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
#35: Is Obstacle Course Racing Growing?
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Can maintaining consistency and accountability really transform your obstacle racing game? Join us for episode 35 of Accountability Corner, where Chris and Morgan reveal their secrets to balancing a disciplined athletic lifestyle while still savoring life's pleasures. Hear firsthand about Chris’s steady training momentum and Morgan’s thrilling preparations for upcoming races in Croatia. Along the way, we highlight the crucial role of nutrition, sleep, and recovery in achieving peak performance and mental satisfaction as we approach the end of the racing season.
Obstacle course racing (OCR) is growing, but how can we make it more inviting for beginners? Discover our innovative strategies for reducing the intimidation factors and leveraging training centers like High Rocks and Body Hub to nurture new talent. By spotlighting controlled environments and gradual introductions to OCR, we aim to create a welcoming community for all fitness levels. Learn from our brainstorming session on the importance of transparent race conditions and how venues can play a pivotal role in easing newcomers into the sport.
How do we bridge the gap between competitive thrill and accessible fun in OCR? This episode explores the dedication of grassroots organizers versus the corporate giants, and the need for effective marketing strategies. We dive into the potential of integrating various sports into OCR, creating permanent obstacle courses, and overcoming cost barriers to make the sport more inclusive. With actionable ideas like time trial series and community support through social media, we’re on a mission to foster a thriving, accessible OCR landscape. Tune in for insights, inspiration, and actionable steps to elevate your OCR journey!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2193182/support
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, we are on episode 35 of Accountability Corner. 35 is a good number. How are you two?
Speaker 1:Good, like the good number of 35.
Speaker 2:Mo, how are you? You recovered from Getting there. Where was you this weekend? Well, we're going to date this episode straight away, aren't?
Speaker 3:we I was at Reading Festival Survived. That's right For those that Just about I'm intact. I wasn't living in the athlete lifestyle that we portray. We look that way.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you can't always live that lifestyle.
Speaker 1:It's all about balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some days you've got to ruin your body with uh sort of fun things and then other days you've got to ruin your body with even funner things. The training and competition of competing in competition.
Speaker 2:Before we go into today's episode and topic how is training going for for you both? We haven't really spoken about it in a while. We've had a few guests on, though we've had obviously bracken on. We spoke about the sport. We didn't really talk about how it's going for us chips. How's? How's training going?
Speaker 1:consistent, which is really good. Okay, actually been, it's been. It's been a nice constant, consistent base of training that I've been doing. I've just been, it's been it's been a nice constant, consistent base of training that I've been doing. I've just been enjoying it. It's been rolling along, I haven't been having too many problems with anything and it's yeah, it's been really really nice.
Speaker 2:And you're leading into this. Two more races left of the season. So well, when this comes out, hopefully we'd have performed well in one of those races, or two of them races. So that's going to be exciting, mo, you're heading towards. Obviously, there's two races left in the UK, but your main one is Croatia.
Speaker 3:Yeah, same word consistent. I've been. I'm really happy with my train at the minute, probably the happiest I've ever been. I'm feeling like I've done a big build. I think Croatia's given me kind of an extra push to the end of the year that I kind of needed, because otherwise I was starting to switch off and wind down, whereas now it's kept me a little more honest and I can't switch off. Obviously I switched off this weekend, but that's kind of the first time for a while and I think it was needed because we've been quite on it this year. So it was nice to have just to break away from the sport yeah it.
Speaker 2:It's a very strange part of the season. We've never really had this block where it feels like I'm back into winter training. It's a really strange feeling of like consistent build, of no disruptions, no interruptions. It's just six weeks of heading towards the end of the season. It's quite good actually.
Speaker 1:I think it's because we had that bit of a blip of that time when we didn't train for a couple of weeks and it was like a reinvigoration of like hang on a minute I actually really, really enjoy, or just like to be training, and it was like, well, if I'm not doing that, I'm pretty bored and not happy. So, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day, that when I was out like a lot going on in life at the minute organizing stuff, and when I'm'm, what makes me happy is it sounds a bit selfish, but it is consistently hitting my training and actually ticking it off correctly and then coming back and thinking like, yeah right, that's, that's something that I own, I'm accountable for. Only I can be the worst, only I can disrupt myself from that. But I've done it, I've ticked it off, I feel good. Now let's get back to to other things that have other factors that can affect it yeah, it's nice to.
Speaker 2:It's nice to feel that way sometimes. Yeah, that's why I love training.
Speaker 1:Training is good and it's consistent that's why we're accountable we are stay accountable towards our goals or consistent, or we could have because, like we could have been called the consistency corner, couldn't we?
Speaker 2:we could have. Yeah, I like accountability because it encompasses everything from you know, how consistent are you being, but are you also like you, you guys saying consistent, but are you being accountable towards adding that extra bit to improve your training, improve your fitness? Are you adding that spice in? Or are you just because you don't ever want to plateau, do you? You don't want to feel, oh, this is consistent, this is good, but actually am I pushing myself a little bit further?
Speaker 1:You only need to add spice every now and again.
Speaker 3:See, I think that's why I feel like I'm in a good place, because I'm not even just the spicy stuff, but even like the little stuff. At the minute I'm kind of getting right. My nutrition has been pretty good, my sleeping has been pretty good, my foam rolling and massive massage and all them little extra add-ons have been good, so I'm just kind of in a whole good place with training, which is nice are we waffling?
