modest expansion plan than many other race promoters and that is an indication of how they do run this company as a business...with a different focus than you may see elsewhere.

Several things jumped out at me during the build days.  One of the first and most surprising differences from any other race is that Savage builds certain of their largest obstacles to remain on the venue's site permanently!!  Other than fixed venue courses like Shale Hill in VT, Savage is the only major race promoter that does this as far as I'm aware.  Most of these obstacle are wooden too, where the other big promoters have been going to lighter weight metal structures where possible.  As with anything, there are great benefits and great disadvantages of this methodology.

The pros:  Decreased time in building or setting up the obstacles.  Reduced transportation costs...Savage only has one storage trailer to ship to each race venue as of now.  Reduced building and manpower costs as the obstacles do not have to be designed for dis-assembly. 

The cons:  Obstacles must be protected and possibly repaired or restored due to weather.  For new venues, they must completely rebuild each of those permanent obstacles...at a significant cost in time and material.  New venues may not allow these to remain permanently as more races vie for use of a limited resource...meaning practical race course sites.  Limited ability to create truly new/unknown courses since they have to incorporate the fixed obstacle placements.

They also run the risk of 'playing out' a venue...one of the issues that I feel is going to be more prevalent in the future.  Obstacle course racing (OCR) is only 5 years young.  With so many race options, particularly in the Atlanta area, races may suffer from stagnation or racer boredom with the 'same old venue' each year...no matter how nice it is.  Particularly in the case of the Atlanta venue, where they run both a Spring and Fall race.

Savage Race was also notable in the fact that they have a much smaller build crew.  Partially, I'm sure, from the fact that they have permanent obstacles.  They also have all the tents and barricades setup through the rental companies.  Again, saving on both the build crew size and shipping costs between venues.  And from what I gathered, this is a family and friends crew that works all the events.*  However, it's efficient and extremely cost conscious...'glitz' is certainly not on the menu.  It has the feel of what it must be like on many of the smaller OCR promoter builds.  But make no mistake...Savage intends to put on a big-time performance and crew members like Gary, Bo and Sean are intent on that happening!  And should I mention their unique ATV trail marking technique?!  No...probably not...but it was different!!

One similarity, Savage does rely on volunteers to come in during the build week too.  Although, as you might expect, the number needed appears to be much smaller than the larger competitors.  They were however, very appreciative of the volunteers and went out of their way to make sure we knew that.

What was also a bit different was the apparent familiarity of the volunteers when it came to other races.  On my previous builds, most of them seemed to be the hard-core Mudder, Spartan or BattleFrog athlete, with little experience outside those races.  Here at the Savage build it seemed to be just the opposite.  The volunteers I met...Chanel and Mike...were very well versed on the other races.  

That may be another challenge for Savage in the future as well.  I didn't see the racer fanaticism/loyalty here as with the other builds.  And they don't have a Savage Pro team.  Whatever the reason, it is doubtless an intentional part of their business plan.  In the end, the race will be the test.  I was looking forward to that with great anticipation as this is...obviously...my first Savage race.

* An interesting side note...as fate would have it, I got to meet and work with Garfield Griffiths on the Savage kid's course.  Ok, actually I was told I could go home a little early Thursday afternoon but convinced them to let me "see if those guys over there needed any help".  I'd heard that he was working on the kid's course and I wanted to meet him.  Garfield is the course designer for the Obstacle Course Racing World Championship {OCRWC} and happened to see him that morning on Matt B. Davis' Obstacle Racing Media {ORM} podcast...file this under 'small world'.

Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) Adventure 2015....continued....

It's hard to believe that the Summer of OCR ended only a few weeks ago.  Even harder to believe that it was only six weeks long.  Seemed a lot longer!  So many things happened during those weeks and it was a whirlwind of traveling, course building and racing.  As with anything I do, I always try to learn from the experience to make the next time even better...it's an engineer thing I guess...just have to try and improve everything!

The first thing I found was that a race each week was a grueling schedule.  Not just the fact that between traveling to the next event, working the builds and then racing, there was almost no time to write!!  Add on to that injuries...illness...general wear and tear...no recuperation time/rest/training time and I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for professional athletes.  And props to the elite racers who go at this regularly...even doing multiple laps or back to back days of racing.  Obviously I'm still doing something seriously wrong, besides just being old!

Compounding that, most of the places I camped had no Internet service or very limited service.  One didn't even have cell service.  Hence, every week seemed to put me more in the hole with my writing as well as normal communications.  And just staying on top of OCR activity proved to be difficult.

What I did want to continue was the incredible experience of meeting so many different people and having some truly life changing experiences.  Nor did I want to lose the insights and 'schooling' I was getting on what it really takes to put on a worthwhile OCR event.  Anyone can slap a few obstacles together, mark a trail and charge a lot of money to get in.  But it takes special people to make it exciting, challenging...and safe at the same time.  Meeting and working with these people...that is my mission!!

My initial plans had been to head out west for the Spartan Race World Championship, along with the World's Toughest Mudder and several other Spartan races and Tough Mudders.  In the end though, I had to ratchet that back a bit and stay on the east coast.  Nagging injuries, the final stages of 'swamp fever' and unexpectedly (but not surprisingly) having to give up my place all contributed to the decision.  Gives a whole new meaning to the lyrics from that old Janis Joplin song..."freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose".  But I digress...

So, my new plans will be concentrated in the greater Atlanta and Nashville areas for a couple of Spartans, another BattleFrog and my first Savage Race.  With the scheduling of these races I was also able to not only space them out every other week, but because of this generally centralized area, I'm able to stay in a 'normal' house during the off weeks...yeehaa!!  Provided of course that I behave myself....no promises there but I'll do my best.

After these I should be heading back towards Florida again for a few more races...where the weather should be more conductive to OCR'ing than skiing.  Then...well...who knows exactly.  One thing for certain...in the coming weeks and months there will be change...the one constant in this universe!!  That should make for some interesting reading I'm sure....to be continued...

Summer of OCR Review 2015 - Spartan Race, Tough Mudder and BattleFrog

Race schedule