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
#3: The Rumble 3k 25th May - Accountability Corner Course Walk 3k Series
Dave Peters returns to discuss the upcoming Rumble Fitness 3K race on May 25th, the third event in the 2025 3K OCR series featuring 30 obstacles, 300 feet of elevation, and a unique combination of technical and strength challenges.
• The race will have three distinct zones: the barn, proving grounds, and field
• Course includes heavy strength elements including a difficult drag and lorry tire carry
• Technical obstacles feature combination rigs with moving attachments and elevation changes
• The deceptive hill is more challenging than it appears with rutted, uneven terrain
• Competitors should train hill repeats combined with body weight exercises for preparation
• Race occurs 5 weeks before European Championships making it perfect preparation
• Points system allows racers to count their best 4 scores from the 6-race series
• Course will be slower than previous 3K races with winning times around 21-22 minutes
• Spectators can view most of the course from central viewing areas
• Registration closes two days before the event with tickets priced at £40
Visit the Rumble Fitness Instagram page or British Obstacle Sports website for links to register.
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:Okay, let's go. This is Accountability Corner Course, course walk and it's super exciting. We are two races into the 3k ocr series for 2025 and now we need to talk about rumble fitness 3k on may the 25th and we have a special guest, and this guest is our first guest to come on twice. There has never been a person that's been on twice and you've probably heard his dulcet tones on other podcasts or like who's hot? Uh, other ones going out at the minute. So it's dave.
Speaker 3:Dave peters, hello mate like to hang around like a bad smell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you haven't left. You actually haven't switched your computer off, have you? Is the mic still running? It certainly feels like that sometimes. Yeah, and then obviously we, obviously we've got our elite racer ships.
Speaker 1:I see it, I'm always here. I'm living in a computer at the moment. Do you know, like that film Poltergeist, where the girl's in the TV Carrie Anne? Yeah, that's basically it. Come inside.
Speaker 3:I'm starting to believe you're only a digital version of yourself.
Speaker 1:I am a digital version, yeah because you haven't seen him race have you.
Speaker 3:No, I haven't actually seen him.
Speaker 1:He doesn't race anymore. Do you remember that TV series, the one where his dad was trapped inside a computer game? It's not Tron, it was the other one. You know the one I mean, didn't you? Yeah? It was futuristic and it was on Cartoon Network.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I'm going to have to find out you know what I mean, didn't you?
Speaker 2:I don't know that one, you're probably aging yourself a bit aren't you.
Speaker 1:Good graphics.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, dave, we wanted to get you on because we've done it twice now and I think it's really useful and you, kcr and who's Hot have been doing this for some time, but I think this has been really helpful, especially with our partnership with you in the free KCR series.
Speaker 2:That accountability corner supports going through race strategies, course layout, what to wear, what weather, to think of what terrain, to think of all the ins and outs of like how to prepare for a race, and we did it for obviously we did it for Tartan Warrior, did it for Nuts like how to prepare for a race, and we did it, for obviously we did it for Tartan Warrior, I did it for nuts. Hopefully listeners found that quite useful Us talking about Camelot events and talking about the course and how to get through it, and it seems like it was a great race and maybe we should do a bit of a bit of a recap of of like who's who's currently, who's the top dogs, who's currently um up there. So I think we can go through podiums, but I think that from top of our heads that we know the people that are performing quite well and they've performed well in two races. Not everyone has done two races yet. So that's what makes it exciting this next race. Who will be turning up for their second race or third race?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, I've sort of been lucky to be at all of the events as well, and so for me, like watching everybody and actually seeing people improve, but also seeing people competing, like doing really well at different types of courses, is starting to become quite apparent as well, like the people that do well on speed based ones or strength based parts of it and stuff like that. It's quite nice seeing it as well yeah, in terms of the last race.
Speaker 1:Then, uh, watching that nuts 3k, who do you reckon? What kind of skill set did that bring out for the best? The athlete, what? What athlete skill set was that best suited to?
Speaker 3:people that could fly in and out of obstacles quickly. They could get from their running into an obstacle quick and then they could get off of an obstacle straight back into their running without any real change to their sort of tempo and their rhythm. So I I think that's why finley did so well was the fact that he's he's pretty good at kind of seamlessly transitioning between obstacles and then back in and out of running. And obviously nuts is like changing terrain. It's dry course anyway um underfoot because it was so dry and it was so hot, but it was um obviously you've got sort of clay areas, you've got gravelly sort of woodland, you've got um then the stream that they ran you through and stuff.
Speaker 3:So there's kind of you had to be able to transition not just on obstacles but on your running as well and sort of between trench jumps and vaults and things like that. So it was quite quite apparent that people that had power and had transition ability were really did really well, and I think that's what's really suited um is he really well as well? Um, so where she's still obviously very young, she might not have some of the the um strength elements, for example, that an adult racer has, but she can transition really nicely into, in and out of obstacles. And there's actually I've got some great footage I'll put out soon as well of like her and shy. They're going through obstacles together, side by side, and just working between them really well nice.
Speaker 2:There's loads of opportunities. When you think of a 3k obstacle course race, you think it's short, sharp is there. Is there actually going to be any variation to to showcase that skill set? But what we're saying and what we've seen for the last two races is that, wow, do you have an opportunity to showcase your skill set on these individual, these different courses that are being put on, like I'm just thinking further afield to obviously body hub, that is going to be. We can, we're definitely, I'm definitely excited to talk about that one, because that would be very different to anything that anyone's seen. But today we're going to talk about the Rumble pre-K race, which is going to be on the 25th of May. Obviously, how many races do you have to perform in to get points, dave? How does that work? I just want to get that right.
Speaker 3:You can obviously take part in the series by doing one race, but in terms of the maximum you can do, you can do four races. That's your best. Four will give you your score. I'm pretty sure that's what we went with. It's the same as last year, I think. And then, yeah, it would be your best result. So I mean, if you took part in six, then you know it would be your best result. So I mean, if you took part in six, then you know it would still be your best four. That would go towards your score. So, in terms of your points wise. So I think it's open to everybody, right? So, depending on how much you're going in for, you're good to go.
Speaker 2:The good thing about that is that you're not going to see who's top of the league until those individuals have performed in their four races and then their four, their four races. Points are going to accumulate to give them that final league standing and if they do, if they leave that to the last minute, that's going to be their final standing. But some people can leave it to, you know, a race before and actually have like a little bit of wiggle room to perform a bit better, which is exciting. But I don't think me and you ships, we missed um that. So I think we're leaving it to the last, the last hurrah in terms of like actually getting getting those points max points, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we've missed one race out, so that only leaves us with four left on it yeah no six, take away one. It's five, right, yeah, five. So we got five races to play with. So okay, so we got five we got five, one of which you've done, you've done yeah, one of which we've done yeah, so we've got four.
Speaker 2:So I was right yeah, so we've actually got one race that we could mess up and actually, um, still perform well in the series with that, but the people that turn up at nuts and turn up to Titan Warrior have really left themselves with a little bit more room to maneuver their points.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially with some big hitters missing from that race. So you know, it definitely left it open for some people to well they did. Some people clawed some amazing points, not only in the men's and the women's.
Speaker 2:Well, you see from the results, like Pip did amazing at that course, like fourth place is a huge, huge win. And then Finlay got a bit of redemption with his massive win. But then the likes of Liam has done incredible, like coming second, and then you've got third coming third and he's come third in both races now. So that's going to be a huge, huge place for him to be. I would suspect when the results come out he'd be probably top of the men's with two thirds. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I reckon.
Speaker 1:Lots. He does do the results, doesn't he?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he probably wins up first anyway. So let's look in ahead. We've, we've had a huge variation of people that turn up to races dave, what, let's before we talk about the people that could turn up to the 3k at nuts at nuts, 3k at rumble sorry, how, last year it was, everyone was super surprised in the 3k because we've, we, we know nuts, but we know I keep saying that you know you need to get it right.
Speaker 1:Darren, sorry rumble anyone. I think you're running for nuts yeah, yeah you've got.