Speaker 2:no, we're, um, we're adding, adding insights into our end of season planning. Um, do you know? I said to mo the other day that I always use my chips. I don't know if you you probably do do you use your watch to put all your workouts in? How do you mean, like you're? You know you can, you can put all your workouts into garmin and then you can just click, then you can just select it and then do it uh, the only thing I don't put on there is stretching and work, I suppose no, no, like you can program like a six by 800.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I do occasionally yeah, yeah, so I do occasionally, but at the moment I'm using on my um quality days on the on intervals I don't need to because they're around my big field I use and instead of using time like I'm just doing it by that. Now it's easier. So this the story is going is that mo doesn't do it, do this, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I said to him the other day I was really really like singing his praises, like it's easier. So the this the story is going is that mo doesn't do it, do this, yeah, and I said to him the other day I was really really like singing his praises, like it's the best thing ever. You need to do it just so you, just you can just turn up and and do a workout. And then I was also complaining to him saying that oh, my fart leg was terrible the other day, like I literally was so crap. And I did it again this weekend, mo and I and I. I did it around a football pitch and I was like, hang on, every time I do the fuck that, the fastest bit of it, the race pace of it. I'm doing further around this football pitch. What's going on? I should be doing half a mile each one. I looked down, I had it programmed as a mile, the last one because I was just following it blindly I didn't really.
Speaker 2:You just didn't realize. You just wait for the click. Oh it's clicked, go run fast. You can then clicks again, come back, and that's why I did it so crap. The other day it was a mile wonder why I weren't hitting the pace. So that's human error. Yeah, that is yeah. So if you're going to program your watch, make sure you program it correctly. But that's what. That's why I asked you both about how you had an extra spice in, because I've accidentally added half a mile spice into the fastest bit of my fart deck. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but we also did the other day as well, didn't we?
Speaker 3:on temp, uh, speed we did the mile the yeah other day on the back of our session which was quite fun, that was quite a nice spice. Yeah, I actually think it put me in the perfect position, because then I felt like I got everything from that workout and actually I needed that, rather than I think if I finished what we finished, I'd be like, oh yeah, we've done some work today. But that made me feel like, yeah, we've done work, that's a good session you stimulated a change exactly.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna segue this and make our training relatable to the topic that we're going to talk about today. That, ships, you come up with the topic again. Obviously, our, our topic master is obviously OCR in general, I feel, is being consistent in how it's developing, but it's not adding the spice to get more people into the sport. So, and also I think it's plateaued in a way that OCR, we don't see many new faces in the racing community. I, I think we are very much in a bubble of the racing community and we know that we don't turn up to tough mudders. We don't do the fun runs at races. We don't do anything but the uk ocr series, which is maybe a downfall on us to get insight into the actual world of obstacle course racing at the minute. But we are, we set this up to be accountable towards ourselves for training to be a racer. But we are also fully aware that we want to grow the sport. But we want to grow the sport in terms of mass participation as well as races, but we, we just we don't see any new races. We can only speak from that point of view.
Speaker 2:So, ships you want to talk about how do we get new people into the sport, or how is the sport actually progressing? Is it changing? Is it adding spice to its consistent ways that it's progressed in the past, or is it just plateauing and, you know, having a downfall? I don't want to speak too negatively, but we need to be honest. Is the racing part having a downfall? Because I don't want to speak too negatively, but we need to be honest. Is the racing part having a downfall? Because I don't think the mass participation is. I think still people are turning up for challenges, doing the inflatable obstacle course races, doing nuclear races. I don't know how that is progressing. But yeah, does that summarize what you want to talk about today?
Speaker 1:ships yeah, pretty much, we just want to, just yeah, well, it was literally like that. And then, just because, like it does on our intro, we want to, we want to know how the sport is growing across the world and we've we've said it ourselves that we are here to try and make this sport better. So, like how, how are we going to do that? How is everyone going to do that? We was talking to daryl, obviously, the other week when we went down there, how training centers are like the backbone to like obstacle races, training, and like how they can help grow the sport and how we can help them grow and we're all sort of working together. So what, what are we going to do? And I thought, if we just talk about it, maybe we'll come up with some ideas, talk about some bits and pieces and maybe give an idea for people to think about and then do themselves so they can help grow the sport, because we're all in this together and we all want to have a decent sport to do.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about it and try and do that yeah, I like that and let's talk about let's probably start at entry level, like if he was first starting into the sport is do we think that it is accessible for everyone to give it a go? And I think my, my opinion straight away is it absolutely is. You can sign up. There's quite a lot of races around the UK that you can have have a go at. But do you think it's too scary? No, you could probably help this. You think it's too scary.
Speaker 3:I think the thing that we love about our sport is the thing that most people despise about things Like working really really hard and getting to a point where you have to crawl through mud and under barb wire. It doesn't sound appealing to anyone really. I obviously, being a PT, you work with a lot of clients who even like fitness and the amount of people say and they love fitness and they'd love to do a high rocks or something like that, that's a bit more challenging. But the idea of getting muddy and dirty and having this outdoor challenge, they're like, oh no, I wouldn't do that. And these guys are like. I know some guys that are fit and that would probably thrive doing ocr but they would just wouldn't touch it because it's it almost looks too hard even for them because, like this just looks mental yeah, I've thought about this as well, and then I think maybe we're just trying to sell it to the wrong people.
Speaker 2:Then yeah, it's like we. I don't like. I hated the idea of it. I still, to this day, sometimes don't like the idea of going in the cold water and the mud and just being cold in general and uncomfortable. We talk about the obstacles being too hard, hard and everything. But let's be honest, we are humans, like. We love comfort and it is the most uncomfortable thing. So you're telling people right, you're going to be uncomfortable from a not from a working out point of view and, like, cardiovascularly going to be uncomfortable. You're going to just be uncomfortable because you're going to be cold, you're going to be muddy, you're going to be wet. That that's what people don't like.
