Accountability Corner
Embark on an adventure with Darren, Morgan, and Chris, the dynamic trio steering the ship at "Accountability Corner." As passionate OCR enthusiasts, they're on a mission to share their expertise and enthusiasm for obstacle course racing with the world. From sharing insider tips on overcoming training plateaus to demystifying the complexities of race registration and gear selection, no stone is left unturned. Whether you're a seasoned competitor hungry for fresh perspectives or a newcomer eager to dip your toes into the muddy waters of OCR, these hosts are here to guide you every step of the way. Join them as they peel back the curtain on the electrifying world of OCR, revealing stories of triumph, camaraderie, and boundless adventure.
Don't miss out – tune in and discover why OCR is capturing hearts and minds around the globe!
Accountability Corner
#1: Tartan Warrior 3k 29th March - Accountability Corner Course Walk 3k Series
Our latest podcast episode explores everything you need to prepare for the Tartan Warrior and the 3K Series. We dive into race strategies, essential training tips, and insider insights from race director Gavin Hogarth to ensure a successful race day.
Overview of the 3K Series and Tartan Warrior
Insights from race director Gavin Hogarth
Key features of the course and terrain
How to sign up and registration details
Importance of the right shoes and gear
Understanding race waves and seeding
Tips for navigating obstacles and improving skills
Recommendations for spectators and event atmosphere
Final strategies for race day performance
Book now:
Watch last year's race: https://www.entrycentral.com/tartanwarriorsat2025
Welcome to the Accountability Corner, where we talk about everything obstacle course racing, from staying disciplined in training, affording the sport, signing up for your first race and, more importantly, how the sport is growing around the world, with your hosts Morgan Maxwell, chris Shipley and Darren Martin.
Speaker 2:Right, special episode. Welcome to Accountability Corner 3K Series Course Walk. This is a very different episode than we usually do, but what we're doing we're taking the race directors from the 3K Series for each course and we're gonna give you the best advice possible, and this advice is gonna help you be prepared, train differently and just give you custom takeaways to make these courses the best possible for you. And if you haven't signed up, now's your time to listen and get signed up. So today, kicking off with Tartan Warrior, the first race in the 3K series and the 2025 British Championships for the 3K, we have Gavin Hogarth joining us all the way from Scotland hey guys, thanks for having me on nice yeah, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:You are our first guest in this incredible series, not only podcast series, but 3k series.
Speaker 1:I am privileged yeah, we want to kind of make this a little bit of a different one, so we're probably, I think we're going to be releasing this first one on our normal day, but I think after that we might be going into doing this as a separate episode, a whole separate entity and something that everyone can get real specific before a race actually starts.
Speaker 3:So yeah, cool sounds good. Yeah, happy to help. I don't mind giving away. Um well, yeah, I don't mind telling people exactly what's involved and what's what's coming up. To be honest, to help people out as much as we can. We're still what? Five and a half weeks away? No, six and a half weeks five and a half weeks, I think, from today, okay so there's, there's still decisions to be made, but yeah, I kind of know roughly I'm playing 90% there in terms of what's going on.
Speaker 2:Gavin, you can hold things back if you want. All right, we're obstacle course racers, everyone likes a surprise here and there, but I think if we can get 80% there to give people a bit of info on there the 3K, that would be awesome.
Speaker 1:Cool. Well, we want to race, don't we? We want a good race. We want to be up there on the start line with everyone else under the same flag. We want to just get ready to go and just have all the well, as much information as we can, and we want to be prepared as much as possible.
Speaker 4:cool, well the great thing about editing this podcast is I'm going to cut loads of things out that I think could help me and impact that is my goal with this nice yeah, we're all.
Speaker 2:I think we. We haven't mentioned that. Yeah, we, just a bit of a caveat. We are actually all racing, so we will share everything we hear from Gavin. We won't. Not, this isn't just a ploy. You have to get your, get you to tell us everything and never release this podcast we had technical difficulties, so the podcast can't go out, sorry how?
Speaker 2:how are you, though? You've been probably super busy preparing this, and it's the second year this 3K series has been going on and it seems to be getting a bit more organised, which is nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm probably having more conversations than I've had in previous years because it is the British Champs as well, so there's a few more considerations to make. There's a lot more podiums at stake. There's 60 podiums alone for the 3k, which is mental, and as opposed to 18 podiums in previous years, so probably every second person is going to go on the podium there's a lot of people
Speaker 3:yeah, there you go. So we're about 110 entries at the moment I'm sure that'll go up a wee bit which is about 50 more than previous years. So that's good and we've got a good range of age groups. There's just a few age groups haven't quite got a full podium potential. So, yeah, we're still looking for a few more sign ups definitely. But we're still looking for a few more sign-ups definitely, but we're pretty happy with where we're at and in terms of the course and stuff.
Speaker 3:If I actually could just put the course out tomorrow, then I would. It's one of those things like you know how busy you're going to be in the couple of weeks beforehand, so as much as I can do now is helpful, and the weather's actually quite decent just now. The ground condition are actually quite dry, so I actually just wanted to get obstacles moved into position now and I'd almost love to put, I'd love to mark out the course now, but the sheep would eat all the flags and that actually happened in my first year. Do you guys hear about that? No, so literally first year ofan warrior for people who've done the course. The 8k course is a kind of 2k running section. That's just basically pure running and I put all the red marker flags out, like the day before, and I did a course check. Uh, oh no, I did it on the saturday. So I did a course check on the saturday late afternoon and all like not all the flags, but a lot of them had been moved and eaten, um, and basically the sheep in the field had went and bloody well eating some of the course flags on the saturday afternoon and I checked and it was the race was obviously on the sunday morning.
Speaker 3:So on the sund morning I had to go back out like super early and run around this two kilometer loop to put out the flag. So I tried to do it last minute so the sheep wouldn't eat them. And at the same time as that there's a ditch you have to jump over or run through. But I didn't want to run through it, so I was in my waterproof trousers and wellies and I jumped over the ditch. But it rained heavily the night before and the banking gave way on the other side and I went fully submerged up to my chest in all my gear.
Speaker 3:This is in the morning of the race and I did not have time to get changed until 2 o'clock that afternoon, so actually the very first year of Tartan Warrior, I was soaking wet from about seven o'clock in the morning until two o'clock in the afternoon because I had no time to go and get changed. So there's what the sheep did to me in that first year. So I learned my lesson. Last year I did not put those flags out until the last minute that's commitment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a show on the sheet moment yeah there you go.
Speaker 2:So, gav, I suppose then if you haven't put everything out there, you you've got an excuse not to give us all bits of information yet, but we can try. We can try and prize as much out of you as possible then, and we, I think, because these courses are so accessible for everyone to, to get involved in, the 3k ocr series is built as a distance and also as a starting, maybe a starting point for anyone who's never done ocr before to feel a bit more at ease to do these courses. So I guess, when giving people the information, maybe we should start before you even get to the start line, like even down to, can people still sign up, and like where is this to sign up, and things like that. Maybe we should start there.
Speaker 3:Yeah good, good place to start. Yeah, people can still sign up, probably the easiest thing to do. You can either go into entry central and search for tartan warrior 3k or just go into google and search for tartan warrior 3k ocr. We don't actually have a tartan warrior website, we just work off entry central, to be absolutely honest, and it does the job. I know what I'm doing with it. Um, I'm not a very techie person. Um, um, in terms of we will probably take entries, I'd say ideally we want everybody entered like a week beforehand. Um, because then that's when I send the entry lists away to the timing chip timing company and I'll sort out like the, the start waves and stuff like that. But yeah, there is still time. I don't really know what the capacity is. To be honest, we're just rolling with it. We might have to start a little bit earlier than advertised, but I'll sort all that out nearer the time. It'll be roughly the way it's been advertised. So, yeah, you can absolutely still jump in.
Speaker 2:Nice, what start time are you you hoping for for the three days on this?
Speaker 3:I think it's yeah, I think it's advertised as the first race going off at 11 um, the first, I think it's the elite men first. I actually don't have in front of me um, and that's what it was previous years. But my line of thinking is that we might have to like shift that by as much as an hour to 10 o'clock even. I don't know exactly, I need to look at all like what the final entries are. But we're also for the first time this year and I actually spoke to you guys about this before I decided to go ahead with it is we're going to offer an open course practice for an hour in that morning, so that that practice time could be from as early as half eight to half nine if it's a 10 o'clock start or, yeah, you know, nine to ten or something like that um, so people can have a shot in the obstacles, which is totally, um, you know, different and against what actually usually happens at championships and things. But because we're a training facility, I think it's a good idea for training facilities to do this um, because there is that home advantage element and it just gives people, you know, it kind of levels the playing field a little bit and also it is useful.