Speaker 2:You've got nuts on your brain yeah, you can't get rid of them. Uh, okay, so rumble. Last year 3k was. Everyone expected it to be rig heavy, but it wasn't. It was more rounded and more led towards strength based than anything. As you are the race director of this 3k, as well as leading the 3k ocCR series in general, what can people expect from this race? Spill every beans you can.
Speaker 3:Maybe a bit more traditional rumble. I think last year we threw a bit of a curveball and we did it on purpose because, like you say, we wanted to throw people off. We wanted to kind of. We knew we had a time trial event as well last year, right. So we knew that we had the opportunity and we ran that as a where the series had that slightly different format last year where we had the time trials as well as we had the one-off events. We knew that we could do a technical one on the time trial. So we decided that our race would be um more strength orientated and and kind of throw it a little bit differently this year.
Speaker 3:Obviously we don't have the time trials in there, so we've only doing this one event which is going to hold it. So we want to hold a bit more of a traditional balance of what rumble do. Um, what I've decided to do with this event is I've kind of run with a theme of three in my head. So I want to do 3k distance, obviously three um zones, 300 feet of elevation and 30 obstacles, and they will have a heavy technical component to them. So it's all very much balanced around that, that number, if that helps in some respect. It's the third race, exactly, so I mean I'm going to claim nothing gets past ships nothing.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so I'm working on that basis. So last year we had 22, 23 obstacles um and 200 feet of elevation, so that'll give you some sort of context of what we're looking at. Um, but the obstacles we did last year we obviously we slowed something down and we put the sandbags onto them and we slowed it, slowed it in that fashion. This year we're going to go a lot more foot speed and technicality in the in the rigs, but we're gonna still keep a good strength component in there as well. So we're gonna test the technical ability a lot more than we did. Um. We've got some long combination rigs in there, we've got lots of new obstacles going in um, but we've also still got some real nice strength parts into this race as well. So it's still got the feel of some of that from last year, but we've increased massively on the technical side of things.
Speaker 2:Nice and if people don't know, like everyone should know Rumble.
Speaker 2:But if people don't know Rumble, it's located like in Milton Keynes, middle of the UK, you know kind of, and it's easily accessible from like all major like roads and everything. So definitely have a look at getting down there and when, when you say, like the 300 feet of elevation, we can go, I think we should delve a little bit more deeper into that, because we love, on this course, walk, we've started like this principle of creating like cards, like. So we talk about the terrain, we talk about um, like the technical aspects of things you need to learn and we really go into detail of that. Because when you say 300 feet of elevation, you would assume that you've got a huge hill where you you kind of do and don't at the same time. So it's kind of it might be it could be the most repetitive race, a little bit like um in terms of going up and down, but that means it's. The spectatability is going to be quite high, you're going to see a lot, you literally this entire course, more or less the entire course.
Speaker 3:You could stand in a single spot and see the entire race. Um, and I agree with you the way that you think about it. It's not like we've got a huge mountain or hillside to climb. You know we've got. We're not flat, we're based on a hill, so we have the hill that we work with and we work up and down it.
Speaker 2:Um, probably the single easiest way to explain a lot of that is that one of the strength components in particular is taking up a large chunk of that, um, that, uh, elevation yeah, and it's going to be hardships, like we in the other ones, we other podcasts, episodes we've done, we've explained to listeners like the course and actually like how, how it's going to lay out and I think it's going to be quite hard to describe that today, dave, because I know that, even if we describe it, rumble is a training center at a barn with a field and with a proof, the proving grounds, which is your outside, like outside training area, and ultimately you're going to be using those three areas, I'd assume, in a combination of some sort. So you've got big field, big outside training area and then big inside, well, medium sized inside area. So those three sections is that, is that going to be the sections of the course?
Speaker 3:yeah, effectively, what we've done is we've split the proving grounds in um in half effectively, and we've combined the field and the proving grounds on one half, and then we've got the field and the proving grounds on another half, and then we've got the barn as our third section, if you like.
Speaker 3:So we, rather than thinking of it as we're in the field for one zone and then in proving grounds for the second zone, those two have been halved each and they're combined together. So we've split it and we're we've increased the access to it, basically so that it's allowed us to do some quite big shifting around of obstacles. And we're going back to our roots a little bit with regards to, like, combination obstacles. So we're building a large combination rig, similar to what we used to have, which is right in the very centre of the proving grounds, and then the other sections that are in, they're all sort of combined together in terms of style. So um rigs, upper body grip section, um vaults, jumps, climb section, and then we have the indoors, which would be highly technical that's right, nice.
Speaker 2:But dave, a quick question on on accessibility, because obviously 3k we met. The distance itself isn't as intimidating as a 10 mile tough mother. So yes, there, we want to get more people into this and more people doing it that have never done it before. How, how do you think accessible this course is from like a veteran, well us to someone new doing the free game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think anyone, I think, although it's got the highly technical elements to it, the way that we're going to run it. So we've got a band system in place, but we're running the band system where nobody would finish with zero bands. So everyone will have to collect bands back up to three. So you would have to recollect any lost bans back up to three penalty loops. But the rest is time penalties added on top. So from that perspective, everyone can have a go at something. No one's going to not finish. There'll be no DNFs unless somebody literally decided to stop and not actually cross the finish line.
Speaker 3:So everybody will place the practice session before the competition. Obviously makes a big difference the fact that people can now get in and practice and have a go and work things out in the way that they want to do it as well. So I think that's going to massively help people. We're also going to put videos of bits and pieces up as well, which we've not done before. We're not put off with too much information other than work, so this year we'll put a bit more out to people and give them a bit more of an idea what that, what they can expect, so they can even practice bits and pieces in the lead up to the event, not just actually on the day as well you know what about turning up at rumble on your thursday evenings, with every aspect of the course?
Speaker 1:well, I guess there will be it's rumble, so it's not gonna be any different you're gonna get the layout of the land on that and I think most people who have done any race at rumble get the aspect of the land, get the layout, even if you put a completely new obstacle somewhere. It's not going to be. It's not going to be a big, massive surprise to anyone no, we are.
Speaker 3:We are going to try and expand our running section a little bit.
Speaker 3:So we are trying to expand out into some different grounds that we've not used before that's interesting because that could um I mean, a lot of us have been around there, so we yeah, I mean you, like you say there's some sections which people are familiar for running around if you've been to rumble training and things like that before um but we've not always used them in our races and our events, whereas this time we're looking to see if we can expand into those spaces a little bit oh, that's, that's exciting.
Speaker 2:Probably, I probably ran it, but not unknown, unknown, unknowingly ran it um. So yeah, she mentioned something quite interesting there, like people coming down and practicing before that is you. Thursday nights is open ocr so you can turn up and have a go, can't you um? So that would be, that would be one thing if anyone's interested. It's that's the good thing about these courses they're training venues. So, even the same, when we start talking about pt balm, when we start talking about uh, body hub, they're all training venues. So you get down there and have a go.
Speaker 2:Because you mentioned something quite interesting on the um when you're talking about the british champs is that, yes, there is an element of um familiarity to the course where people have an advantage, but then, obviously, when you change it up, do you actually take away that? And I think maybe you take away a portion of it, but you don't take away that, just just that mental fatigue that you get in a race when you're trying to work out which way to go, like you don't get that if you've been in the course before. So that does help.
Speaker 2:So that yeah, down there, just there's like less surprises yes yeah, definitely yeah yeah I agree, even find that when you walk around the course ships don't we like. That's the reason we do course walks, because you don't want to turn a corner and there's suddenly a rig there that you didn't know it was there. It's just knowing what's coming up is is kind of like, or even like, knowing the terrain is a really important factor yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you don't go into an eating contest with a full stomach, do?
Speaker 2:you? You're actually waiting for ages to say that, wouldn't you?
Speaker 1:no, these things come to me but you don't, you don't, you don't. Like I said, don't go into an eating contest with a full stomach because you don't want to get full too quickly. It's the same with these obstacles you want to know exactly what's coming up. You want to know how to prepare for it, you want to know what sort of stage you need to get to an obstacle and you kind of even if you want to have an obstacle race where you can't go on the obstacles you want to have a bit of a game idea of how you're going to flow into it, flow out of it and then put your race effort for the rest of the race.