Speaker 3:So sometimes I think I used to look for races that would didn't have submersions or were dry and that's the, I think, the appeal of a spot and I think that's why, when you look, that's why I've done so well, because typically they're not, they're from the outside looking in. Oh yeah, they're a bit muddy and dirty because you're outside and you're on grass, whether they're putting you through barbed wire, but it's more appealing than a Tough Mudder or something where, or a Nuts that's renowned for being just muddy, horrible cold.
Speaker 3:I mean Tough Mudder, they literally electrocute you Like no one wants to be electrocuted like even us, racers don't want to be electrocuted like it's yeah, but look at the numbers of tough mudders. Hundreds of people sign up for that, probably more than more than a spartan race yeah, but I think that's either the same core group, or it's people doing a one-off challenge and then they realize how much they wasn't comfortable and then they'll never do it again. True that?
Speaker 2:it's. It's kind of like we need to do an accountability cards for races to show the come, the comfortability of the race. But how comfortable can this race be, irrelevant of how hard you push, just in general, of like external output, like external factors how cold is it going to be, how wet is it going to be, how muddy is it going to be? You people want it to be more controlled, like people love. High rocks is so controlled.
Speaker 2:You know what you're getting I think, our smaller races need to be more honest of what you're going to get out of them.
Speaker 3:The thing I find as well, getting people into sport the easiest way is baby steps. So, like the great thing about rumble I know we bang on about rumble a lot but because it's got that fitness element where we train fitness and obstacles. So what that does is you get people in for the fitness the people that love fitness, high rocks, just want to lose weight anything. They have fitness goals. You introduce them to obstacles on a Thursday night. You then give them that kind of first step into the world of obstacle course racing. But it's almost the fun stuff because we don't have mud at Rumble, we don't have like all the barbed wire crawls and all the stuff that people deem horrible. You have the fun rigs that make you feel like a kid and you have walls and things to climbs and different challenges. They get a nice little baby step in and then that's how you get in and staying in the races and I think we need to find a way almost to give people a taste of ocr without the shit.
Speaker 2:Basically, you've moved. You've moved, segued on to the next part of what I was. We were talking with daryl uh the body hub about, and also talked to dave about is. I do think ocr has got such an established training grounds now that it never used to have when Tough Mudder first came out. There's so many different places. You can get a taste of OCR at a fraction of the cost and in a more comfortable environment if you go to the training venues, and I think that's where maybe the sport is it should be looking to develop further is getting more people to training venues as like taster, call them, like call, call them the most like um friendly version of ocr. You can call it, you know, like taster of ocr or most comfortable ocr race, I don't know. Like it's a training day, isn't it? It's not. You're not going to be forced to go through mud water, be soaking wet well also that this.
Speaker 1:This leads us on to another. Well, that, that point is that doing that, it gives people the opportunity to be able to learn how to do the obstacles before actually going to the race, which means at the race you can actually have more obstacles because you're going to have people signing up that are more able to do it and therefore you know, during the race you can. Or during the um, let's not use race, race is a bad term, isn't it? Let's say, an event yeah, at the event, people can, like get over things better because they've they've already practiced how to do it. They've already got the skills necessary to be able to do that. So that stepping stone is the training center. The event is what they're training for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'd like the entry level portion of OCR to be that everyone knows a training venue exists in, say, like a 30 mile radius from where they live. They go to the training venue as a as a like a beginner friendly sort of experience. They socialize with new people, they experience OCR, they learn a skill and then you'd love for the actual race venue races to. They then need to advertise at the um training facilities so that it kind of like is a stepping stone. It's not like, oh right, I'm bob down the pub, I'm gonna sign up for a tough mother. I'm gonna not train for it, I'm gonna turn up, hate it, tell everyone it was disgusting, uncomfortable and horrible, and then never do it everyone around you because the word of mouth is never going to do it again.
Speaker 2:But if he went to a training venue, had a little fun, talk to mo teaches you how to do a leg lock, you feel accomplished that you've done something. You go home, you do it again. You go to a tough mother. You know what you're going to expect. You actually have a good experience. You may not like it, but then you tell everyone how good it was that you trained and found out a bit more about obstacle course racing yeah, could we?
Speaker 1:could we compare this to like white collar boxing?
Speaker 1:then in a way well, like you know, like the? Uh, when people do a white collar boxing event, it's like usually they they're. They're not, they're normal people. They do a boxing event usually to raise some money for charity. But before the event, before doing the boxing, they probably go to a boxing uh like a boxing uh, usually to raise some money for charity. But before the event, before doing the boxing, they probably go to a boxing uh like a boxing uh training place or whatever. Um, they learn how to box before they get in the ring for their match yeah, is that comparable?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, yeah, I guess what you're saying is yeah, imagine how good it would be if you signed up for a race and then instantly in your confirmation email, there was like something underneath it and it said oh and, by the way, if you're interested in training for this race, why don't you look at going to one of these centres? And there was like actual centres, like races were offering oh, go and see these people or go and do this. I love it's a very cohesive world to build and I think that's business. Never lets that be a thing, because everyone's greedy and everyone's out for a piece of the pie well, just just to stop you there, no, just they, um nuclear races always used to do that.
Speaker 2:They used to give you your free, a free um induction session at nuclear wild forest. Used to do that. They used to give you a free induction session at Nuclear Wild Forest. But obviously that is out for themselves because they own that. So that, but it's still pretty good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's great, but then what about if you live in Scotland? Or what about if you live further away from the venue?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a brilliant idea. And to live in this world that we live in and we're trying to grow, I think, yeah, I that's. I think that's a brilliant idea. And like to live in this world that we live in and we're trying to grow, I think, yeah, that's great. So sign up for an obstacle, right?