Speaker 3:I hope it's useful for me because there might just be a couple last minute adjustments needing made, um, because it's been highlighted during that practice session, and those can quickly be made. Hopefully there's nothing that would be the ideal situation, um, but yeah, hopefully that just fills people with a bit more confidence that they can have a goal. And then, yeah, maybe even for people taking they might even take bigger risks during the actual race because they've sussed an obstacle out. So, yeah, I'm quite keen to try and, in a couple of obstacles, like reward people who are maybe willing to take a bigger risk or perhaps even jump into the obstacle. Yeah, that type of thing, um, you don't have to, but yeah, uh, award a bit of agility as well love that we, we, uh, we did talk about that and we've spoken about it in the past as well.
Speaker 2:I think practicing the obstacles beforehand is just such a such a great, great thing to have. It allows the everyone to feel at ease when they're attacking the obstacles if they haven't never done them before seen them. But it also from the other side of it, it creates a bit of a spectacle, because you also got races that are feeling confident to race.
Speaker 4:There isn't this.
Speaker 2:I've never seen this obstacle before, so I'm not going to race and be careful. I think you like you say there that risk versus reward, which we'll get onto in a bit because it may or may not be one of our categories for the card, but so yeah, so there is. There is that as well yeah, definitely yeah.
Speaker 4:What's the uh band system this time right? Is it the normal band, like we've kind of been seeing, or is it slightly different?
Speaker 3:so slightly different. Excuse me, I believe it will be the same. I believe this is the system that was used at the 3k champs in. Was it October that? Was it nuts? Was that October time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe they did three bands and then you lose a band if you fail an obstacle, and then you can run a penalty loop at the end of the course to get your bands back. But I think what they did was they didn't take the last band away. So if you fail an obstacle and you don't, you've only got one band left. Rather than taking that last band away from you, you get a mark put on the band and you've only got one band left. Rather than taking that last band away from you, you get a mark put on the band with a kind of permanent marker and that amounts to an extra time penalty. And the reason for that is just so that we don't have too many did not complete DNCs or DNFs, whatever you want to call it. On the results. So everybody still finishes on the results. Yeah, they might have time penalties added on, but at least they still get a finishing position as such. So that's the reason behind it. Is that how they did it at Nuts? I wasn't there.
Speaker 4:I believe.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I think that's where they trialled it out a little bit but, to be honest with you, I hope it doesn't really come down to having to use the marks on the bands, because we will also run some penalty loops, or penalty exercises if you like, during the race, and this is just to reduce the number of bands that could be lost. This happened last year. We had some obstacles where, at the obstacle itself, if you failed that, we actually had a running loop at that obstacle because we had the space available to do it there, and then and then in our indoor section, we actually employed rowing machines and skiers as penalties, which I think people were a bit dubious about to start with, but actually people seemed to think it was fine to have that If it meant that you're less likely to lose a band, if you could just do a penalty there and then. So, yeah, I guess it gives a bit more variety to it as well.
Speaker 2:Nice. So that's the signing up, that's the um penalty system. Um, what about like, registration on the day? Is it pretty straightforward, just thinking about when people arrive? There's, you had parking yeah, issues not issues. But you advise people to share, yeah, share a car, yeah we're definitely.
Speaker 3:Typically we're on the limit of parking up here, and especially on the sunday. The saturday's not as bad, but then this year, because we're getting more entrance into the 3k, then it might just be as busy. Um, so, yeah, definitely. I'd say to people try and car share. I'll put this out to people beforehand, but car sharing really helps.
Speaker 3:Um, registration wise, it's just a case of. I think it's all been quite quick. I mean, I've never actually been at registration. I've always been out in the course. I've never seen it in action as much. There's a team that look after that. But from what I've seen is pretty quick. You know, it's just give your name, get your bands, get your timing chip and you're basically good to go. And if you do the race on a Sunday as well, you get a t-shirt at registration. But there's no, there's no, I should kind of in case there's any disappointment. There's no t-shirts or participation medals in the 3k. I did put that in the sign up just in case people like, oh, you didn't, I don't know that. Um, because we do t-shirts and medals the next day and the vast majority of people will be racing the next day. Um, and also, like I said earlier, there's a one in every second person will actually end up with a podium. If we end up with 120 entrants, we'll get 60 podiums, so I feel there's enough prizes and stuff to go around.
Speaker 2:So yeah, nice disclaimer so we've uh, we've got to the start line. Let's, let's get. Let's get into the most important thing that us as racers want to know. Like the course itself is 3k, which is so short, but also, if you've ever done a 3k can also feel quite long. Um, because it's got some variations to it. So, in terms of like the course itself, we've all done it previously and it's always been amazing. So if I was signing up for this for the first time and thinking about that first 1k, is it? Is it still all about like? Is there still like a carry section and then you go into the obstacles? Is it? Is it really a point where you need to find your place and have a pacing strategy within that first 1k? Because I'm thinking last year it was it was like that you found yourself, you had some carries and then you got into the technical obstacles. Is that the same? It's going to be the same case yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 3:Um, you can you I mean, they do this in most courses, to be honest to use that first 1k to get people spread out a little bit to try and prevent bottlenecks, so as an opportunity to settle into your pace, um, it's also an opportunity to get into a good position for when you do hit the obstacles, so that you're um, you know, because every you know the obstacles up here is basically two lanes and we don't really have any any more lanes than that, and there's one or two obstacles with maybe three or four lanes, but generally it's two lanes. So you kind of want to be in a decent position for that, and so that's that's whether you want to push hard at the start or whether you actually just want to hold back and let other people destroy themselves, um, and then hopefully pick them off towards the, the back end of the race. Um, I'm probably going to change things a little bit.
Speaker 3:In previous years for people who've been um, so those that can remember there was a tire, carry up the hill and back down, and then you went straight into the burn, as we call it, or the stream, for you english people. Um, now I've got a feeling that that that that stream um means there's limited overtaking opportunity. You're kind of once, you're in position, you're kind of stuck in that position. So what I'm looking to do is for that, um, the section in the stream where you went over and under logs. I'm probably going to put that slightly further on in the course. We'll get a few obstacles in first, just so there's more chance for people to be spread out rather than just kind of queuing to go through a stream.
Speaker 1:So, what's the way it's going to be? Are we going to be doing it in sort of fours, fives, twos, 30 second interval, something like that? Because if we're going to be running, like you say, at your facility last year we had sort of close together obstacles, not many lanes, so are we going to be tackling them at the same time, or are you going to spread out a bit more with waves?
Speaker 3:so I'm I'm pretty sure. Last year we did six. I think think it was six in a wave. I need to look back. I think it was six in a wave and it was waves every two minutes.
Speaker 3:I think, roughly speaking, some of the waves might have been four or five. Instead, in terms of how we put the waves together, if you're doing age group racing, then you're going to race with people in your age group. That's basically that's a given, really, um, but for the elites, then it's, it's actually this is something I'm happy to kind of take opinions on. You guys might have opinions is whether you, let's say, you had 12 elite males, do you put, do you rank them 1 to 12 in terms of people, you know what you think their capabilities are, and you put the top six fat or the six fastest all in one wave, and the risk of that is that there there is a little bit of a battle to get on lanes later on the course.
Speaker 3:I mean, you still it's still plenty of time to get spread out um, and you just roll the dice and that's what happens. Or would you do it where you maybe put three fastest or three of the fastest people in wave, one, um, and three of the fastest and wave two, and then three of the slightly slower ones in wave one and three the slightly slower ones in wave one and three of the slightly slower ones in wave two. So there's only maybe like two or three fast people in each wave. So there's. Yeah, I don't know what you guys think, do you know?
Speaker 1:what I think. No, Do you want me to throw it out there?
Speaker 2:or do you want to throw it out there?
Speaker 1:No, you go, you go. I think what was it? A 30-second interval? No, we did two minutes last year, I think. What did we do at Nuts? Was that 30 seconds? Yeah, it was about that Groups of four. Yeah, I liked that idea. I mean, what do you guys think?