Speaker 2:You don't have to go into it completely full stomached and do an obstacle without having any idea how you're going to perform the rest of the obstacles it's um, it's really difficult sometimes when we've got an invested interest in this, uh, in these courses, because obviously we want, we did, we're going to do this podcast because we want everyone to know absolutely every single information that is to come up in these free k's. And do you know what I, we can actually tell everyone the complete, like absolute details of the free of the rumble course because we know the trait, we know we've I've ran it probably more times than I can remember, so I know all this detail and maybe that's that's we should go into it, because when we talked about the free k dave, uh, at nuts, we were going through like, okay, how would you mentally prepare yourself, how would you pace the race? And we went into all the detail and ships.
Speaker 1:You gave some really good nuggets of information there, but hopefully people took them because people perform really well and there's a lot of people turn up um and, but it's very certainly and carnie, because she's been on that course millions of times, she had a complete idea of how the course was going to be run, even without even knowing the actual course layout at the time, because experience over that training. It's the same with Rumble and luckily on this one we've got the person who owns Rumble, the person who runs at Rumble and then the person who comes down to Rumble every now and again. Yeah, so we've got to. To be fair, this one should give the best idea really that, dave, you got.
Speaker 2:You start us off. Let's think about, like how you, how would you approach this race? How would it? How does it different? How is it different to others that we've done?
Speaker 3:um, I think the demand is going to be quite huge. So I would say nutrition is really important on this one. I think if you come in tired and you come in under fueled, you're going to struggle. I think, because there's the strength components in it and then there's the combination rigs in it, as well as, obviously, the technicality which can make people maybe overwork a little bit when they're doing their rigs. I think there's going to be a big demand on carbohydrate, like for me. There there's not really many races where I would say a 3K people need to be fuelled in during it. But I would even have it in my head where I'd be tempted to fuel either on the start line with a little caffeine gel or something, or, you know, just a little top up just before or during the event, because the demand on this one, I think, will be quite large.
Speaker 1:Um, in terms of calorie, if you like, yeah, well, you said 30 obstacles and we've said it before on this podcast that you know, the 3k race is like the end of any sort of long 12k, 20k sort of obstacle race and it's just that condensed section and you start off so quick that you are already at the end of your, your limit. You're pushing straight away from the beginning and you are just fighting to the end. So if you've got that amount of obstacles, you've got that sort of hard strength based bit that you got at the beginning, then, yeah, I guess popping a little bit of nutrition to start you off, to see you through key fact yeah, I think my my bit of advice is it actually fits with our card quite nicely and it's that it's the first thing on our card is the terrain, the terrain effect.
Speaker 2:So when you're running around rumble, you think it's the road and you think it's a small training venue which which has all the obstacles outside. But the biggest factor I think is going to be on this 3k is really not underestimating that hill. Um, it is, there is a hill there, it is a field, but it's a farmer's field and very technical, you know that kind of rutted ground that you're running on. So going up, going down it, you can actually put some pace down. But coming up and up the field can actually take it our way from, especially if there's suddenly going to be some rain that can be quite boggy at the bottom of it. So it's actually going to be quite a um, quite demand on yourself to get up that hill, especially if we're doing 300 feet of it. It's going to feel like you've done a mountain. So you need, you need to be prepared for that for, yeah, your, your heel legs need to be there well, we, we've already, we've always said it every time we've ran around that field it's like god.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know what the the percentage gradient theme above it is, but it doesn't feel like much, but when you're running it it feels like it's almost. It's got to be 15% plus, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a random one. It's one of those gradual inclines that don't look like a lot, but if you add in the rutted ground, you add in that it can be boggy, and you add in that you can't really see the top and it feels like you've just gone all the way to the bottom and it's like I can't see where I'm actually going.
Speaker 1:Now it fit, it mentally feels more fatiguing yeah, I always refer to it more like running through slop than it does a hill. Yeah, I don't know, it's just a very strange one. And then, because of course then you've got like coming out of that, you've got to go over some other like fences usually to get either into the proving grounds or out of the proving grounds. There's got that aspect as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So terrain effect I think you'd all agree is just don't underestimate. You need to be good trail runner which seems like a random thing to say for a free cage in a training centre, which none of these have really had, but I would say this is your first one where you need to be good at hills and you need to be.
Speaker 1:You need to conserve your energy as well okay, so I'm a month out just for that one purpose of that part of the course. What sort of training purposes am I going to start implementing into my training to sharpen up for that well?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna, I'm gonna get hand you over to dave Dave, so that they keep putting in my training program for the 25th of May.
Speaker 3:I personally, I'm looking at it and I'm thinking and again, this comes down to your own accessibility of what you've got locally right. But for me I'd be looking to run hill reps and then hit an obstacle, or run hill reps and hit some body weight exercises at the top, then get back, you know, each time. So I would be splitting hill intervals, not not necessarily sprints, but just some drags up some hills, and then hitting some body weight exercises. Or even better, if you've got rigs and obstacles available to, obviously then then get onto them. Um. But for me I'd be breaking that up and I'd be looking at um. I'd be looking at taking some weight out, doing some strength work as well. So you could literally create a circuit.
Speaker 3:I view it as I think you guys talked about this before. But you've rocked up to the barn, darren, I think, and there's no class on. It's like well, I'm going to train here. So you run down the hill, you work at the bottom on some bodyweight exercises, you come up the top and then you flip a tire over, you know you. Then you repeat that for five rounds because that kind of affects where you you've got high heart rate coming up from something heavy.
Speaker 3:Then you've got your run, where you've got to work on the technicality of it downhill and you've got to work on the hard work coming up, hitting bodyweight exercises, which obviously is going to give you some degree of simulation for the for the obstacle components. Me, that's how you can sharpen up a little bit when it comes to rumble, because what I find and what I see people doing one in my own training but what I see people doing when they're here is they lose control of the heart rate and then their pace just drops off a cliff and all of a sudden they're running through a tree call wondering why their legs aren't working, and I'm convinced it's because they've got no control of the heart rate and the effect that when they get to the obstacles and they've pushed the heart rate up and then they realise they have to run uphill, it's where the trouble comes in.
Speaker 1:We should try and pinpoint something like OCR, disruption of heart rate, ocd. No, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:I know you're getting we ships you said it for the free cake uh, that's.
Speaker 2:You've raced there so many times that you said you needed to control your heart rate around the course.
Speaker 2:But the worst thing about this one is that, yes, you still need to control your heart rate around the course, but as soon as you hit this hill, you, you, the control goes out the window. You're not unless you know how you feel going up that hill, unless you train going up hills at high heart rate, your, your control to lower it after the obstacles is going to be gone out the window. You're going to have no choices left, and we've always said with a good racer in a 3k needs to be able to make, have the energy to make choices, but make those choices fast. So that's what you need to be leaving yourself with on this course. But if you over egg that downhill because that's quite, do you know what we didn't mention that that downhill, that decline, is so enticing to bomb it. It's one of those inclines it's like, oh, I'm so fast, I'm bombing downhill. And then, when you get to that bottom slot bit, it's like, oh, I bombed down too fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I've done it so many times, so many times. And you run it and even like along the bottom right. So you're running along the bottom. There's probably 10 feet of change in elevation along the bottom of that field, but then every part of that bottom of that field is over. You know, it's like lumpy, it's not flat, as it goes up and down and up and down. So you know even just those tiny little ridges at the bottom, when you've pushed down and your heart rate's gone up. And now you're just jogging over the ridges and you're, you're on that little cambered foothold. You know, you realize I've, I've really messed up here, because then you just hate, you take a 90 degree turn and you're in trouble instantly I was just thinking.
Speaker 2:You know when what the weather says like it's 15 degrees outside, but real feel is like two degrees wind chill yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we that's.
Speaker 2:That that's the best thing we could probably say for rumble is that the terrain effect is is like 300 feet easy grass but the real feel is 700 feet horrible, horrible rutted terrain going on to um strength. Then dave like strength components, because we know you like a strength component, but obviously you said you might be moving a little bit more away from that compared to last year. What strength components could people look forward to on this course? But last?