Speaker 1:Well, this, this could actually happen with british obstacle sports, because it's meant to be there for everyone and it has all the affiliated training centers on it. Well, why not? When you sign up for a british obstacle sports race, you get I don't know discount or one entry to one training center, like, just, even if it was just one, oh, you can pop down there, get a taste for it. You know that, that that I I think if I was just coming into the sport and I was looking for a way to learn how to do things and I was a bit nervous about it, but I knew that was existing I think, well, you know, I want to sign up for that, learn a few skills and then it might not be so daunting going into the race.
Speaker 2:You're making my mind go crazy on how we can help For Accountability Corner. We've always spoke about us being athletes and trying to build the racing portion of OCR. But everyone who's a racer was a beginner at one stage. We all were, and maybe we need to be less biased towards racing ocean of OCR. But everyone who's a racer was a beginner at one one stage. We all were, and maybe we need to be. We need to be less biased towards racing and more towards beginner friendly, accessible way into obstacle course racing.
Speaker 2:Yes, we may only get 10 people and speak to them I get, one becomes a racer, but those 10 people hopefully would have had a good experience of obstacle course racing because they we we need to make sure everyone's expectations of what they're putting themselves in for is the is right. They I don't want anyone to think they're signed up for nuts challenge and they're not going to get wet, muddy or cold at one stage. But as long as they're prepped to have a dry robe or something, change your clothes straight afterwards and they're ready to go, then hopefully it's a bit better experience.
Speaker 1:So you give a man a fish and they'll eat for a day, but you teach a man a fish, yeah, and they'll eat for a lifetime so we've.
Speaker 2:We've. Basically, we're essentially saying that the sport of ocCR or the accessibility of OCR, has dwindled slightly with with the amount of races we've got out there, but one thing that hasn't is the amount of training facilities and the ability to experience obstacle course racing without going to a race is that is actually increasing, even though we've had the. Obviously it's very sad that raw um closed down and isn't about anymore. Cliff lakes obviously isn't around anymore, but there is a lot more opportunities to experience obstacle course racing, especially with the introduction of ninja warrior um centers being more involved in obstacle course racing. Even even there they're not technically like, don't give you the the course sort of experience, but they do give you the ability to hang and to experience some of the obstacles and you know what? Obviously it's not the topic today, but you know what they are.
Speaker 1:Also ships, what they are cheaper, yeah no-transcript oh, good question.
Speaker 3:Uh, I think I think I might be wrong here, so you'd have to go onto the website and look at the prices. Just in case I'm wrong, uh, but I think it's a tenner?
Speaker 2:yeah, some. It's 10 to 15 pounds, it's not. It's no more than no more somewhere in that that range. And if you wanted to go down to Nuclear Wild Forest, I think that's about £15, £20 for a pay and play. Where else would we?
Speaker 1:go Body Hub was £10 for pay and play. I know that PT Barn, I think, is £10 pay and play. Most places are just £10.
Speaker 2:Pay and play. And when we say pay and play, what do we mean? You pay, yeah and you play. Places is just 10 pound. Play and play. And when we say pay and play, what do we mean?
Speaker 2:you pay yeah and you play and the thing is with um yeah, you can, because if you just, for example, you go down to the pt barn, scotty's there for pay and play, and I'll tell you that man will give you advice yeah, and and also I guarantee there'll be, there'll be about, there'll be, depending on the day, might be 15, 10, 15 other people that are very experienced in ocr there that can, that can give you all the advice ever with and you'll get, because, without a doubt, on the weekend at one of them venues, you will see wendy and you will see ramsey, who knows which venue you'll be at, but they will be at one of them venues.
Speaker 1:You will see wendy and you will see ramsey, who knows which venue you'll be at, but they will be at one of them. It doesn't it could. You could be scotland, you could be south of the border, you could be mid-england they will be at one of them. Wendy's got huge amounts of uh knowledge on obstacle racing and you know she's your typical person who is still probably in the entry level competition area of obstacle racing. She loves it, she compete, well, she competes, but you know she's she's not not the I'm trying to put it in a good way but not the most best at obstacles, but she still is able to participate in races, doing it for the fun aspect as well as like the completion um uh objective.
Speaker 2:There's, there's loads of that. Maybe we are trying, we are really telling ourselves that there's loads of different, different courses and different uh facilities out there that we should, hopefully, we should probably help to promote a bit more, like we did the real the other day of us down at bodyhub giving it a go, which I was saying to mo, like mo was asking like what, what did, what does that do? Because it makes us look good, but no one sees it like we need to do something a bit better to help promote these venues like they have, don't have marketing budgets, they don't, they don't, they don't even have, sometimes, uh, make any money. Like, let's be honest, they, they. And the other thing I was speaking to um down at bodyhub is the fact that you go to go to a race spartan race and speak to the organizer there. It is a very corporate run business. Yes, it was originally built from passionate person of obstacle course racing but, however, it's been going on for so many years.
Speaker 2:That is just a job. I'm not saying they don't do a bad job. They do a bad job, I'm not, but they, they are doing a job. You go speak to Daryl, you go speak to Dave, you go speak to Scott, you go speak to Jack. You are speaking to people who are absolutely passionate about obstacle course racing and they aren't doing it to make money. They are doing it out of the love of the sport. So you're speaking to people that are really going to give you the best advice because they just they love the sport and they're they're doing it for obstacle course racing. They're not doing it for the money, even though I appreciate they probably do want some money, because it's quite expensive to run all these races and facilities.
Speaker 1:Well, if they wanted to be rich, they probably wouldn't go into it.
Speaker 2:No, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 3:You would definitely pick something else. I think that's the problem with a niche sport is that even our podcast, we're all targeting the same audiences. I think, in terms of growing the sport, things like these reels on Instagram yeah, they might catch a couple of people just scrolling through, but realistically they're being pumped to the same people, so we need to find a way to get them.
