sophieIt’s easy in the winter to shy away from entering an OCR. After all, the winter months are cold, wet and dreary enough to drive many people into hibernation. But this winter, instead of cowering in your temperature controlled gym, brave the elements and enter a winter OCR – trust me, you won’t regret it!
More of the things we love – mud and water
If you’re anything like me, wading through ponds, rivers and mud lagoons was a large part of the attraction of experimenting with OCR. Yes I know that many summer OCR races are run on ‘muddy’ courses, and more and more race organisers are cultivating carefully tended year-round mud patches (intensive farming for the OCR community), but basically, if you want the real thing, you’ve got to winter it up.
Nothing quite beats standing on a start line with the sleet and the hail lashing down, gathered in a sort of shivering huddle like penguins in the Antarctic, desperate for the race to start just so that you have something else to think about other than exactly how thick a sheet of glass your nipples could cut. A good old pour down churns even the smallest of puddles and streams into raging torrents, and transforms ascents and descents into travellators and slides. And who doesn’t love throwing their sopping wet, slippery body at an 8ft wall, only to splat on the top and slide down, then trying to haul their frigid, feeble frame up a sodden rope that may as well be coated in oil for all the grip it provides? Mud and water, we salute you!
Impromptu ice baths (comfortably numb)
Imagine (or remember) this: it’s 1 degree. You worry that your eye balls are going to freeze, the air is so bitterly cold. Overnight the temperature hovered at somewhere between -5 and -1. The water features have frozen over; the ice is so thick that the race organisers have broken the ice before the race, lest the thick shards should pierce the sides of oblivious racers leaping haphazardly into said pond. The temperature in the water is significantly lower than the air temperature. What possible benefit could there be from launching yourself into this below-freezing waterhole?
When you clamber out of the (literally) breathtaking pool, your legs will a) feel so numb that you won’t feel any more pain – good for either pushing on or enjoying the relief; and b) reap all the benefits of an ice bath*, without having to acquire a clean wheelie bin, and a lot of ice.
*Note: the actual benefits of mid-race ice baths are not substantiated, partly because absolutely no research has been conducted in this area.
Gear!
And lots of it! What better way to show off/test out your carefully selected array of awesome cold weather gear (especially if this formed the majority of your Christmas presents) than to parade it all in the muddiest, sweatiest fashion show going? Admittedly the ‘nearly naked’ summer runs provide a certain amount of eye candy, but it’s so much harder to work out how good the other competitors are if you don’t get a look at the sort of gear they have (following the very scientific hypothesis: people with really good gear = really good racers; not to be confused with the hypothesis: people with clean gear = not very good).
Of course, in the winter OCRs there are always two stock characters to look out for, gear-wise. The first is ‘nearly naked man running in sub-zero conditions’. The second is ‘arctic explorer who accidentally wandered into an OCR race’. The first provides an interesting conversation piece about exactly how little sanity or how much hypothermia he may have (I say ‘he’ because I have never yet witnessed such foolhardy females, though I concede they may exist). The latter gives us all a bit of a chuckle, partly because they are going to get absolutely soaking wet which will negate the purpose of their carefully layered ensemble, and partly because it reminds us that we are well ‘ard.
If you’re really lucky, snow!
Sometimes the snow comes down in June. But it never settles (not in this country anyway). If you want to play on obstacles in the snow, you have do a race in the winter. Nuff said.
Frozen ground = less of a mudbath in car park (field)
The most forgotten about obstacle in reviews and races is the mud gauntlet masquerading as a field, masquerading as a car park, which provides endless hours of fun for hapless motorists who enjoy burning their clutch out whilst providing a mud shower for those willing to help heave the stranded vehicle out of the rut. If you are fortunate enough to have a big freeze in the days before and morning of a race, this is one obstacle that you can skate over.
More challenge posed by a greater variety of surfaces
Even in the coldest of cold snaps, a winter OCR is more likely to throw up an interesting variety of terrain, for some proprioceptive action! Frozen ground can be as unyielding as compacted August trails, whilst the cold weather means that mud pools are less likely to dry up. Add the two together and you also have some rather wonderful patches of frozen mud, whipped up into beautiful but rigid peaks and troughs, resulting in a true test of all round fitness and conditioning. And you get to use the word proprioception when explaining to non OCR nuts the various benefits of getting down n dirty while they’re cowering inside their temperature controlled gym or monotonously pounding the pavements, which will both impress and annoy them.
You know who your friends are
We all know them. Those fairweather OCR runners. The kind who agree to do a Tough Mudder in May or August, or for whom the Dirty Weekend “doesn’t sound too bad”. But ask them if they fancy joining you for Tough Guy in early February, or sign up for the March Nuts Challenge (4 laps, obviously), and suddenly it all goes quiet. Anyone who is stupid enough, crazy enough or addicted enough to traverse the freezing depths of winter OCRs with you is a keeper, partly because they share the exact same characteristics as you, partly because they can clearly be relied upon when all others crumble. And partly because you may both suffer from PTSD, and it’s reassuring to know that you’re not the only one.
Less chafeage
Sensitive skin zones plus sweat, mud, sand, rough wood, stones and rope = Chafetown. Friction related skin damage is easy to ignore, unless you are in the throes of its abrasive clutches. The litany of affected areas reads rather like a children’s song: “Hands, armpits, nipples and thighs, nipples and thighs” (complete with accompanying gestures). But in winter, layers are the friend of every sensitively skinned John or Joan going. Not only do they prevent skin on skin action, but they also offer some protection against the chafe threat posed by the obstacles themselves.
You’ll never be cold again
Ok, so maybe this is an exaggeration, but spending half your Saturdays jumping into freezing ponds, running through sleet, hail and driving northerly winds gives you a more profound appreciation of how warm you actually are most of the time.
So next time one of your friends complains about how cold they are in their jumper, coat, hat, gloves, scarf and thick woolly socks, suggest they join you in your next OCR jaunt – or better still, enter them covertly, to show them how much you care. They will either stop whining about being cold, or they will ditch you as a friend. Either way, you win!
Means you are super tough and awesome
The last and most important point. Obviously one of the attractions of OCR is its uniquely demanding combination of challenges: cardio, strength, conditioning, technique and sheer bloody minded will power are all tested to the max. Taking part in any OCR, summer or winter, entitles you to bragging rights when it comes to physical and mental strength. So, in a fraternity where overcoming trials and tribulations are feats to be proud of, clearly the grimmest, muddiest, wettest, coldest, slipperiest trials are the ones that distinguish between the toughettes and the toughies.