Speaker 3:year we did what we. We kind of pulled the strength in with the cardio right and we combined it with obstacles where we took sandbags over and under hurdles and round and under nets and stuff like that. This year I want the strength components to be more strength orientated in themselves. So there is a big drag in it, for example. So, rather than you grabbing a sandbag and then just running a route, this is going to be a lot heavier and more typical of a strength obstacle stand out standing out on its own, if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:So the drag itself, it's not something that you're gonna. You're gonna pick up and start jogging back with. You know, you're gonna actually have to drag this back and it's going to be a lean your body weight into it and use everything that you can to push through. So whereas sometimes I think in obstacle racing, strength components come down still come down to the cardio ability of the athlete, this strength component obviously there's always cardio element to it, but this, this strength component, stronger athletes are going to benefit. So if your strength isn't your weakness, I'd advise you get out and do some practice in the next few weeks to try and familiarize your body a little bit more if you're planning on racing it, because the strength parts that we're doing will test your strength a lot more in isolation, as opposed to a cardio version of it by dragging weight around a long period of time or up and over a lot of obstacles. Um so the drag, for example, is a heavy drag that's.
Speaker 1:That's telling me, because I don't think, I don't know what. We now a month away, so I don't think I'm going to get much stronger with the clock like the way that I am at the moment. But that's telling me. I can't go into this race at all fatigued and so I think anyone else coming into it don't come in tired, because you don't want to be doing any kind of long drag like that with any fatigue. Darren, you'll know about that because you went into last last week's race with uh doms, didn't you?
Speaker 2:how did that play out? Hey, what sport modality is this?
Speaker 3:sorry, this, this drag, is this more strength, leg, leg, strength yeah, okay, yeah, so you, you're gonna have, um, you'll have a strap in your hand and you'll be having to lean off that strap to get it to move. It's not going to be crazy length, because it just doesn't need it because of the weight of it, but it's not something you're going to be jogging with. Put it that way, it will be a real leg burner. You'll have to work against the terrain and you will have to work against the weight that you put in.
Speaker 1:I'll take it this is going to be done per person, with the females going to have a separate rate, the youngsters are going to have a separate rate and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it will be purpose to each category.
Speaker 2:What upper body strength elements have you got, because I know you like those.
Speaker 3:As in what regards to the obstacles or the strength components in isolation components.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking you know you love a tire flip. I'm just thinking for my own benefit, like what other things you're putting in there.
Speaker 3:there's a, there is a lorry tire carry in this. So it sounds crazy, but it's effectively. You'll be inside the tire, so you'll step into the center of the tire and you will need to pick it up and move it so you're effectively be walking with the tire around you, if that makes sense. Yeah, but it's heavy. You know it's a heavy weight.
Speaker 2:Actually that's like a deadlift. Yeah, You're expecting people to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, exactly, and again, it won't be necessarily crazy long, but it's a proper strength obstacle. You know, people are going to have to work on this and it will have a different effect on different people I know it's going through.
Speaker 2:Ship said is sciatica.
Speaker 3:Don't get me wrong, we're still talking obstacle course racing right, so we're still talking sensible, we're not going to go into. I mean racing right, so we're still talking sensible, we're not going to go into. I mean, if I was competing in this race it might be different, like I'd make it as much as much heavy deadlifting as I can put in there, but I'm not right. So, um, but I will. Um, I like the sections to be truly, truly resembling of what they should be and not kind of a cardio version of it. So the strength components we're putting in this time are a bit shorter and smaller. But tire flipping, for example, we when we've done tire flips before they work and they're great little extras but they're too light for a real tire lift to actually make a difference for the flip. But to carry or to move that tire, that's a, that's a totally different story.
Speaker 1:So it's uh, it becomes a different component altogether especially when you could combine that with probably some of the other aspects of the race, which we probably lean into as well, darren yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:So there's two, two strength components big, uh big full body drag, and then which is on the field, and then a laura lorry tire carry which, yeah, if anyone's ever done that, literally step inside it, grab the inside seam of like the tire, then pick it up and then probably put it down like what five, five meters yeah it'll be.
Speaker 3:It'll be sure it'd be heavy. It is heavy, yeah, exactly, and we're? We're actually looking at, um, we're looking at our options with the weight of the tire. So we have a few options, but we're also looking at potential of where we add weight for the men's race as well, so it could be a little bit heavier. So I think typically in these sort of setups, people often think oh, for the women, this is going to be crazy difficult, and for the men, if it's hard for the men, then it's going to be crazy for the women, whereas for us, we're at the luxury that we have access to this stuff, that we can literally pick different size tyres and we can also add weights in different ways to the different things as well. The one thing that we're trying to make sure is right is if I make people lift like this, I make sure that the weight is balanced.
Speaker 2:I don't like the weight to be unbalanced. So there you go, don't panic about it, but yes, it will be a strength obstacle. Yeah, there has to be some sort of. There has to be consistency to it isn't there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, just you mentioned, you touched upon, like, the number of obstacles that we've got in this course, packed with 30 obstacles. Um, in your head at the minute, do you have an idea of the course layout of those 30 obstacles? Yeah, is there. Is there something we could go through in a little like we don't have to go through every single one, but it's kind of like what, what attributes are going to come at play into certain different parts of the course, from start to finish, of those 30?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, for me, what I've tried to do is you'll know, you'll be familiar from championships, races that we've done that. There's the, there's always at the back of the rule books and programs. You've got the um, the objectives at the back, primary and secondary objectives that the obstacles relate to. So for me I've tried to create a course where I can tick every single box on there. The only one we've decided to leave out is accuracy, so we don't have a throw or a laser or a spear throw or anything like that in this course. We contemplated it but we decided against it. But we've found that we can tick the box on every other objective. So we have literally got as far as I balance it out. Anyway in my mind we've got a course that hits every single objective in the back of the manual from the British obstacle sports rule book.
Speaker 2:Nice, and ships like ships. Did you think the same as me, Bullgong?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course I did Bullgong's making an appearance where you two won't be, yeah.
Speaker 2:Bullgong got out of pilot stage. It actually got made.
Speaker 3:Bulgong is officially being made for OCR Games. There's a little release.
Speaker 1:Is it really it?
Speaker 3:is still going in, so it is being made for OCR Games. Unfortunately, you two will be a little bit busy that day, yeah.
Speaker 1:What am I doing?
Speaker 2:We've got probably some new listeners that are wondering what ball gong is. We did, uh, ships developed his own obstacle in a few, a few episodes back when we built our own perfect obstacle course that dave hated. Um, dave mentioned that he did that was a bit um unbalanced that course, but yeah, we built one and we had ball gong as our accuracy. One one bong, then you're gone. Yeah, yeah, um, dave, like spreading this course out can be a bit diff, bit difficult, should we say a bit logistical challenge for you in terms of like, you've got the barn, you've got the outside grounds and then you've got the field. Are you putting anything into the field to give that distribution a little bit more than we've seen in the past?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah. So we're using the bottom of the field this time around. So the bottom of the field's gonna have some, um, some obstacles built into it, so there'll be, there'll be more portable, as you can imagine. They won't be like huge obstacles that we'll put down there. But yeah, we're gonna do it because I'm quite conscious not to have all of our obstacles bunched in one big hit.
Speaker 3:So, and that's like you say, where we are training center and we have it all packed in nice and tight, then we can do that and it works in our favor in some ways. In the sense, when we're trying to do that sort of grip endurance side of things, but also when it comes to balancing a nice good 3k route, we want to make sure that we can split that. So we've done it two ways, one being that we split the proving grounds in half so that spreads where that section goes anyway. But the second being that, yeah, we're putting some obstacles down at the bottom end of the field, which will again balance out the running sections with more obstacles. So, rather than having long runs and then loads of obstacles, it will be much more balanced out in terms of the equal split as the course sort of goes through yeah, I'd quite enjoy that.
Speaker 3:That sounds good yeah, we will be yeah what other one did?
Speaker 2:we have ships, we have speed of the course, so that's that's changed it out a bit.