Speaker 2:external people and that's what spartan do very well and that's what tough mother do very well just, a lot of the times it's a one-off thing, it's not them come back for more but they they're catching people, people's attention who are just buying out of impulse and doing it out of impulse because they've seen the marketing this and they're only seeing that because spartan and tough mud have got money behind a marketing campaign. That's that pushing it to people that are not organically going to see obstacle course racing as their next choice. We don't have any marketing budget. Training centers don't have any marketing budget. Nuts challenge, for instance, probably does not have no, they do not and they the training centers.
Speaker 2:This podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are going to uh toot our own horn, but this is the best information you're going to get on obstacle course racing at this current time anywhere in the uk, and that is a scary four.
Speaker 2:It is but and but. We are. We're telling people that already know about this that we need this is this is a big ask from all listeners. We need help promoting this podcast to people that are thinking about obstacle course racing and not really got a clue of what it is or how to do it. And we're also asking that if you see a post from an obstacle training venue, you just sharing that once means the world to that person, so please do it, and it only takes you a second to do it. They've actually put a post up the other day. And then, if you saw in our group, uh, chat is like for OCR games. It's like just telling us that literally, a like makes a difference, and promoting it puts it out to other people that they won't necessarily see it well, that's the thing, and you're, we'll all have friends on facebook and things that aren't in this world.
Speaker 3:Well, most of us do. But so then they see it and then they think, oh, maybe I'll look into this thing. That looks a bit weird and cool. I guess that's one way to get information out to others and also to push reels and things on social media yeah, do you think?
Speaker 2:do you think we promote it too much as a racer? We should be promoting more of the fun aspect of osia. We probably do promote it Fun to us is competitive and hard now, but what was fun before? We need to think what is fun in OCR as a new person, what do you want to see?
Speaker 1:But then as well it's a double-edged sword, because you have too much fun stuff and it does take away the seriousness of the sport. What looks, yeah, what looks appealing to someone who wants to come in for competition? Yeah, you have too much fun. And then this may lead on to. The next thing is how do you get the people you want to race in? Because let's go to the space hopper scenario.
Speaker 1:Me, as a person who wants to race does not want to do space hoppers because it looks foolish. I want to be doing things like sternum checkers. I want to be doing things like irish tables. I want to be doing walls. I want to be doing crawls through mud. I want to be doing army assault style obstacles. I want to be traversing along a rope like I'm a commando in the light. I want to be like fighting predator, basically in the woods. I don't want to be space hopping around on a bright yellow bouncy thing and then throwing like sponges at. I don't want to be doing a, a circus act. I want to be doing a hardcore military style.
Speaker 3:I am a beefcake obstacle course yeah I agree on that picture of you with your guns out jumping over fire or crawling or picking up a stone, or, and then you can post that on your instagram and go yeah, look, look what I am yeah, yeah, like, yeah, like.
Speaker 2:They're simple, they're simple things. But the jump, the thing for total warrior they put in their marketing was the jumping over fire into water and I'm thinking that that was cool, even though the race wasn't. It was like this is a good race. I've never been put that, but it wasn't the best race for technicality. But jumping over water, jumping over fire into waters, sounds pretty cool, yeah, and but that that puts people off the fun part.
Speaker 3:People don't want to jump over fire and I would.
Speaker 2:I want to bring back like a flying monkey bar. Let me do a flying monkey bar in a race. So that's that is cool. Yeah, but yeah it's. Is this too? Race like that? That is cool? Yeah, but yeah, it's is there's two. There's two sides to the story and we need to tell that story. That's difficult thing, but we're biased towards the racing side. We need help telling the fun, fun side of the story, kind of like they need a marketing campaign.
Speaker 2:Yeah we need to build the big circle of new people coming in, and then we also need to show the inner circle, which is racing. We need to show what the full spectrum of ocr can be, because it can be fun. It can be space uppers and sponges, but it also can be training, uh, 15 hours a week to try to be an absolute animal and predator on the course.
Speaker 1:It can be other worlds what other sports have a real fun side to it and then has a real serious side?
Speaker 3:well, every sport is made fun at grassroots you think?
Speaker 3:I mean the biggest one in this country is football. When you're playing football as a three, four, five year old, they're not making you play matches and keeping score. You're playing like piggy in the middle or you're just dribbling around cones and then playing tag. They don't drive the competition first Most sports. The only one that might be slightly different is any kind of mixed martial arts or combat sport. But even then they try and make it fun early. They don't get you sparring straight away yeah, but I'm let's.
Speaker 2:I'll ask that again then for ships. But what about as adults? That's what I was thinking. Sports as adults has a fun sort of gimmicky I would say gimmicky element to it as well as a competitive element to it. Is there a sport that has both?
Speaker 1:that's the thing, because sport is competition. Yeah, so are we saying that we need to take a work, the word of sport, out of obstacle racing for the fun side of it, because then it's not a sport because you're taking away I don't know. That's a difficult one, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Is OCR the right acronym and term for our sport? That's what we've got to think about. Actually, obstacle course racing is what we do. Obstacle course running is what someone else does.
Speaker 3:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:We do the racing, but is there another term that we should be using now for the fun part of it, like fun mud run? They used to be called mud runs or fun run, I don't know. Of OF Obstacle, fun Obstacle fun, obstacle fun yeah, you should have two different pillars. Like if I was doing a marketing campaign right now, I'd have two different pillars of my audience, so I'd have my obstacle fun runners and my obstacle competitors, and then you would market differently to each one of them.