Speaker 4:Most definitely got a pin in that Nuts they took well, Nuts, I think I enjoyed the way they two fast guys, two still competitive, but maybe on the slower end of their field put them in a wave and then they basically kept going down Another two of the fastest guys, another two from the kind of back section, and then they just weaned it down until you had the four left in the middle. That kind of all went together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say. The only thing that went wrong with Nuts yeah, I would say the only thing that went wrong with nuts is that you always want your predicted seeded podium races to be racing one another before the spectacle of the race. So what I mean by that is you, if you think there's going to be three people that are going to be the quickest, they should be in a wave together, because you really want to see that battle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that is where that 30 seconds worked though, because that 30 seconds I know we're getting a bit off topic, but that 30 seconds brought everyone. You could still see the people behind who were good, and if they caught you, you still knew you've lost 30 seconds. So the racing feel was still there, but you still had the gaps between the races. So even if I caught up to Mo, he knew I would gain 30 seconds on him. Yeah, do you know? There was that. I thought it worked quite well. I know it's off topic what we're going on about.
Speaker 3:I know it's quite a good topic because actually I'm kind of open to how we do it. But I think, yeah, 30 seconds to me I just I don't know. That just feels like up here, when we've got a a cluster of obstacles towards the end, it feels like I'm more likely to put people on top of each other. Um, so I don't, a two minute gap just feels better, but if we can make that work, um, I mean, who were the top, the top three in the 3k last year for the men? Was it Russell Moe and who was it? Russell Moe?
Speaker 1:and was it Ramunis? Ramunis, yeah, he was in the later wave.
Speaker 4:Yeah and I wasn't in the same wave as Russ right. Tartamore was like the age group waves then, wasn't it?
Speaker 3:yeah, we did it more by age group, because then wasn't it?
Speaker 4:yeah, we did it more by age group because we didn't do, we didn't have an elite this year.
Speaker 3:It would be if you've entered the elite, then it would be elite you're in.
Speaker 4:I think we do rather have been in the same wave as Russell yeah, definitely that's the problem with my kind of age group, because there's never too many people around me, so I'm always kind of there and just running on my own.
Speaker 3:It tends to be at the time trial so I think the the likelihood is this year I would probably and it's looking at the entry list just now you could probably take a pretty good punt at the top three and I think you'd probably get at least two of them right.
Speaker 3:So you know, I may well look at last year and say, okay, let's put russell, moe and ramuna saw on the same wave because of where they ranked last year, and or maybe, if there's somebody else who's been running really well towards the back end of last season, maybe you bring them into that top three, um, but I think, yeah, certainly by russell and moe, I would say you guys will go in the same wave, um, and then maybe, whether we put a third fast person in there, or maybe just go for two fast and then two medium and two slower, roughly, but it's hard to predict.
Speaker 3:I might need to lean on you guys and some other people because there's entrants that I don't know. So you know, I may have to get people's opinions a little bit on that, but this is really just for the elite wave, like for the age groups, it's not going to matter as much, because unless it's a big age group, because most of the age groups will probably just be one wave, so you don't need to worry too much. I think there's a couple of age groups where there might be 12 entrants. So, yeah, you might have to seed it a little bit.
Speaker 2:Seeding is always a difficult topic because, like you say, if you don't know people, you can't seed them correctly because you're, you're just ignorant to know how good they are. Like I wouldn't know, but I suppose you're not good until you've proven that you're good. So you can't seed them until you know how they are going to perform. So I would personally seed it from an average position that people have done in the 3K races last year and then whoever's been consistently in the top three is your top three people that are going to be the fastest this year as a prediction.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I'm probably like to be totally honest with you. I'm probably not going to sit in for hours and hours and look at every race result from last year. If somebody else wants to do that for me, like you guys and also you, you could maybe argue that some people may not have raced for six months, so people can be in a hell of a good shape in six months, or they could be falling away. Yeah, yeah, but they can use that though gavin gonna.
Speaker 2:They can use that, though Gavin can't they. They can feed on it. Oh, I could have been seeded last, but I'm awesome. I'm going to absolutely surprise the field.
Speaker 3:I might set out to make some people angry.
Speaker 2:Exactly, put me last. It's fine, cool. No Mo, put Mo last.
Speaker 1:You know who to put last, don't you?
Speaker 4:Russell, you know who to put last don't you Russell? No, no, it's not.
Speaker 3:Russell. I don't know if you want to be hunted by Russell either. To be honest, no, definitely not.
Speaker 2:So that's quite cool. I think we talked about the first 1K is always about just looking for position, understanding how you're feeling in the race, getting rid of the race nerves and the rust, and you're giving us a bit more time to do that before we get into maybe a strategical decision of going into that single lane sort of ravine or whatever. Was it a burn?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, the burn the stream.
Speaker 4:The stream yeah.
Speaker 3:The stream.
Speaker 2:And then, as I remember it, the second k was quite obstacle, dense, I think, would you. Would you call it dense? I would say there was, yeah, there was quite a few obstacles.
Speaker 3:There wasn't there yeah, I think the obstacles, uh, in the second k certainly is at the start of the second k, if you like. Yeah, it's quite kind of free flowing like there's. It's just one after the other generally and it's nothing too technical. But if people are quite good on agility, getting over walls, um, I saw I remember watching the video back of mo, I think it was on the triple x obstacle last year and there's ways to do that obstacle where you can literally just hop over it, um, and make up quite a bit of ground as well. So it's quite just bang, bang, bang. Um. Then there is a, there is some other changes like. So if people were there last year they might remember, um, there was a kind of scaffolding rig, um, it was the toro's kind of, what was it?
Speaker 1:mid to high to low.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really difficult to transition from a footlock on the rope and then going quite low into a Toros attachment, so that last year was out of the wind turbines before the Say it again.
Speaker 3:The wind turbines.
Speaker 1:The wind turbines.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it was out there before the carry. Now that obstacle's been moved, because it's now in a more permanent position, because that was just a temporary position. I can't be bored moving it constantly.
Speaker 3:It's a pain in the ass yes, a little bit less windy, so that obstacle's going to feature a bit earlier in the race. So that obstacle is going to feature a bit earlier in the race, but that one's probably going to have a penalty loop off of it. So you're not going to I actually want to make that one a little bit tricky but if you manage it, if you don't manage it, at least you don't lose a band. Yes, you do a penalty loop, least you don't lose a band. Yes, you do a penalty loop, but you don't lose a band. So that's probably the way I'm going to go with that.
Speaker 3:Then, straight after that rig, there's a new obstacle which is like it can be done in different ways. So it's probably for the age group. The way I'm thinking about doing it is for the age groups. There's just a rope climb, so just a basic rope. Climb up and touch a beam, um at the top. But perhaps for the elites they have to go up and over the top of the beam, um, so top of the rope, and then you have to get your stomach over there, your chest over the top, and then kind of flip yourself over a little bit and back down the rope.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure about doing that for everybody, because it is quite high and I feel like I want, you know, not everybody might feel comfortable doing that, whereas the elites are probably going to be a bit more confident on stuff like that. So I might have just a slightly different ruling there for the elites that's my thoughts Rather than having to get 10-year-olds to do that as well, which they might be a bit too scared to do. But then you get to practice it, I suppose, beforehand. So yeah, that's a bit open for debate. So there's two kind of punchy obstacles, one after the other, there with the rig, and then the rope climb, or rope climb up and over and back down.
Speaker 1:So at the moment we're using our mandatory skills and then we're just going into a little bit of technical sort of thing so mandatory agility, jumping over things and then just using our, our skills that we should have built up over the many years of obstacle course training that we've done. What is it? Footlock we want to have a good footlock and, uh, a nice rope climb skills, I suppose yeah, yeah, I definitely think.
Speaker 3:But yeah, footlocks are going to be helpful on whether it's thicker ropes or thinner ropes. That's going to be helpful on whether it's thicker ropes or thinner ropes. That's going to be helpful throughout the race. Maybe even practicing footlocks in a low rig, that might be a factor. Yeah, transitioning from a rig attachment onto a rope onto another rig attachment like just getting quite good at that it's going to be helpful as well.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, nice, and then I remember you went out to the turbines for um the carry element, and then it that's almost like that then marks the final k, doesn't it? It marks the final k of the race. What?
Speaker 1:you, you did.
Speaker 2:It did pretty much before, which is quite nice, kay, because it goes into like almost like we're going in your garden.