Speaker 1:Really just saying that if you're going to have some obstacles down at the bottom and you've still got the top half obstacles, the running sections in my mind doesn't seem like it's going to be, because obviously before used to be running in that field. Although the field is quite slow to run in, it's still quite a lot of running, so it used to be quite a fast call last year's 3k. That was what. Under 20 minutes. Yeah, from the top guys, obviously the ladies different times, um, so that is actually quite a fast course for the amount of obstacles. Yeah, is it going to change much?
Speaker 3:I, I think it will, on the basis that it's kind of one of my goals, um, and you've got strength-based obstacles as well exactly, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I want to slow people down. We've also got the combination rigs, which just simply take more time to get through um so um. One example is that we've got a long combination rig. It's about 15 meters long um, and it changes level as well. So there's a lot of grip, endurance in it. There's a lot of um just time on the obstacle, um in the way that you've got to work and it's very physical. It's quite um.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily technically very difficult as a combination rig, but it's quite um, it's quite intense on the body so when you're hanging on, when you're doing something like that for a while, it yeah, changes, changes the way that grip goes. It's like really simple, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, hang on a minute. I've been hanging around exactly.
Speaker 3:We've also put in our pole climb, which we've only used that, the ocr games um in in events that we've done. So, um, it's a, an obstacle that people aren't necessarily used to and again, if you aren't used to the technique on that obstacle, so it's um, uh, like a, basically an a-frame with with the pole up one side that you have to climb up with the rope that's hanging from the top to bottom. It's joined from the top and bottom of the pole, um, and that's quite physical again and that that would lead into um, you, you have a low rig, a z wall, um two volts, a pole climb, and then a high rig. So you've got a full section there which is quite grip inducing, and then you've got the straight into the next section of running and strength before you come into a long combination rig. So the combination rig is after having done quite a few upper body obstacles already, so you're already going to be carrying some fatigue I'd say that's a slow course.
Speaker 3:Then I think so, yeah, in comparison especially to last year. Um, so yeah, I'd say I think nuts was 19 minutes for the winning male time. Um, tartan warrior, I feel like, was it was about 19, wasn't it, with us 18, maybe 18 something. Um, I've got a feeling this is going to be more 21, 22 minute fastest, fastest time just because of those elements you just mentioned.
Speaker 2:So, and yeah, yeah, I can just think that this I haven't. We haven't done a strength obstacle. That is kind of like slow going but you know someone's pushing hard. We haven't had that yet. So, yeah, it's gonna be quite exciting to see because actually allows you to actually, you know, when people are running up here or doing a slow obstacle next to you, you feel actually closer than when you're not, and it actually enhances the competitive nature of the course, which I really, really love, that part this is it and like for me as well, like we've had.
Speaker 3:What we really enjoy about the 3ks and what I enjoy is like for me. I'm always wanting to be creative in the obstacles that we do right, and I want to see ideas that we have had um implemented in a way that it needs to be implemented into a course that's kind of fast-paced and lots of transitions from obstacle to obstacle. Otherwise it wouldn't really work like. So. One example of one of the obstacles that we're building into this course is um. It's a. It's a. It's a version of a drag, I suppose, but it's more like a cardio version of a drag. So if I give you both comparisons, you've got the strength drag in this course, which is quite heavy, not particularly long, and you will need to use your body weight to lean on it to get it to move right, whereas the um, the cardio drag that we're doing, is down and up, down and up, down and up in terms of you getting up and down by going under things, but you're also dragging weight with you the entire way on a strap with a wheel basically behind you. So rather than tires, we're typically being like carried and just run up and over, or a little sandbag being dropped and thrown underneath. You're going to have a drag where you've got a wheel on a handle, effectively, that you're dragging with you the whole way, and that drag is on long grass, it's on ground that's not level. It's going to be pulling back at you. It's going to be.
Speaker 3:It's when it was one of them, almost what I call frustrating obstacles where it's it's not going to nicely glide as you run and it's just going to. You know, imagine a tire on a long bit of rope dragging down a gravel road. It just skips along the road behind you and you just get a jog on. This is going to be pulling back at the athlete. It's going to be jogging you back. It's not going to be so heavy that they can't drag it and move it, but it's going to be a bit annoying where they have to keep sitting up from getting under a hurdle and then pulling the weight underneath behind them.
Speaker 3:You know, um, so it's, it's it's our ideas that we've had for a while. But they, if you put that into a run where, on a full 12k course, you do a run and then you've got this 20 meter section of a drag with some hurdles. It's just it's almost going to be annoyingly over very quickly and it's going to break up a section of running and it's it's hardly going to impact on the race at all. But doing something like that off the back of doing four or five obstacles and then getting a bit of a run down to the section to move, it is straight away. It's it's breaking up an athlete's rhythm continuously as the 3k progresses that sounds horrible.
Speaker 2:Um, I just put that as a risk getting frustrated with the drags. That reminds me of, you know, when Spartan used to do what was it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the block drag the brick. Yeah, the breeze block drag. Yeah, that was on a chain.
Speaker 2:You couldn't even grip the chain properly. The breeze block would just bounce around behind you and you're like what is this?
Speaker 3:thing doing. Yeah, patch on a root, can't pull it. Yeah, exactly that. It's that same sort of feeling, right? So those sort of obstacles, when you're just doing a run and they just appear out of nowhere, they're just, they're annoying and they're not even enjoyable, whereas where we can put it in now it can be enjoyable, and it can. It's also going to condense the field again. You know you're going to get gaps in the fields and then you're going to be oh, I've caught up, and actually you haven't.
Speaker 2:It's just, they're on that really annoying section, yeah, exactly yeah, I, I hate them parts of obstacle course racing because you get to it, you think you're catching someone, but actually you're about to realize why. You can see them like yeah, yeah, it's gonna be really good for then spectators. We'll get onto that in a minute, but definitely, thinking from like seeing that field condensed together, see who's leading, see who's pushing, like you can really see the faces of individuals, how much they're trying if they're relaxed, if they're not, yeah, it's gonna be really interesting. So well, it was like that last year.
Speaker 3:The women's race was amazing to watch yeah, that was highlight of the year, I think yeah, and we're we're gonna split the waves this year so that both the women can watch the men and the men can watch the women.
Speaker 3:Like we really enjoyed that element of having the women supported as well, but also the fact that, um, it kind of pulled the whole day together. It had everyone there supporting each other. It was just a really good atmosphere and I think we want to really play on that. And then we're doing the kids as well this year as a competitive option as well, obviously adjusted, course, um, but we we do it as a competitive standalone thing for the kids to be involved and hopefully we'll have a lot of people there to support that as well and watch the kids go around because, as, as everyone who knows who sort of sees the kids racing, they've got some amazing talent in the junior ranks there's some things to watch on some of them hopefully they'll go first, so we've got something to learn from yeah, but yeah, we're gonna have a go at it so we've done terrain effect, done strength components, number of obstacles and the obstacles that you're going to see.
Speaker 2:Speed, of course, just it's going to be. It's definitely sounds like a slower course. The last year the rigs, the strength and the hills are going to be the main things that are going to slow you down. And then going on to, sometimes weather can be a huge factor of these courses. How do you think weather will play into to this course? Would it have any effect?
Speaker 3:I mean, as you say, if we, if we get a lot of rain in the next couple weeks or in the week two leading up to the event, then the bottom of the field can get quite boggy, um, so again, it's going to fatigue the legs out quite a lot. Um, I wouldn't say it would affect in terms of like grips and like slipping on attachments and stuff, mainly on the basis that any of our slippier attachments are indoors for a start, because we'll use our indoor rigs where the really technical grips are, although the rigs that we have planned um the grips, aren't necessarily the problem. I don't know if that helps or not. I can probably explain that a little bit more in a second.
Speaker 3:Um, but the the the ground, I would certainly say if we had a lot of rain it can affect the course speed at the bottom. Um, and obviously being wet anyway can can affect people. But we'd hope at the end of may that we're in a good, good opportunity to have a good dry race. Um, but again, you know, as anyone who's competed at ocr games over the years can tell you, the heat and the sun is very exposed. I was about to say that.