Speaker 1:Because then you're going to get the different groups, then, yeah, you're not. Your target audiences are split. And then you don't have the the mix.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they both have the same entry, though I'd say that what we've said at the beginning is that each one, each one of them, does need to go to a training venue, but you'll be going to them for different reasons. One be going to them to to help their comfort levels and understand that they can get through it, learn a little bit. The other one be going to it because they're they really want to push themselves and try to do one of the sessions that fill out and be uncomfortable. One's looking to manage their comfortability. One's looking to get uncomfortable. We're building a campaign right now. That's all we're doing.
Speaker 2:That's what we're doing.
Speaker 3:That's what we're going to call this, and I would scrap OCR completely.
Speaker 2:Ocr, I don't think OCR should exist Up school course racing.
Speaker 3:Not everyone. I don't think we should have an acronym to sell a sport. How many times do you go? Oh yeah, I do OCR. It's an example to most people.
Speaker 2:It's not a. Thing.
Speaker 3:Like an acronym for a sport. You don't go oh, I'm doing tri, yes, you do. You say I'm doing a triathlon, it's got a name. Do you know what I mean? Like to sell a sport to early people you do. Amount of times you I'd say to someone, oh yeah, I do, I do ocr, and they're like what's that? And then you have to go obstacle course racing but no one knows what ocr is. And I've seen because I've seen races use ocr in their selling points like try the hardest, ocr, and it's like are going to look at that and think what is OCR? It doesn't tell you anything. I think we need to step one of growing our sport is changing a lot of things about our sport.
Speaker 2:That I think we've become a little bit precious over. Well, British, British obstacle sports has started. I like that. I do love the name British obstacle sport, but just even just obstacle sports. Obstacle sport yeah.
Speaker 1:It's got it is. It's broad. It gives a multitude of sports within obstacles. Yeah, because then you can throw ninjas in there, you can throw the fun element in it, because it is obstacle sports. It is an umbrella of things.
Speaker 2:If some imagine, if someone said to you, look right, just having a chat with someone, and they said I run, you'll be like, oh okay, you, you keep fit, you're you run. But if someone said to you I'm a runner, they'd be like, oh, what kind of running do you do? Like you, do you train a lot? It's still. It's still. That's what we're trying to figure out of obstacle course racing, aren't we like, oh, I've done some obstacles, obstacle races, and it's like, all right, when you chat someone, you'll be like, oh, okay, cool, because they're trying to relate to you, which is nice, but you know full well they've done a couple tough mudders in the spartan. But if someone says to you I'm an ocr racer, you're like hang on, you, you're, you probably are, you probably are, have done a few races and you know how to be competitive in the sport. But it's like what's the names? What?
Speaker 2:are we picking? How do we market it? That's why Spartan Race have done so well at marketing their brand because you're a Spartan racer. Whatever you do, you're a Spartan racer. And that sounds cool, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's got that appeal to it yeah it's interesting, we need to mark, we need to get, we need to leverage the fun element of it as well as the competitive element. So you're a fun runner, or are you? Well, you actually have that. So my athletics club in Leighton Buzzard, they've got the Leighton Fun Runners and they've got the actual club themselves. So they've got the fun aspect and they've got the serious racing aspect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you're right, because I think the trouble is that we are trying well the sport's trying to involve everyone at the same time and you're going to piss someone off. Yeah, I just don't think it's possible involve everyone at the same time and you're going to piss someone off, yeah you.
Speaker 2:Just, I just don't think it's possible. Well, there is. There is loads of people that sometimes say, oh, it's going too competitive. Oh, but we need more, more competition like we let's. Let's be honest, it's not getting more competitive. We there's same faces are talked about, the same faces, same names are talked about on who's Hot every week. There isn't a new person that's come into the sport recently. That's right. However, people think that we talk about being competitive all the time. It's because there's no one new in it. We need more people in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need a deeper field.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You need a deeper pond.
Speaker 2:From training people to get into obstacle course racing. Do you ever try to promote them to be competitors or race?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you kind of like you normally get the vibe quite early of what they are interested in. Like you'll get someone come and originally they're just coming because they want to get fit or they want they've seen it, they want to try something new. But then they start to really adapt to it and they you can see how excited they're getting and they're quite fit as well and they're like moving well, and you can see how excited they're getting and they're quite fit as well and they're like moving well, and you can kind of it's normally the excitement you see oh, yeah, they really want to do something with this. And you can get that in the first couple of sessions you can start to notice, oh, they're really into this. And then some people they just love it, but they don't necessarily want to compete, they just want to have fun, they just want to try these things and do these challenges themselves.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you can kind of work it out pretty early on yeah, instead of a fun runner, you could be called an OCR challenger well, because it's not.
Speaker 3:A lot of people don't do it for the fun. They're doing it to challenge themselves. I think that's even like Wendy, like she is doing OCR because she loves just doing these challenges and trying these things and trying new things and she gets something out of little improvements every time and for most people that's actually the start of the journey into the competitiveness is then if you find out you're good enough. That's when you think, oh, actually I want to try and race this so are we looking at this now, then?
Speaker 1:comparable to like rock, like rock climbing and bouldering. Some people just go to just try and solve a problem and then other people are trying to compete against other people solving problems perfect example.
Speaker 2:I love that. That sounds good. Good, because it's oh sorry. Um, rock climbing is actually really really challenging. So even if you go there to have fun, you're still challenging yourself. Like it it's. It's obviously I'm. You can have fun, but it's very hard to just be mess around and be gimmicky with it. It's difficult. What, however you look at, a rock climbing, isn't it?
Speaker 1:so it's a challenge and I'm sure these people who are just going to go in there to just challenge themselves don't know about alpinism or like you know, like the tommy cadwell. They probably know, like alex holland and stuff, but alex holland, that's right. Yeah, honnold honnold, thank you. They probably know about sort of them, but they don't know about them and they don't know about kushama and all that.