Speaker 1:It felt like you are going in his garden, you are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you literally are. You're running around my garden and you go past my bi-folding doors into my kitchen. So you might. I've actually said to my sons they quite enjoy, like the Fit Body Farm members that train here three times a week. They run around that loop all the time and sometimes my sons just open up the door and tell them to hurry up cheeky wee buggers so I might get them. Just as people are running around, I might just get them to open up the door and tell the runners just to hurry up nice, I like that what was quite nice is it went into the barns, didn't it?
Speaker 2:for the obstacles, because you've got quite a lot of um obstacles that you use all the time and they're always there in that barn, aren't they? And you use that for, like, the final part of the race. And then I remember there's it. Well, on the 8k, when we did it last year, there was like a sprint finish down the hill and back up the hill. But I'm assuming because it's a 3k, it's going to be quite a short sprint finish yeah, yeah that's.
Speaker 3:It would be nice to have a slightly longer run, but it would just lengthen the whole thing a bit too much, um. So yeah, it'll be a shorter run to the finish in the 3k than it is for the 8k, um and that. So that kind of last k is quite obstacle dense, um. So overtaking opportunities if you're in a group of three and there's only two lanes, you're gonna have to be a little bit strategic about trying to get in front of people or just letting somebody else go. But we're probably in amongst all those obstacles. We're probably going to have the laser pistols as well, so that's a potential separator or a potential overtaking opportunity.
Speaker 3:If you're pretty fast on the laser pistols, that could get you out in front, going into the final three obstacles, um. And yeah, that's where I'm thinking I'm gonna. I'm thinking about having the laser pistols indoors, basically because then I don't need to worry about the weather, so they'll be towards the end, but there's a wee overtaking opportunity on those. Yeah, it's a pretty exciting finish. Another thing which maybe I shouldn't talk too much in terms of maybe I should hold stuff back.
Speaker 2:No, tell us everything. Well, this is an Maybe.
Speaker 3:I shouldn't talk too much in terms of maybe I should hold stuff back, no, tell us everything. Well, this is an idea. I've spoken to a couple of people about it. I need to speak to the chip timing company to see if this is possible, which I'm assuming. It is where we would have a 400 meter segment. On the last 400 meters of the 3K There'll be a timing mat. So basically, when you come into the woods just before the rope traverse, there'll be a timing mat you go over uh, and then that, then you go over the timing mat at the end of the end of the race and that's basically about 400 meters um, and then there'll be a. You'll be able to see who is the fastest over the final 400 um, which is quite useful if people are going to do the 400-metre championships this year in Ireland. It might not necessarily be a qualifier as such, but just a wee bit of bragging rights, I suppose, or you can see where you rank against other people over the final 400.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's quite cool. It gives a little bit of an entry into an entry because, because I mean, not many of us have been able to try a 400 meters, so if you're maybe you made a couple of mistakes, you can try and push from that 400, see how you might fare at that. That race in in the future.
Speaker 3:Yeah I mean I don't know if there might be a wee prize, for I'm not gonna. I don't want to make a big deal like, say, there's a £1,000 prize for the last 400 metres, because then that takes away from the 3K.
Speaker 1:Yeah is he frozen?
Speaker 3:he's back oh, did you hear that? Oh, you froze a little bit. Oh, I just said I wouldn't want there to be like a thousand pound prize for the final 400 meters and make it a big deal, and then it's like it takes away from the 3k itself, like it would just be like a thing on the side, which would be quite cool nice, that sounds good because obviously we've we've raced that before and it and obviously for the listeners, that last 400 meters can your obstacle proficiency can actually speed you up in that last 400 meters because there is quite technical obstacles but they're they're not extremely challenging.
Speaker 2:But I think if you have the right skill set and you've you've practiced on them, you can actually make moves on those obstacles and especially, like you say, gav is like if there's two lanes and there's three people you need to be pushing and making, taking risks at certain obstacles to get ahead of the person beside you to then get, get, um, that overtaking opportunity so yeah, that sounds really cool yeah yeah definitely definitely rest reward yeah but we want.
Speaker 2:So we've talked through the first 1k, the second 1k and the third 1k. So we've talked through the whole course. But I guess for listeners who are this is coming out four weeks before the race, and also we talked about yes, it's still, you can sign up. Yes, it's easy to do. Getting there is is easy, like everyone is going up there, there's great atmosphere and everything happening. But what we really want to do is give listeners a bit more tangible outtakes from this episode to say, right, okay, so what shoes should I wear? Like, how should I train? Is there anything I need to specifically train for before this race? What nutrition set should I have specifically? Because, yes, it is a free k, but nutrition does play a part in certain aspects and maybe we can go into that and that's how we want to build out these cards. A little bit to cards I don't know what we're calling them yet, but they get, they're gonna get there.
Speaker 2:So the first, the first category we had, was terrain and it's like the effect of the terrain of the course. I guess we want to rate it, but maybe we can have a conversation about it as well, because we know it's going to be in. We know it's in scotland. We know it might be raining, the weather might be a bit chilly, but how is the? How is the? How is it underfoot in this race?
Speaker 3:yeah, so your feet are going to get wet and muddy, okay, um, at some point in the course, um, that might just be muddy through running through gateways in the field, because that's where the mud is, uh, and if you're to run the course right now, it's actually pretty firm underfoot. And if you were to run the course right now, it's actually pretty firm underfoot. So it's pretty much all on. Well, it's not all. The vast majority is on grass, and then there is some hard surface that you need to run across. Obviously, you're indoors as well for some of it, some of it's in tarmac, but the vast majority is on grass, quite short grass, and I'd say it's nice running actually.
Speaker 1:Well, it depends, what kind of livestock have you had on this grass, because that makes a bit of a difference.
Speaker 3:It's not too bad at this time of year because it's just sheep and they don't make a big mess. There's no cows. The sheep will be gone by race day, hopefully this year. That's helpful. You guys have heard your episodes talking about having four different types of shoe. I'm just a one-shoe person. I'll actually wear Salomon Speedcross and that's basically it.
Speaker 1:It's quite an all-terrain shoe really.
Speaker 3:It does the grip does the hard stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I just I changed shoe once and I got Achilles tendonitis and I was just like do you know what? Actually I'm just going to stick with these because it's what I know and I'm happy enough. So that's what I wear. Yeah, and you will. You'll go through water in the 3k, but it's at most. It's probably going to be like knee, depends on how tall you are, but knee to thigh deep at most. I would say it could. It could just be ankle deep, depends how much rainfall there's been. Um, but I would say it's. It's pretty fast running in general so what we're saying?
Speaker 1:we're saying something light, something that drains well, something that's got a fairly good bit of grip, and we're saying something that's what else.
Speaker 3:We've got there, something that can handle a bit of hard stuff yeah, yeah, um, because I I mean, if people wear something which is really thin, so then you're going to feel that on the hard tarmac and stuff like that, if that bothers you and but you definitely, you definitely want a bit of grip and I wouldn't come out in your, like just your trail running shoes that you you run around the hard trails on, and it's gonna be yeah nice.
Speaker 2:What about um? Speaking about terrain, so that's like how it feels underfoot. But what about um? Like elevation hills? There is there. I know it's only 3k, but we've we've all definitely done 3ks that have put a lot of elevation in, but I don't think there is. There is a lot, but there is rolling though, isn't it?
Speaker 3:no, it's not mass, it's just, it's just rolling, it's just that start. It starts a fast downhill um and then it goes into quite a steep uphill um and then straight back down again. That's just like a tire carry, usually um so up and down, and then you make your way up to the obstacles the kind of mandatory agility type obstacles and once you're up there you don't really have well, you don't have too many ups and downs, um after that. So you're probably talking, like you'll end up doing, about what you might call three hill reps, but not not like, not like you're in the mountains.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I think if I remember it rightly, if I give the listeners like what I think about it in my brain, I think it's almost like you go down a v up like down, a v up down and then back into, like, your house area, which is a bit flatter. So it's like your house is on a, the high section and you go down and up. Yeah, I don't think I've even explained that very well.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, you have it's, it's yeah you, you go down, you go up and you do that. Probably it's funny, because in my mind.
Speaker 1:I've got one of them, green, you know, like those green landscape virtual sort of images. I've got that in my head but I can't describe it okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, we need to draw it yeah I have got gcse in art, so um cool, so that's train effect, terrain effect. What about? Um strength components? So some some 3k races, like the metal games we just saw? Just look that was that had so much strength involved. But what? What components have you got out on course? What are we looking at?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's not. It's not too bad, to be honest, that it is just um what is. It was just a tire carry and a wreck. But a 50 pound wreck bag carry for the men, 35 pound for the ladies and teenagers, um, and then kind of a 20 pound carry for 10 I think it's 10 to 13 year olds usually is a 20 pound carry and that's that, to be fair, is just on flat um round wind turbines. So that's that's pretty, pretty fast, um yeah, that's segments from last year.