Speaker 3:So if we have a hot day, there's a lot of exposure, there's not a lot of ground cover, there's not a lot of woodland cover. You're in the sun. So we'll probably have some marquees up for people when they're not competing. But in terms of the race course itself, it's going to be either fully exposed to the rain or fully exposed to the sun.
Speaker 2:Whichever way the weather goes yeah, and some courses that we have in obstacle course racing allow you to go into rivers and water if it's a really hot day. You're not going to obviously have that. So that was I was about the complete opposite to what we've said in the past is actually the heat, especially me being ginger and need to be careful. So, yeah, get the sun cream on. Yeah, exactly, and it's just how long you stand out in it. Some people were very, very always looking for, like all the races walking around before their race and do you know what? If you really want to compete, that's actually quite a detriment to your performance, do?
Speaker 3:you know what, darren? I said this at Titan Warrior, like on a different format, but I said the same sort of concept to you, like where these 3K races have now got practice, typically on the day as well, before. Actually it's it's lengthening the period of time that you're out exposed. So if you are out practicing and overdoing it, potentially that's one factor, but two, if you're out in I mean in tartan warriors situation it was if it's cold and wet, you don't want to be, you don't want to get yourself cold and wet before you race. If you start getting shivery and hyper fermion before you race, that's not going to give you a good performance when you go to set off on the start line. So, again, if it's hot and you're exposed out in the practice or the whole time and you're out in the sun, dehydration will play a factor and you will then never perform as well. So again, it's that you know the practice is brilliant, but it's also you've got to understand what you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah what you're doing for practice. You're not going out there to smash the obstacles and do them over and over again. Find the quickest route. You're going out there to work on how you're going to approach the obstacles, not necessarily doing the obstacles, just how you're going to approach it. Even use it for like a beforehand warm-up, just getting out there, get the body moving a little bit because you can go under those obstacles without warming up, and that's when you're out of the race because you've gone on it too quick. So free practice is great, but I think people need to be very mindful of how they're going to go into free practice yeah, and people don't warm up.
Speaker 3:Today, you know, you see, people just turn up, get on an obstacle and you think, well, you know. And then someone's telling me at the end oh yeah, I did, I did all right, but my shoulders hurting. So well, did you warm up, you know? So there's all them factors that are at play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we get into risks now because I'm thinking that, definitely, people, now that you can warm up beforehand and actually test out the obstacles, that 3K is actually turning into a 10K. So you actually need to actually be eating and having nutrition for a 10k, not a 3k, to allow yourself to warm up correctly and be and perform correctly when you actually the start the where you start the race. So, yeah, just thinking from a risk point of view, you do need to be making sure that you you're hydrated, you've got your nutrition on point and you're not overdoing it. Then what you would usually do in training test it, do a 5K before a 3K simulation. That's the easiest way to test out these things. Chip said, you feel like actually I've actually got the biggest risk the ships you would agree with is not knowing where the finish line is. I think.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the beauty of free practice. This time I'm going to go around the course and see where exactly it is.
Speaker 3:The good news for you is it's really clear it better be this year.
Speaker 2:Finlay's listening to this thinking that is a load of rubbish and that is a big excuse, and listeners probably haven't got a clue what's going on. But ships last year in the 3k race to this day, I beat him and Finlay beat him, but he still says that's because he didn't realize the finish line was coming up look at the video, you can see me.
Speaker 1:I know I've got a confused face most of the time, but I was. I was looking at my watch and thinking do you know what it's? Because I'm an old racer and I'm so used to being in a race and it not being completely honest where it is. So we was only like two point something kilometers and I was thinking there's no way we've got to do another switch back up and down this hill. It's just that old mentality. But if we know where the finish line is, this time we're on it yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's the risk. No, don't, yeah, don't.
Speaker 2:Don't not push for the finish line, know where it is yeah, you'll do well to miss it this year um, two more things we we like to go through and, dave, we can talk more if you want, but like especially releasing these episodes out in good enough time where people can actually train. Like we always say that who's hot or other episodes come out at such an element where it's just talking about the hype of the race, but we like to make sure that we're talking about actually adapting to this race, putting a bit of training block in. Actually, you know, really you've got the bit of time to do it and you can't you should, should have a bit of time now to to perfect something such as, like we said, heels and carries and strength. But what skills, what other skills would you say you need to learn for this course?
Speaker 3:um, I've made this course. We, when we first talked about doing it, we talked about european championships and we said we want to look at the european champs as a, as a bit of a guide, because people are going to be in that thought process, they're going to be getting their head in the mode of, you know, getting ready for that, and so it makes sense for us to do something that's going to help people prep for the euros. So the types of obstacles we've gone for in terms of, like, our rig, our rig setups and stuff, they're gonna test all sort of skill components. So, um, one of our obstacles is planned to have um, how do I explain it?
Speaker 3:Move in attachment rather than hand to attachment. So, you know, like captain hooks, for example, you take the attachment with you. We're not using captain hooks, but we are using that method where you're taking your attachment with you, if that makes sense. Um, so you're going to be taking ropes with you, so you will hang on your rope and you will then use your rope to hook onto your next sections. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:yeah, I've seen that obstacle before, actually, yeah, so that's, that's one of our obstacles. Um so the the style is there, in the sense that you're moving your attachment rather than moving yourself to different attachments dave, just a bit more.
Speaker 2:Is that the one where you have to have a foot lock on it and you're moving? Then you move the next one, then you foot lock on that, then you move again? Yeah, yeah, I saw that at the dutch dutch 3k um race. Obviously that's a. That's where your influence comes from and we're huge on it, right?
Speaker 3:so we're almost like to the point where we're. If we could do it we can't because it's we're not dutch and we're not belgium but if we could, we would be a survival running center. We wouldn't be an obstacle racing center, you know, because we we base our training style on survival running. So, um, I believe it's the best foundation in terms of growing up from survival running. You know, I don't think we should be moving across to it from obstacle course racing. I feel like it's like at grassroots level, survival running has got it sorted and that treats you with all the foundations you need to then progress to the more advanced styles in the sense of things like what you see in Spain and Portugal and you know figure four style rigs and low rigs and high rigs and stuff. So we're looking at trying to give a taste of all styles. So we have a survival running style in there. We have the moving attachment in there, style in there. We have the moving attachment in there.
Speaker 3:We have, um, a what I call a european champs in the sense of like you'll see things like the uh toros type attachments and similar, but we will have all skill sets tested on the rig. So we're probably um, if the setup works as what I think it's going to be on one of our other rigs, we're going to have our triangles out, so you would have to work down so the triangle frames with pegs on effectively. So you'll swing into it, work down and under the frame and then back up again. Um, you'd see a hang on race, for example. So anyone that did any of our hang on stuff last year probably came across that triangle. Um, and then um, we've got a couple of little bits which I'd like to keep as a surprise, but other rig styles as well. So we're testing all styles of rig. Basically, um, across the uh, what is it? We're going to do One, two, three, four, five upper body rig obstacles that we're putting in. Um, we'll test test.
Speaker 2:So, being being a rumble athlete myself, and chips you as well I would my best bit of advice knowing dave is this best skill set to learn is going to just make sure that your foot lock is on point, like you can switch up, you can move your hips around you and wherever you move your body on that rope you are still attached, like it's not going to come out from yourself. That will really help you on most portions of this, because when we say footlock on a rope, we're not just saying footlock on a rope to ascend a rope climb. I'm talking okay, do you have the opportunity, do you have the modality to move around that rope? Can you take it with you? If you're going under attachment, can you take it with you without getting fatigue on your arms and push and move another obstacle?
Speaker 3:make sure that you've got that ability yeah, yeah, and and be familiar with changing levels in rigs as well. Um, so don't panic about how hard the attachments are, but but think about how you're going to be moving through these rigs and controlling your body through movement, because that's the style that I go for typically, um in in in general, anyway, on my courses anyway, whether it be here, you know, um, forwarders, 3k champs, whatever else I've ever done, you know they all have more about you manipulating your body as opposed to just giving you some crazy hard grips and telling you to get on with it. You know it's um, it's about control of motion and that's that's going to help you time wise.