Speaker 1:They don't know about the higher levels of it, or well, yeah, the people who compete, because I don't even know about the people who compete, apart from that young lad who won the gold olympic thing yeah you know you, you don't know about these things, but you know people are entry-level sport, don't need to, because they're there keeping the lights on for these higher people to be able to push the sport to new boundaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need this podcast and many more about OCR to be heard in Ninja Warrior gyms because I'd love just to have a bit of an internal and tell everyone you are doing the most basic fun element of obstacle course racing right now. Just so you know, you're hit like a rock climber If you go to your local rock climbing gym, I'd love for them to know like you're doing the moves that the professionals do, like you're doing it right, right, then you're giving it a go.
Speaker 3:it's so easy to then develop well, think of people like shy and tommy and, all recently, emmy. I think as well people that have come recently into the sport, new faces and they've all come from ninja and they've found, oh actually, this is, this is what we do, but just a little bit different, and they've started to embrace it and enjoy it a bit more. Char is the perfect example of that. Like now she wants to do the longer stuff, whereas originally she was talked about being this ninja and I think typically you always think ninjas are going to be doing 3ks, but now she wants to race longer things and try her hand at the 15k. And you get people like that in and they will stick around because they've already got that buzz really about challenging themselves in that way?
Speaker 2:about challenging themselves in that way. Yeah, right, so we've got steps, steps for more involvement in ocr and how we get them. People are obviously I, I, you, everyone's got access to monkey bars in a play park and you've done some sort of level of monkey bars or something there. But then right now we've got so many different like there's little climbing venues for kids, there's loads of Ninja Warrior parks. They are like the first places where you really start to get on, like monkey bars and things like that, aren't they? Oh yeah, but then people stop, stop there because it's like how further can this go? Well, it can go quite much further than that, and that's where we, that's where the gap is. The information gap is missing at that point, a massive one, which is that, look, guys, if you really like this, there is such a comfortable space that you can go to, to a training place near you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then obviously, yeah, they're going to these places, they're doing that, and then that roadblock turns up because, yeah, it stops, there's, no, there's and there's. The information that they're getting is still on the wacky, goofy games sort of appeal, isn't it? You don't have that. Oh right, I want to go further and I'm going to be this athlete, you know, whereas rock climbing, yeah, you'll go there and you'll look, this guy's, this guy's climbing mountains all over the world, or this guy's competing all over the world as a proper, like cool sport we should.
Speaker 2:We should start doing this. You know we love, we love a real and mo. You used to do loads of vlogging and honestly, the way that you talk on cameras is is really good and you've got so many views on it. We should, we should hold ourselves more accountable. When we have a bit more time that we, we love a long run, we love training and we don't mind traveling. Let's be honest, like the three of us would travel, I'd go to gavin's place in um in sc place in Scotland for a day to train.
Speaker 2:I love OCR that much. We should actually be using that and recording all these places we go to to give a review based on the fun element of the training venue and also the competitive training aspects of the training venue and showcase both Ships. I'd love to see you doing oh, you find space hoppers at nuclear wild forest jumping around that. And then I'd love to see you doing a flying monkey bar across to showcase. Look, there is two assets at sport and this training venue holds both of them, don't know I just I'd love to see these ships in a space, yeah I'd love to see these ships on a space hopper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to see that as well. What do you think, Mo? Do you think that we? Because you used to vlog a lot? Why did you start doing it? Was it for yourself? Well, obviously it was for yourself, but you got loads of views. You must have helped people understand Oceania more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I also think again, it's a similar sort of thing we're running into now, where it's this similar circle of people watching. So it was growing. It grew quite. I don't think it grew that massive, but it grew quick in terms of people views and people watching. I think also what helps my YouTube channel, which I touch a lot on running, so then you bring the runners into it as well. Um, yeah, it's just, youtube is one of those things. It's time wise as well and, as you might have heard in a previous podcast of ours, time is a. It's another thing that maybe we struggle with and we all struggle with in this sport.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is difficult. I think maybe we could help each other to do that, because I think that's the next step. I think you was just looking at your views. I was looking at them the other day that I think you were. You was getting people that weren't into, didn't know what obstacle sports were. You're one that is like how to train as an obstacle sports athlete. What got like? You got like three, four, five thousand views, I think it was that's. That's definitely not the inner circle that we usually get on this podcast. That's much more. There's something there.
Speaker 3:No, there'll be some people on that that have clicked on because they're doing an ocr and they think, oh well, that's how do they train for this?
Speaker 2:but imagine if we had one that was like right, training in south, the southeast of england, where to train training in the northeast of england, where to train training in wales, where to train like. Imagine if we could go around all these places doing that and showcasing it, not just putting a reel up like ships just half naked running around a course and no one knows where it is, but actually like this is the course. This is the obstacles they have here. This is it's only 10 pound adverts pretty much about adverts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're talking about making adverts yeah, we are.
Speaker 2:We're talking about making vlogs for vlogs or reels that are more informative about where we actually are and what we're doing and why we're doing it and that can be done as a reel as well.
Speaker 3:You could just vlog the day rather than having this real action-packed reel. You could do that as well, because that'll get people that love the competitive style and want to look cool. That'll be like all right, that looks cool, that that's like fun. But then also you can have an informational one that comes out that's like oh, this is how we train and how much it costs and the journey, and oh, look, here's an awesome thing we did as well. I think that's that's another way.