Speaker 1:Actually, I think didn't someone put it as a segment. Uh, I may have yeah, what did you put it under?
Speaker 3:I think I put it as an accountability corner segment that's the one, yeah I've thought about having things like atlas stone carries and stuff, but we just don't. We just don't have enough of them. Um, yeah, I could. I could spend quite a lot of money on getting lots of atlas stones made. I suppose maybe we'll do that next year, um, but we've got a decent number of wreck bags, so that's why it's in.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, there's a sorry, there's a tire flip tire flip as well yeah, that's just a couple of flips, but that can be tricky, like I saw people struggling with that, a little bit like if it's wet, if it's a bit of mud, you're struggling to get a bit of a grip on it. So, um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry about that for the vast majority of people, like I wouldn't make that a concern. As long as you can, you know, maybe practice it, but, um, and maybe practice, if you've got a tire available, practice get lifting it, but then getting your knee underneath it and just in case you can't lift it all the way up and over in one go, and just having a wee breath with your, with the rest, knowing your, your thigh, um, so that's maybe worth practicing. Yeah, cool. And then what about? Um, like number?
Speaker 2:number of obstacles, that obstacle density your thigh, so that's maybe worth practicing. Yeah Cool, and then what about like number of obstacles, like obstacle density, what's that? How would you say this is looking like compared to 3Ks you've done in the past, it's pretty dense.
Speaker 3:I can't remember the exact number from last year I need to look back at the rule book but I think we're probably talking about 35 obstacles. Yeah, that is dense. Yeah, something like that. Um, yeah, just a mixture of, like we've already said, mandatory agility based ones. There's definitely give us some technical elements in there. We do, we, yeah, we. We want to appeal to people who's maybe first event it is, but at the same time, there's that like trying to prepare people who might be going to the European champs as well in Portugal.
Speaker 1:Maybe you don't say the wrong word, then maybe it's quite a well-rounded sort of obstacle, heavy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd say pretty well, I'd just say good variety. You try and kind of think about the different techniques that might be required, um, in different positions that people might find themselves in in a race, like on an obstacle, and try and kind of give them, you know, an experience of each of those I guess, and so it's not just the same type of movement all the time the next.
Speaker 2:The next category we had was like the speed of the course, and we were thinking of, like, suppose speed is is relative to how fast you're going to go around the course. But I'm thinking more from a um, is there anything on the course that's going to maybe slow you down, obstacle wise? Is there, is there hills, is there water? But I would say, from my own view of this course especially, we just said there's a variety of obstacles rather than saying there's dense, technical obstacles. It's actually quite a fast course because everything is quite quick and easy to get through. There isn't anything that slows you down apart from the. The only thing that did before was the hooks obstacle that we did. I think that that was a slow transitional obstacle that took some time, but I think everything else is quite quick to get through. I don't know if you guys agree, yeah, yeah, no totally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, they're. Yeah, the rigs are generally quite short. I'm considering linking the rigs together in some cases. So, like the indoor rig, if people remember, it was split into two parts last year, so you kind of did part one and then you dropped down and then did part two, and then the same with the outdoor rig over the astroturf area. So there is a possibility that would actually make that one big long rig for the, you know, for the 3k, um.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I need to. I need to think it's difficult because on one hand you're like, oh, you want just what I've said there. You want to kind of give people a different challenge, like you guys who might want to prepare for a slightly harder race, but at the same time consider that actually a shorter rig with a rest before another short rig might be wiser. You know, if there was a way, if you can make quick course changes, like where you just said, okay, as soon as all the elites are through, or as soon as all the men are through, or whatever it is, and you make a quick change and but I don't know, it's difficult because then you're creating complication, um yeah, keep it simple, because because the thing is gav with that is, yes, not having a rest means it's going to be quicker and people transition through that obstacle like in a very flow state.
Speaker 2:But if you're quick, anyway, you're not going to be taking that rest. Rest, you should be jumping on the obstacle every time. You should be jumping on the next one, jumping on the next one, and we should be doing that if we want to get the best time and have the speed. But then also you have the accessibility of like, if people who are doing this for the first time can't do that, jumping on the next one, you're giving them the opportunity to actually stop. It's just the situation. Yes, it's.
Speaker 3:The hardest thing is that when people do stop, they just need to have that awareness around them that people may be jumping off and jumping back on again, like, yeah, that's the hardest part yeah as well, like it's, it would be quite nice to kind of have one or two tests where you have to be able to transition from one style of movement into a different style, like and that's what I mean by creating a connection between two obstacles that might just be a rope, so rather than dropping off, you maybe have to go into a rope and then go into a different series of attachments, that type of thing.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I'm playing around with it and the good thing is being a facility, a training facility, like we train up here most Saturdays and I'm pretty much just throwing different challenges at the team up here and seeing how they cope and then deciding, like, say, they're basically working as guinea pigs. So I think, you know, people can be pretty rest assured that it's not just that I throw a load of attachments on a rig and see what happens. It's like it's tested and tested and tested by myself and then I've got to watch how others cope with it as well. And then, even before we, um, even the night before the race, like I get two people usually to run the whole course, like on the Friday, and I basically run around with them and I watch them do everything and see how they cope. And those are people. Those might just be kind of average obstacle course people or even beginners.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I have that problem when I'm building stuff at nuts. I'll kind of build things and think, oh, this would be really cool. And then I have to problem when I'm building stuff at nuts.
Speaker 3:I kind of build things and think, oh, this would be really cool, and then I have to throw it through a couple of people to bring me back down to earth because it's not very accessible yeah, but then on the flip side, the fact we are going to do this one hour practice, that that kind of makes me think, oh well, maybe we could have a couple of tougher challenges, because people can suss it out first.
Speaker 3:Um so, yes, it's actually really good yeah, yeah, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see, and then, and then you've got the weather conditions to consider. Um, yeah, you know, last year the 3k there was, there was a period of half an hour where it basically was like sideways hail, um, and people got, you know, the hands got cold, and then some people some people got it dry.
Speaker 3:It was still wet obstacles, but they got it dry. Um, so, I would you know, I'm always I'm a farmer, so I'm always looking at the weather forecast and so, yeah, I would make some decisions based on is it going to be a wet day or is it going to be a dry day as well and then risks.
Speaker 2:You said about risks and reward. I guess, mo, where did you take the most risks last year? Um, on this course, as a, as a racer, I know that we talk about. Obviously we want everyone to be involved in the 3k, but from a racing point of view, I think you take you do take more risks because you understand there's more reward there. Where did you take the most risk last year?
Speaker 4:I think, to be honest, mainly on a lot of like most of most obstacles there, you, there wasn't an element where you can take risks. So it seems like about aren't saying all of them, but like, even like a lot of the rigs and stuff you could, there was opportunity to make big gaps and try and skip things and do things quite quickly. Like gab touched on earlier, it's quite like there's a lot of like in and out and if you, if you want to make it quick, you can because you can jump and explode into stuff. So a lot on the rigs, but also even the mandatory obstacles, there's a lot of walls and stuff that if you're quite agile, quite explosive, you can jump through.
Speaker 4:Um, similar to that obstacle I can't remember what you call it now, but the one that's is it, yeah, triple x, like that if you can just commit to running along the top, you can make a lot of time there, whereas you see people going kind of down and up and they lose so much time. And there's a few mandatory obstacles like that where you can just make time. And there's the other one, if I remember, from last year, where it had like, is it ropes hanging down and then bits of wood, and there's like a bit of wood in the middle and you kind of jump across. So like that again, you could be quite explosive on that.
Speaker 3:And that's that's probably going to be changed this year actually. Yeah. So yeah, that particular obstacle where it was just literally like a series of ropes on a slightly sloping wall, what we're going to have this year, likelihood is those, those two walls that they're actually they were joined together the previous two years but they're going to be separated and there's going to be a crossbar, so we could call it monkey in the middle. So you'll do the first, the first one, and then you'll go like a lateral shuffle across the top and then back on, um, so yeah, that's gonna be a feel a bit different.