Speaker 1:We're quite lucky with this one in a way, because the british championships is going to be held two weeks prior to this race. You're also course director for that race, so we should be able to see aspects of how you put a course together on a longer course. So a lot of the skills that we're going to be using in that race, I believe probably come into, come into play quite heavily in the 3k. And it's quite a good distance between the two of the races because it's, so you know, two weeks. It's great. You can almost just leave it at that nuclear race and then possibly go into the 3k, maybe just sharpen up on a couple of other skills with the strength element.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely, and you're right to sort of think of it as almost like a style to me and the way that I kind of I've definitely got a a, um, a belief system, I think, around the way I put, put rigs and courses together, and I think I'm not going to deter from that, you know, I mean it's going to be my style, dave's system, this is it maybe that's what the d stands for in the OCD this is super exciting because, from from a racer's point of view especially just from my own selfish point of view is that this is five weeks before the European Championships.
Speaker 2:So, like you mentioned it when you came on here, dave, about sharpening for races, so six weeks, you said, is a very good time to sharpen and be very specific for that race that's upcoming. So this is five weeks out. So it allows you to have a good four, five days training into, starting into a new training block of sharpening and then going into a simulation five weeks out to take key learnings from that and then finesse those next three, three weeks and then start tapering down from that finessing and learning of new skills. This is an absolute gem of an opportunity to test to, to either go out with the with the mindset to like I'm just going full send and this is a simulation, or to go out and actually just say no, this is just a learning of where my current skill set is at, and then I'm going to then put another training block in for the euros like it's it's got. But beth, best of both worlds.
Speaker 2:Me personally, I think you'd probably agree this isn't a, this isn't a consult, training, consultation, but I definitely agree. It's an opportunity. Just the full send, let's see, let's see where it's at and then let's go into the to whatever learnings we get from that for the euros, because it's yeah, it's a good I don't know ships. You agree it's a good opportunity, isn't it for that?
Speaker 1:yeah, on both sides. I mean, I'm coming at it from a not very much volume athlete at the moment so I can go into it, use that as just that little point bit of a um, you call it a sprinkle down and a sprinkle of hardness, and then I probably won't do too much else apart from just putting a bit more volume in getting ready for that two-day event of the euros, because it gives me that opportunity. I won't, because I haven't built up that element of doing lots of obstacles. It'll probably do me in to do more obstacles afterwards, but it's just enough time just to tweak it a little bit, which helps with the entry-level OCR races as well, because they'll probably be in the same boat.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and again it links back to where my sort of head is whenever I put events on or what I do with the team. You know, a lot of the stuff I do is based around helping people to peak at the right times, helping people to test their performance so they know what they're comparing to um. And, like you say, it's not, it's not by accident that we can put a course together that sort of fits with the euros, um and and tie these things up, uh, under testing, testing situations to help people then tidy it up before they go to an event that really, really matters to them and there's a lot of lot of new listeners that and a lot of new people that have come into obstacle course racing this year and it's amazing to see competitive new competitors coming in.
Speaker 2:And I think one thing that I would have loved to have learned when I first started doing obstacle course racing especially when it came to attending european and world championships is what my body feels like after a 3k and and can I sign up for the 3k and the 12k? Can I sign up for both? The best thing about this is I'm just looking it's it's the bank holiday, monday on the next day, like you could actually even go. I'm not going to do this but because I know that already I've taken the learnings, but if you haven't, you could go out and do a tempo like a six mile tempo, see how your legs feel after that 3k because you feel, yeah, we got bank holiday monday afterwards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, banging you. Sure it's not just a scotland one no, oh nice, I thought it was done with them. I thought this was it I love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's another day, so so you're good to go um and, like you say, there as well, darren. The other thing with the new entries, like one thing that I've kind of um at Rumble officially really, but at Rumble I um, I've I've tried to bridge a gap between what we had in the UK and what we were turning up to when we went to the Euros and the Worlds. You know, if you take us back eight or nine years ago, it was like you were getting lots of racers from the UK who were qualified to go to Europeans or the Worlds and then they'd turn up to the Europeans or the Worlds and they'd have never seen anything like it before, or the only time they've seen anything like it was when they're at the euros of the worlds. The previous year, you know, there was none of this bridging, there was none of this accessibility to these courses during the season or during the year, because that we just didn't have them in the uk.
Speaker 3:So which we me and other training centers and places as well have tried to sort of bridge that gap and provide access to it. And then, from the other point of view, from the brand new people to obstacle racing who maybe come from, come from the Tough Mudder background, or they go and do a Nuts or a Nuclear, you know, or a Spartan, and then they go. I want to have a look at what else is around. These are great opportunities for people to kind of turn up and see some completely different styles of obstacles that you're not going to necessarily see unless you literally do go to competitions that are at championship standards. So the bridging is important for people's experience and knowledge and learning as much as it is for their competition yeah, I, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's a. It's kind of like your, your first, I don't know, your your first entry level or first opportunity to test out a european and world style course in terms of obstacle, difficulty, and we didn't have those in the past, but all of these free case have now given us the ability to test it out. So for anyone new coming into the sport can like they'll be like oh, what is a world? What are these amazing, like world champion athletes, what do they actually compete on? Is it a tough mother? That's what I get asked. Personally, it's like well, no test, go to a 3k. Actually. That's kind of like more, more towards what we do, um, at a world or european level.
Speaker 1:I think this there, that's that's exciting, because we don't get that as much now you can almost go to any one of the training centers on the 3k race series providers. That makes sense yeah, I guess it does and sort of simulate this race in a way and get an idea what this race is going to be like just by going to those training centers. They all have a knowledge of what's going to be at this race. They have a knowledge of european races.
Speaker 2:So every one of them training centers and a few others do lend itself to being able to do that yeah, it's a really good, good opportunity right now, ships, to just say that to listeners, that all of these body hub, pt, barn, rumble, fitness, fit, body farm, nuts, they are all training venues and you can go down there like just just get down there and have a go at the obstacles you don't have to wait for these races.
Speaker 2:Last one is the most important one is spectator ability or is it spectate? I always forget. Is it spectator ability or spectator?
Speaker 1:ability what?
Speaker 2:what are we saying on this one?
Speaker 3:well, I would make a case for it being the best, or I shouldn't say the best.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm always going to say it's the best.
Speaker 3:It is the best. No, what I mean is the easiest for any spectator to see. This is probably the easiest course for them to be able to watch someone around the course. There's good and bad sides to that. The good side is you're going to see a hell of a lot without needing to move anywhere because of the central point that you can be in, that you can effectively see. And what we're doing differently this year is we're creating spectating areas specifically for people to be in to be able to watch. What's going on.
Speaker 3:The bad side of it is that, because the way that we pack our courses in, we can't have people running alongside every single detail of an athlete to to film them or to support them or to shout and scream at them.
Speaker 3:You know, whatever it is they're going to do, you can view from the viewing platforms effectively, but if you're, you won't be able to get in and amongst it with the obstacles, you know, because I don't want hundreds of people running around the course together, you know.
Speaker 3:So what we're doing is we're creating a course that you can see and you can watch and you can enjoy watching it from central points, but also help us to clear our course for our athletes. We've done a lot of work on our development of our course over the last few years to to expand racing lines, to give more lanes, to open up to three, four lanes rather than one and two lanes on stuff. So we have taken some of our spectating spaces for that, I suppose in that space, um, because it enhances the racing ability, enhances what we can do for the races and the athletes on the course. So we have to manage where we put our spectators in terms of where we allow freedom of running around alongside of course, um. So the good news is you can see the whole course from a central point. So from that perspective it's brilliant and you probably wouldn't miss anything necessarily at all you don't need no binoculars or anything no, no, you'll be in areas that you can literally see everything that's going on from probably 15 meters away max.
Speaker 3:So you're going to get a good view in no matter what the. If you want a personal cameraman to run alongside you, then you're going to have to cough up some money.
Speaker 2:Is that VIP?
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, but the good side of that is that vip exactly yeah, um. But the good side of that is that we, um, we aim to have um plenty of cameras filming stuff anyway, so everyone can have some footage and stuff like that amazing?