Speaker 3:And the other thing, maybe to add in for people who are newer to it, I've made some slight adjustments to some of the, some of the obstacles. We've put some footholds on and I'm just talking like rock climbing holds just to make them more achievable for people who are newer to it, but obviously, for the fun runners the next day as well, there's still plenty to challenge the competitive people. But there's just been a few where it's like, do you know what? The guys who are good at it, they'll just be a bit faster. The guys who are good at it, they'll just be a bit faster.
Speaker 3:Um, and it's not gonna be that. You know, it's not like I'm taking away a complete skill and by putting footholds in and some of the wall and it's in a couple of kind of slanty walls, kind of sideways walls, and but it should help people, um, who are newer to it for us, us, for I say us, I think for just the races side of things that can actually be quite deceiving at times to see another like a foothold or something like that because you assume you should use it.
Speaker 2:But I suppose what Mo's saying is that that risk is not using attachments, using very little attachments, and making that risk to to avoid those additional, uh, footholds and elements like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and don't forget, for you know, some people it's not worth taking the risk because it is still a banded system. You lose your on the obstacles, you're going to lose time, your place in all those bits that you get. You know you're going to get your penalties. So if you're not confident, you can't take that risk, because you need to keep your hands, which will get you more time. But if you're, if you feel as if you've got that skill set and you want to use it in the race and you feel like now is the time to try that, then you know you might be really rewarded by taking that risk yeah, yeah, it's kind of there's.
Speaker 3:It's whether you want to do something just for the sake of doing it, um, and kind of show showing your physical capability. But by skipping stuff, is it actually just going to make you more tired or is it going to be, is it going to become more risky for you? And because there's there's a couple of potential rigs where it might be that there might be the ability to skip the last attachment and jump to the bell. So there might be that scenario and you've got to make that decision for yourself. Yeah, it might save you. It might only save you a second, but yeah, it's whether it's worth it.
Speaker 1:It might look really good in camera that's what it's for, though gotta look good on camera yeah, for people who's coming into it like for the first timers and the first sort of people doing it then that gives the accessibility because they're going to try these things for the first time. And then they might see some people who think, oh, they've got loads of experience and they're coming off, but I've taken my time and got through things and I've placed better than them. So, as a like a first time racer, you could be really really shocked at how well you do because you're you're new to this and you're taking you're not taking the risk because you're trying to.
Speaker 3:You're still trying to suss things out yeah, I think there's, though, the rigs you know they'll have. There'll be enough attachments for people to do them, but there'll be a. There'll be opportunity definitely opportunity to skip attachments for the people who are able to. So there's enough. If you need more attachments, then they'll be there. If you can't take his biggest swing, that's fine, and then people who can spot the opportunities to say do you know what? I don't need to use that, then those opportunities are going to be there as well yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2:And then, gav, we did have a category which is like specialist things to know about the course or specialities. But I guess, just going in this conversation now, maybe the category needs to be changed slightly to be what skills would be good to know about this course? What skill or obstacle proficiency do I need to maybe brush up on or learn? That would really enhance my ability on this course. And you said it's and probably correct me if I'm wrong but more like that rope lock, that making sure that you can do a proficient foot lock yeah, let's see, decisions are still to be made.
Speaker 3:But, um, yeah, I think definitely, um, rope skills would be good. Um, and foot locks, you definitely want to know how to do that and and perhaps be pretty good on footlocks on skinny ropes, not just like your typical spartan rope climb. Um, also, you might there. There may be a scenario where for most I think most people know now or what what kind of figure four technique would be. Um, in a low rig so if you don't know what that is, then maybe speak to a coach or and look that one up but where you maybe have some attachments and there's no obvious way to put your foot, your feet, onto those attachments, um, and you have to find and it's, and it's quite low to the ground as well, so it would take a lot of upper body strength to just muscle your way through it.
Speaker 3:So there's a technique figure four technique which might be worth learning. It's in my it's, on my kind of list of things to include, but whether I do it or not, yeah, we're just testing stuff you've got to work out if it's going to make things too difficult. But um, yeah, so the figure four you might want to practice. Uh, I'm giving stuff away here. You might want to practice going underneath a cargo net, um, like, I literally mean climb down one side and underneath and back up the other side, that type of thing. Um, yeah, try to think of any other skills as such shooting what's that accuracy?
Speaker 2:shooting accuracy, yeah yeah, yeah, sorry yeah we don't want people going off and practicing that, though, um you use a laser gun yeah, no, no, you can.
Speaker 1:you can practice that with a water pistol, remember, yeah, yeah, there you go, perfect.
Speaker 2:Successful.
Speaker 3:For people that are familiar with the laser pistols. When it comes to the ones that are used at Euros and the Worlds, the ones we've got are a wee bit different. They're pentathlon pistols, so you have to reload them, which is really easy to do. But it's the same principle. You've got 50 seconds to get 5 hits on a target and basically, if it takes you the whole, if you don't get the 5 hits, then you've just wasted 50 seconds. There's no penalty, but you might be able to get 5 hits within 10 seconds if you're super fast not if you're Mo.
Speaker 2:Have you seen him do it? He's like that.
Speaker 3:I take that whole time, um, but we're not going to make the laser pistol too difficult. Like in pentathlon, you're only allowed to use one arm, one hand. You can only hold on with one hand, um, but we'll make it. You can just hold the pistol however you want, we're not going to govern that. And then the distance wise, we're going to keep it relatively short as well, um, but maybe worth practicing if you're during your hour hour of practice of visiting the pistols yeah, if you got, if you got a shooting range, shooting range at home, that is, that's cool.
Speaker 2:I'm glad that we've maybe changed that category to be skills to learn, because when I, when you, go to courses like gab, remember when we, we all, we've all looked at the rule books for, like the european and world championships, where we've been absolutely baffled of the obstacles, of what they are. We've all tried to actually mimic it and learn new skills to make sure we're prepared for that race. And the fact that this is coming out four weeks before the free kit, the free k, is making sure that we can actually tell people like right rope lock will won't. It won't be the factor that will make you any quicker or majorly quicker in the race or make you fail, but it will make the race a little bit easier for you if you learn these skills. So it's quite nice for people to know this.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, and I think also maybe if you've got the opportunity to train at a center is working out kind of how, how high can you have your heart rate going into an obstacle that that makes you feel confident you can just go straight into it rather than having to like actually stop and take, you know, five or ten seconds. So you've kind of got to find a sweet spot. Obviously it depends how technical that obstacle is as well, but if you've got the opportunity to practice, it's kind of like you know, find your kind of optimum heart rate almost to be able to flow in and flow out it's quite a good one to think about this one as well.
Speaker 1:If you haven't got a training facility, then to brush up on the skills you could just hang a rope from a tree, do some running intervals, go, hang on a rope, do your foot lock, go back into some intervals, maybe put a little carry in there. So you don't necessarily have to have that training facility. You can mimic these race skills elsewhere just by doing basic things. And now that we know what's sort of involved in the race, we've got the opportunity to make those changes in our everyday environment, to try and do something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's definitely. If you're creative enough, then at the end of the day, all you're wanting to do is put your heart rate up a bit and then go. Yeah, at the end of the day, all you're all you want to do is put your heart rate up a bit and then then go and do some kind of skill, um, and then run again after that skill yeah, and then the most important category gav is spectatability.
Speaker 2:How, how good is it for spectators?
Speaker 3:all right, I think. I think the course is really good for spectators, um, yeah, because you can stand at a kind of relatively a relative high point, um, and you can pretty much you can see the whole of the first 1k unfold without even moving, really, and then you can make your way out to that wind turbine where the strength element is, if you want. But even that you can almost see from a distance. And then they're coming back into this gauntlet of obstacles at the end and you can, yeah, so you can. You can probably watch about 90 percent of the course without walking any more than a few hundred meters, pretty much. So it is really good and that that's something to be. Uh, I've got this vision of it'd be amazing if we could turn everybody into superstars. So we got all the local school kids up and cheering on their favourite with some Russell face masks or Morgan face masks or something like that. That'd be pretty cool.
Speaker 1:I don't think anyone should get those two face masks. You imagine someone doing a burglary in them or something sounds good.
Speaker 2:I I did. I do agree. I've. Obviously I watched the 3k last year. I didn't compete and I saw everything and it was. Yeah, it was amazing to watch and that's where spectatability comes into play, when you actually want to see the best athletes race against each other. So that's where it's also a hard job for yourself to make sure that seeding is done as well. Going back to that, yeah, it's yeah, it's maybe a.
Speaker 3:It's maybe a point to make as well that, yes, we're we're talking about the 3k here, but some, most people, will run both days. They'll probably do like 3k and 8k, um, and for some people who are new to it, they might just want to use the 3k as like almost a practice before the 8k the next day. Um, yeah, the courses might be a little bit different, but the vast majority is going to be the same obstacles. So, yeah, you can take, sometimes, you, you can run the 3k with less pressure and just use it as a, as a run through, almost to shake off the nerves before your race the next day. And, depending on which one matters to you more yeah, definitely does knock off the cobwebs.
Speaker 1:Going into that 3k before I mean especially the first major race of the series season, you know, just knocking off all the dust, getting off the rust bucket, going straight into it and then the 8K just doesn't feel like anything. There's no pressure on that one, it's good. I do like going and doing 3K and then having another race the next day. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That reminds me. That reminds me I wanted to remind people who are listening that if, if you're going and testing the obstacles before the race, sometimes if you haven't got your heart rate up or you're not fully prepped them, obstacles can feel really difficult. I've done this before, practiced obstacles in like the practice area at the european championships and thought I'm never going to get through that. But then suddenly in the race it's quite easy, I think. Make sure that you're managing your expectations, you're you're actually testing the obstacle to get a feel for it, not to actually tell yourself you can do it, because you will be able to do it in the race yeah, that's, that's a really good point.
Speaker 3:I remember in belgium the world champs, the climber holds, and we're in the warm-up area and are just in a separate area and people just start playing on them with no warm-up at all. And, to be fair, I did the same and I was like god, these feel terrible, like I'm, like I had a real seed of doubt from that, but then during the actual race I like I was like I just felt I just flowed right through it and I would put that down to having a bit of adrenaline, and so you don't feel any discomfort in your hands tends to go away when you've got the adrenaline pumping. So I would say, if people are going to do the hour practice, don't just start swinging on everything. Go and do a good 10 minute run first and go over some of the easier obstacles and get your body moving before you start jumping into any of the rigs. That's what I would recommend, certainly, definitely.
Speaker 2:Mo and Ships. How do you feel we've done our first overview of the 3K? Do you think we've hit everything, or is there anything else the listeners would want to know about it?
Speaker 4:I think we've covered most angles. I'm trying to think if there's anything from like a beginner point of view that we might have missed, because obviously we tend to talk a little bit too much or a little bit more towards the elite side.
Speaker 3:Uh, but I think pretty much that's everything covered what do you guys think about gloves um like mets?
Speaker 4:um, last year. I know I I don't get, my hands don't get too cold, so I'm normally all right, but I find if it's really really cold then maybe. But to be honest I find them more faff than they're worth. I don't want to, especially on a free care. I don't want to think about trying to take my hands out of the mitts, I just want to get on the obstacle and see what happens it is difficult because last year I put the mittens on.
Speaker 1:Uh, being the free k, you're so obstacle sort of there's so many more obstacles that it was really difficult to, like mo said, to keep them on and off. So I think if it's cold like it was last year at the beginning of the race, maybe I'm going to do something to keep my core warm, as opposed to my hands warm. Now. If I can keep my core warm, then hopefully the blood will go into my hands rather than the mittens, because it is is a bit of a tricky one, but that's, that's just us. It could be completely different for some people. Some people like to wear a glove full-time for the whole race.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you could. You could, for the course, wear gloves for the first k, um, and just basically keep your hands as warm as you can for as long as you can, and then, before you get into the first proper obstacle, you could just take those gloves off as you're running along, stick them in your pocket or peel them back if you're using mitts, and then just don't bother touching them again. There is potential there for the first K just to keep gloves on, if you, you wanted to.
Speaker 2:I think it's definitely sort of a recommendation that when people are doing their test runs or doing their little sort of prep for this race, then probably just practice to see what actually works best for them yeah, because race I was going to conclude on that ships is like race strategy and things that people can think about because, like we've talked about the terrain and the mud and the wet, there is a there is going to be that element of wet knee deep wet and you are going to put your hands in that water because you're going to be going underneath a log. You won't actually get your face in the water where you have it, but your hands will will possibly go in that water, won't they? Yeah, so you got to make sure what's your race strategy? Do you feel confident if your hands get wet? Are you going to be happy going on the obstacles at that point? Or you just, like you say you have gloves on for the first 1k to to prevent that and then you take them off afterwards.
Speaker 3:There's probably an opportunity for your hands to dry before the first technical obstacle. Um, because there's a bit of running.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's giving everything away now like that. I've put another category inside scoop.
Speaker 3:I mean yeah, but then it depends. I mean, who knows, it might be raining, so I'm just not going to get dry. Yeah, just to say yeah. If it's nice and warm and windy, then your hands will dry really quickly.
Speaker 1:The thing is with Scotland. I think you're going to need quite a few tools in your toolbox, because you can't really predict a lot of things. A lot of things are down to chance, like weather. Um well, it's pretty much weather really, isn't it? Weather could be all sorts, so you kind of need them skills just to have different options for for for the day itself, cause it's an unknown. Yeah, this is true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, and then that's the terrain, and then we also so just to like go through it or go out, just to make sure that listeners are getting as much out of this as possible that strength components aren't going to be a major factor in this race. Yes, there will be strength elements, like the tire carrying rep bag and tire flip, but, unlike maybe some races we've had in the past, they're not going to be a deciding factor. They're going to be a component of the race. Yeah, I would agree with that. And and then the number of obstacles. We're saying it's pretty dense, but I think we've all done it before. We're not saying it's dense with technical, technical obstacles. We're saying it's dense with a variety of obstacles, from mandatory completion to those technical suspension obstacles, to things that you've given us. I heard that inside scoop of uh, a net, uh over and under, yeah, or just under I'm sure, I'm sure you'll be absolutely fine at it.
Speaker 3:It's just yeah, that's that's probably going to feature. Good, get under, get underneath a cargo net, or climb down a cargo net and go underneath the bottom of it and go up the other side. There's something to practice.
Speaker 2:The the practicing of cargo nets is is so crucial. Crucial because it's for me personally. I've noticed that grip strength is actually takes quite a lot of your grip to grip a cargo net, much more than the like a bar or monkey bar or anything like that. I think it's because of just the sheer size of a cargo net and it uses more of your crimp, like your finger grip, than your actual, more like that hand grip as you're hanging upside down as well, your sort of blood seems to sort of dissolve away from your hands because of the sort of way that you're hanging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and then and then. Speed of the course fast flowing course with with hardly any obstacles that are going to slow you down. The only slowest part of the course might be going through the water slightly, but other than that it's the it's pretty fast course in the fields, yeah sorry, darren there's something I did forget, I get.
Speaker 3:I guess I'm trying to help people out here. That's the whole aim of this right. Um, so the, the weaver, which in previous years you did a bit of weaving and then you went underneath a cargo net. Then that was kind of it, or another weaver, so basically your traditional weaver, that's gonna. The basic plan is that that will feature. So if you don't know how to do a weaver, it might be worth trying that, or even just looking something up in youtube, um, as a as some hints. Um, so the, the traditional weaver as we know it, it is going to feature going over and under bars.
Speaker 1:Muzzicle have a brilliant video on how to do a weaver from Doug back in the day. I'm sure you can still find it. It's an absolutely excellent video on how to do a weaver yeah, there's a few different techniques that get employed now.
Speaker 3:People have been trying almost snaking it.
Speaker 2:Oh, the back way so like sort of like putting their back, going under it like straight, aren't?
Speaker 3:they. There's a couple of people that have been doing that up here like I've actually. I actually need to get on the thing. I've been injured so much but I need to get on the thing myself and play around with some different strategies. There's also probably, if you can find them, there's some good videos from out in mike's gym um, where you might do the weaver, where you're basically always facing upwards, um and um. The guy alvaro I think his name is um, the spanish guy. He's absolutely rapid at it leon leon cofeld. You could probably find a video of him on his Instagram doing the weaver at Mike's gym.
Speaker 3:You have to go through a few yeah, true but yeah, I might just. But that that's that. There's an inside scoop that's that's likely to feature, so you might want to either brush up on that or at least have an idea of what you're meant to do if you've never seen a weaver before yes, right, it's so we take that for granted.
Speaker 2:Some, some of the skills that we've learned over the years, don't we like the weaver and things like that? I remember learning the weaver first time. It felt so alien, fantastic obstacle though fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's one our top 10 best obstacles we haven't we don't have that.