Speaker 2:yeah, because I was gonna say I was gonna say it's the one of the best courses I've seen, that I've actually had my family come to this one. This is the only one that they've come to because I can actually see me. But, yes, you, you make a good point. It's. It's got good spectatability. From a standing in one central area you can see everything, but not from a point where you're running across the course because, yeah, you'd end up kicking tape over and getting in the way what about vendors?
Speaker 1:have you got any vendors at this one?
Speaker 3:not currently planning it. Um, we, we have. We have contemplated it, um, but we haven't at the moment. We've we've got some sponsors of people that like it. We might, we might, have a little look about. We'll see what the ticket sales go like, and we have got the kids as well, which which enhances a bit more impulse for us to do stuff like that. Um, but we we also need to be careful with our spaces, with parking and things like that. So we need to be thinking ahead of logistics when it comes to the event, and obviously the logistics overpowers everything else to make sure that it runs I say that mainly because if anyone's not been to rumble, there is no shop nearby.
Speaker 1:So if you are going for the day and there might not be, or maybe vendors, just make sure you've got yourselves plenty of water, plenty of food, because you ain't getting none nearby.
Speaker 3:Maybe I should open a shop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe you should Dave's tuck shop or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The other, dave, could do that.
Speaker 3:You can just imagine him being the personable shopkeeper.
Speaker 2:We're a sponsorship, so we should branded uh, branded pizza van or something there accountability slices no, yeah, an accountability slice. A slice of accountability nice what, what other, what other bits of information do you think we need to give individuals before this race?
Speaker 3:um, I think we said that before, but we're doing the band system. I think we said about that, didn't we? With the, the penalties, yeah, and time penalty, so nobody will dnf, so everyone will have the opportunity to run. Well, um, we'll have um, we will have plenty of time to practice before the course. Um, we'll put all the timings out to all of the athletes as well. I am going to close registration. Um, usually we close registration the day before our event. This year I'm going to close it two days before the event. So that's probably a good point to put forward, that if people are trying to sign up on the saturday, it's not going to happen. You need to get signed up by the friday because, um, it just helps us logistically.
Speaker 3:With regards to our waves and the people that we're doing it, um, we're currently looking at a mass start, but that could slightly change. It might be two mass starts, depending on the numbers. Um, but it won't be um, it won't be waves of two, three, four or five people. It will be larger waves of people and we're going to work our seeding out on that as well. So the plan is to send seeded athletes out in groups that recognise their ability. So we'll use last year's results, we'll use last year's 3K overall results and we'll use the results of this year to compile that together. So that will give us our seedings as people will know who they're racing, because they'll be.
Speaker 1:They'll be alongside those people and what about ticket prices at the moment? What do they stand at?
Speaker 3:I think we standardize the tickets. I think they're 40 pound.
Speaker 1:That includes the practice and you can get them at the usual places in ninjoko, whatever it is.
Speaker 3:That's the one. Yeah, our usual ticket link. We'll put a post up soon with some leaks and stuff, but you can go via the Rumble Fitness Instagram page. There's a link on the bio there so you can go through the link too.
Speaker 1:Darren will put a link on our one as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes. Ship's actually told me that the other day, and also you can. British Obstacle Sports website. It's got all the links as well to to this. Just check that. So there's multiple places where you can find the link to it.
Speaker 3:You probably don't need don't need to ask Shipley all the questions, because I know he loves, loves those for nuts we've got we're doing trophies for the uh, for the finishers, so we'll have the master's podiums, we'll have the um overall podiums and we'll also have a junior competitive option as well. Not the juniors don't all have to go competitively. So we'll have a non-competitive and a competitive option for the juniors um, but there will be trophies for all categories and don't forget as well.
Speaker 1:There'll also be the big celebrational, or is it?
Speaker 2:champagne well, it's prosecco, but we'll go with champagne we will, exactly I actually I actually want to say something about this. This, the biggest, biggest skill to learn for anyone that wants to be on the podium, is can we, can you learn how to spray champagne properly?
Speaker 1:all right okay I could get right now. Who has a hose pipe at home?
Speaker 2:yeah if anyone's ever done it right I'm doing that hose we're doing.
Speaker 2:I'm always playing with the hose everywhere we said we'd do a video for this, like a little bit of like a I don't know instruction manual how to actually champagne spray. But don't worry, we'll be on hand. We'll be there on this one we can help out. Well, we'll be. We'll be spraying it when we ship. I'll be drinking it. Yeah, it's. It's alcohol free and vegan, exactly, yeah, I, I do like that. We chose that because you know we had izzy on the podium.
Speaker 2:We we might have that on the podium, so it needs to be vegan. Yeah, it, it's. It's um, it's been. It's been really exciting to see everyone getting their moment to celebrate, and that's obviously something we wanted to collaborate with you on. Which is it just? Everyone tries and trains so hard in this sport and, yes, we, we are working towards being in an actual sport in the uk but I think everyone still deserves like a moment to shine with that celebration.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, you can you can see it as well, like you can see there's. You know it elongates the podium ceremony a little bit longer than there's your medal well done, and then you walk off. There's just that little bit of recognition extra that you can see the athletes enjoy and, to be honest, the people that didn't get on the podium still enjoy it. It's good fun, it's an enjoyable moment of the day and it caps the day off really nicely and I think it's worked really well.
Speaker 2:yeah it'd be more fun when people can spray it properly as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and when you, when we start bringing the magnums to spray, right, yeah yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's for the end of the year. This is it. Oh, we'll have the little mascot.
Speaker 1:Do you remember bsb british super bikes? They used to have big ed, the big motorbike head guy. Love that. We need. We need someone like that we need a mascot, don't don't. I'm sure it's a progressive curve. What we'll do is we'll get a mo mascot right.
Speaker 2:We're just a big head mo we, we haven't, we actually haven't even mentioned why mo's not here. We said at the beginning, we didn't say it when we start recording yeah, mo's not here today.
Speaker 3:He's basically a mini-me and whenever I've been on he pretty much says as much as he said now, anyway, yeah.
Speaker 2:Apart from when I was, it was quite interesting listening back to the episode that I wasn't on. It was nice to not be on an episode and actually hear Ships and Mo talk to Finlay.
Speaker 3:Best episode, yet Some might say that that's one way to offend one person who's been on the podcast with you and you have a co-host all in one sentence.
Speaker 2:Well, I feel like we've been through every component that makes a good 3K race Terrain. What is that going to do? Strength components, number of obstacles, technicality of those, speed of the course is it fast, slow? The weather that always makes a change in an obstacle course race. Any risks, skills to learn I think that's the biggest one that I think people like to hear. Is that, what, what skills and things do I not have in a toolbox currently that I need to start finessing before this race? So, yeah, I think we, we definitely uh, hit upon that. And then, spectator, spectator ability definitely bring your family to watch this, but tell them not to run around the course yeah, and it was quite nice last time, even with our um the course walk we did previously.
Speaker 1:We got a few good videos of people sort of doing their sharpening up for the races. So if anyone wants to send some more of those ones out onto the internet and tag us in it, we'll do our best to post away.
Speaker 2:They were really good yeah, yeah, and, and I'm down there every thursday dave puts on a great session every thursday night and just just get there. You'll familiarize yourself with the terrain. Like even just running up and down that hill, which we do, will be a benefit for this course. So, yeah, get down there. I think that's everything. Anything else you two want to talk about? Anything I've missed?
Speaker 3:I'm waiting for a genius line from Chibli. Yeah, that's what I was waiting for.
Speaker 2:The clogs were going.
Speaker 1:I don't know it's all good this time. I don't know I haven't done any science.
Speaker 2:No, there's been no science this time.
Speaker 1:I must be all out of science, okay, oh no. Should we talk about how fizz works in champagne?
Speaker 2:or should we leave that for the next one? No, leave that for the next one, alright, I'm going to end it there before, before we lose anyone alright, cheers for coming on, dave. Yeah, no problem, thanks for having me on hopefully you've probably got a few more podcasts to go, because I know you're probably got a few more podcasts to go because I know you're probably doing previews and stuff.
Speaker 1:But thanks, for coming on this been good, good to see you all again. Till the next time. No, let's get the videos out, let's get ready for this race. See you later, see ya, thanks for watching.