Speaker 4:It wouldn't make my list I'd make mine.
Speaker 1:I love a weaver yeah it's just uncomfortable, though.
Speaker 2:Do you know, my favorite obstacle and it's such a tangent here, but it's such an easy one, but it's so hard is monty. I love monty, so yeah, if like listeners haven't done, we're calling it Monty, but basically it's just hurdles, but it's hurdles at chest height, like 10 in a row. Such a simple obstacle, but it's just horrible, like it nuts, yeah, someone at nuts yeah yeah, it's so simple, but it's, at the same time, just that. That really slows you down and gets you blowing, doesn't it? Simple ones are the best man.
Speaker 1:Simple ones are the best. It doesn't have to be technical, it's just got to be taxing.
Speaker 3:Good taste of fitness.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like that. That's what you come up with saying, not technical, but taxing.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm full of it, you know.
Speaker 2:Cool, I think we've done a really good job at trying to squeeze as much out of you. Gavin, on this preview, or course walk Well, we were going to call it pre-rigging. That's kind of like the term we used to use for walking around an obstacle course race. So is there anything else, any other nuggets you can tell us? Or motor ships, anything else you want to know, or mowerships, anything?
Speaker 3:else you want to know, I'm a pretty open book, to be honest, like I'm not going to give the some races you do, and it's like the obstacles have got like really fancy names but I might just for most of them. If it's a inverted wall, I'll just write inverted wall, you know, if it's monkey bars, I'll probably just write monkey bars. Like I'm not gonna like try and pull the wool. There's one or two like captain hook that we did last year, um, but they're kind of self-explanatory so I'm not really out to just kind of pull the wool over people's eyes as such no, it's yeah.
Speaker 2:I like that because I think everyone should do that, because then, when it comes to translating rule books, it's a bit easier to understand what the obstacle is yeah so I guess we want listeners to take away from this and really help like give us feedback, because this is the first episode where we're trying to really break down the 3k races to to really make sure that we're prepared as as much as possible to really dominate these courses because they're so quick, so fast, so good to watch. That hopefully everyone feels a little bit more prepared by us talking about it and, yeah, I hope, I hope it helps everyone. We'd love to have some feedback to go through if we've missed anything.
Speaker 2:If you want us to talk about shoes, more clothing I suppose we didn't talk about clothing, but suppose yes, but we could go, that's a whole number that's a whole other episode of clothing for ocr, but we did talk about gloves so I suppose went into some sort of part of it yeah, I think after this episode is released and uh, I think some people will probably be doing some training videos to post them on our Instagram.
Speaker 1:We want to see what they're doing. We want to see how inventive everyone's getting.
Speaker 3:Sorry, guys. One other thing. This is oh, what was I going to say? It's just totally slipped my mind. Oh man, it was another little helpful. Oh no, it was actually.
Speaker 3:So people know the kind of timeline of how things will work, like in terms of like rule books. Typically we'll look to get the rule books out like a week before it. Might, it might even be sooner, um, but like, give you like a week to absorb that, um. And then what we have done in the past, and we'll try and do again, is record videos of the penalty obstacles, those ones, not the walls and stuff like that, but the ones that you can lose a band on, or the ones that you may get a penalty loop on. So, yeah, we'll probably try and record those and put out a video as well. So you're quite well prepared in that sense.
Speaker 3:Some people have already asked me for like start lists and stuff like that. I mean, I'm shared start lists with, maybe likes of you guys, our current start list, but there's still over a month for sign upsups to happen. So please don't send me private messages. I've already had a few saying can you tell me who's all in my age category and who's all in this and you send me all the start lists for all the different distances and I'm like, unless you're somebody who needs to know it for a like thanks to you guys for a podcast, then I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna just do that. It's too much time. So just, we might look to release start list, like the week before, along with the rule book.
Speaker 1:Um, if that's helpful to people, um, yeah, well if people want to pay me, I'll let you know.
Speaker 3:I mean what, what, what's already been done is we have I think was it james burton or somebody shared I think it was james who shared how many people are in each age category currently. Um, so that's already been shared, I think, so you can see which ones have maybe only got two people in them so there can be a guaranteed podium if you enter that age category. Um, yeah, so maybe looking to British obstacle sports and Facebook for that, I think that was. Did you guys see that at all? Am I just making that up.
Speaker 2:I can't remember seeing it, but I know that he's done it in the past because he's shared on the british obstacle sports whatsapp group.
Speaker 3:Is is um sharing the competitive nature of each age groups, of like how competitive it's getting, which is quite a nice, quite a nice incentive for you to know, like how competitive your own age group is going I think that's a nicer way of summarizing it, rather than giving you an actual everyone's names yeah, I think, I think, and I'm pretty sure that'll happen again and they'll probably be um, you know people who are involved in the race series, um, like. So you guys have like a um, sorry, not you. Well, you guys are involved in certain capacity. And then dave peters, um, I imagine they'll maybe big up a few like, almost like names to watch, so there might be a few kind of releases of end people have entered and people to watch out for as well. So that's, that's all going to happen over the next few weeks anyway.
Speaker 2:So just just be patient well as us as a sponsor, gavin, we want to help uh, we want to help with getting the information out there as much as possible, and that is obviously the reason for us jumping on here, but I think we would definitely help promote it more as we go. And and if anyone has got any questions on what the 3k actually is, what is, what is an ocr 3k, or even if it's as simple as that, please let us know. At accountability corner, we're happy to answer any questions. Mo and ships are always on their phone answering messages.
Speaker 4:Cool, no, I'm really good, not no I'm so good at answering messages, you not. Normally it's about a five day turnaround yeah, he's got a five day sla.
Speaker 1:So yeah, mo's, mo's got a bit of delay going on but unless you send a tumbleweed, a tumbleweed gift usually gets him to respond yeah, he gets really annoyed at that one, gavis.
Speaker 2:I think that's that's been awesome, that's been so good to start kicking off this series that we're going to do um, I feel like we have hit most of the mark and given people a lot of training tips, race strategies um, terrain shoe choice technicalities that they need to learn before the race. Um, yeah, feel like we've hit all the marks yeah, it's been good anything else, or we go.
Speaker 3:We're good to good to wrap up just, uh, I'll just get a shameless pitch for also.
Speaker 2:Go for it.
Speaker 3:That's what we wanted Shameless pitch, for there's the 100 metres as well after the 3k, so get yourself entered in that. And obviously there's the 8k on the Sunday, which is part of the UK OCR series, so that's a big race in itself. And there's a 5k competitive for 10 to 13 year olds as well, as on the Sunday, so make it a bumper race in itself. Um, and there's a 5k competitive for 10 to 13 year old as well, as on the sunday, so make it a bumper race weekend. You're traveling a long way, a lot of people, so make it worth your while.
Speaker 1:Maybe even do the tartan water trifecta of the 3k, 100 meters and the 8k nice, if you want to hear about the 8k, then you can probably tune into who's hot with me and will, and, uh, my lab assistant becky yeah, see you then, with.
Speaker 2:If anyone is wondering what all the series are, we actually did a podcast about in our link to it as well mastering all the uh series races in the uk. We did it last year. Maybe we should do it again. But in addition to the conversation we had last year, there is also the 100 metres. Is it called the Sprint Series, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're adding the 400 on that as well, aren't they Somewhere along the lines, aren't they? I?
Speaker 3:think so. Tommy's given it a weird Tommy Matthews is running it, so it's got a slightly weird name. I'm just calling it the UK Sprint Series, but I feel like there's another word in there that maybe makes it a bit more, maybe OCR, I don't know Well, or that. I feel like sprint is mentioned twice in a message that Tommy sent to me. I was like it seems quite long. Anyway, yeah, the UK Sprint Series is also.
Speaker 2:The 100 meters is part of that as well. Um, so yeah, it's basically every race. There's four race series involved. I tell you what you haven't said gav as well, that the food was really good as well at arm warrior.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, oh the same so yeah, so the the people who did the catering last year crikey I can't remember the name of them right now, but anyway, it's the same caterers as last year. So if you want to just come for the food then yeah, there's a good reason, cool.
Speaker 2:Right, well, I think that's everything, and then we'll get your card out. Card already. Mo, our graphic designer will do that for us and we'll get that.
Speaker 3:get that sent out cool, nice one, thanks guys no, thanks for coming on, gavin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool, cool, see you later, guys, see you at the race.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for watching.