Speaker 2:If you always do something cool, people look at it and go, wow, I want to try that yeah, because we talk about, um, the ocr long run, and I know it's a bit of a, it's not a concept that's latched onto everyone, but when I was down at bodyhub it was it's such a small thing that he's done, but he is. It's actually he doesn't know, probably he's done it for this reason, but it is. It's amazing that he's got a running track around the outside and then in between then it slaloms to go on the obstacles like a running track and then in between each one of the slaloms is like a cutaway where you can skip to the next part. But what that is allowed to do is that it allows you to do such a good OCR long run because you can do one obstacle, then do the running track and then cut back in. Then do two obstacles, do the running track, then cut back in. It was perfect. That was one of the perfect venues for an OCR long run.
Speaker 1:It'd be even better when he well, he's already done his little cut through to the football fields. If he keeps that, you can leave the venue. Put a mile mile, two mile run in, come back and do it.
Speaker 2:It's, yeah, yeah, really good for that yeah, it's just these little things that these venues have got, that, uh, just no one knows about, and that's the most. That was the most um eye-opening thing that I heard from him that actually the vent, these venues, these ocr training venues, are not actually um kept alive by the obstacle course racing community that absolutely blows my mind.
Speaker 3:What? It's always fitness every. There's not many dead-on specific OCR venues. Most places are bringing the fitness first because that's such a bigger thing, and then they and that's why they're so passionate about OCR because they're doing the fitness to keep their business alive so that they can delve more into OCR, and that's the difference. Obviously, they probably love fitness as well, but OCR is almost a side hobby. They just because they love it. They keep it Not very lucrative, though.
Speaker 2:No, what do you guys think is the biggest barrier for people to get into ocr? Then obviously we've said comfort. Comfort is a bit of a psychological barrier for people. But let's be honest, we haven't. We wanted to talk about this as a whole topic. But the cost of ocr yeah, the cost of racing, not cost of actually doing ocr I think right, I'm gonna go straight into that?
Speaker 1:because, yes, the cost of actually doing OCR. I think, right, I'm going to go straight into that. Because, yes, the cost of OCR does put people off Right Example Remember Ethan, my scaffolder mate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was really good Been to Rumble, shocked everyone with that. Doesn't train much. Went to Nuts, did four laps, got top 10. Didn't really train much. Got four laps, got top 10, didn't really train much. He's got real potential to be a decent obstacle. Every time I've asked him why don't you do another race, why don't you do this? Nah, it costs too much. Nah, it costs too much. Nah, it's just so expensive. He goes rock climbing for nothing, buys all his gear on Facebook, marketplace and eBay. So you know he goes rock climbing with dodgy gear, you know. But he's got skill. He doesn't want to spend loads of money. And there's a real. I mean people going to Costa Rica. People can't go to Costa Rica. People can't sign up for £120 to do a 5k race.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the biggest elephant in the room, to be fair, is the cost barrier of OCR has prevented some of the best upscalers in the world from not actually go to the World Championships?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's madness and I know that these I mean obviously it's going to. You know, there's insurances that we spoke about with Darren and things that we don't even know about, and they are. You know, you've got to fill that void of paying for these things, but you're it's. It is a lack of getting in people who will be phenomenal at the sport and push it to new boundaries because they just haven't got the, the means, or it just puts them off. It just puts a lot. I'm not paying that right. Once you, once you're in a sport and you're passionate about it, you'll spend every penny you got on it.
Speaker 3:But at first you've got to get passionate about it no, that's the biggest thing I find with runners like running at a club. Obviously there's all these fast boys that you'd like, oh, we'll get there. They'd be good at oc, especially when you can see they can. Actually they're a bit athletic and they can do other movements as well. You'll be good at OCR and they'll be like, yeah, but why would I ever do an OCR when it's 100 quid, when I can go and run a race for a fiver?
Speaker 1:Well, even if they're part of a club, they're part of British athletics usually. British athletics organise and run with your club. Clubs usually organise and run hundreds of free races as part of British athletics. Organise and run with your club. Clubs usually organise and run hundreds of free races as part of British athletics or at a substitute cost all over the country. So you can get your fix of competition just by being a member at a club and paying your yearly subscription. I mean, when I was part of a running club I could race what 10 trail runs in the winter and you know, have a league of it. That's against other clubs racing.
Speaker 3:Your points will stack up and you'll see where you are for just the price of joining a club yeah, and literally like 30 quid for the year to be part of these clubs, and then that's what I paid for my it's like 30 quid and then I can either race for nothing's what I paid for my it's like 30 quid and then I can either race for nothing or, like I say, the most you pay is for tenner that's where I've got.
Speaker 2:That's where we'll go back to the beginning. Is that if? Imagine if, like the 3k series has been, it's been great this year. But what if that was totally led by each training venue having a 3k race and it promotes the venues. The venue is like the name of the race, like you're going to rumble, then you're going to bodyhub, then you're going to field fit and it's a time trial. So hopefully that helps with the insurance.
Speaker 2:It's not a race, because we've learned that that actually mitigates and makes people. That's a massive barrier for people to actually put on races. But what if that was the case and that promoted the team element? So each one of them has a team they put into it. There's a team race there and it's just time trialed. It's not done through an actual race. That'd be amazing. I think that would build the sport and also it could end up being the affiliate affiliate affiliated training centers from british obstacle sports. Therefore, you could get a subsidized discount if you were as a british obstacle sport member that would be, the same way it would work with, with, with athletics, that's that.
Speaker 2:that could be like the grass, not grassroots, but that could be like the, the core of OCR in the country. And then, if you get more passionate about it after that series, yeah, you spend £120 on a race, yes, you go to the European Championships, but you would get, probably, hopefully one day, hundreds of people doing this time trial at these venues and it goes around the country like the cross-country leagues currently do yeah that would be amazing, yeah, but yeah, we're growing it, we're doing it yeah.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's a difficult one, but I mean, I'm sure British obstacle sports probably have a thought about these things and we're just here coming up with ideas on our backbone. It's just an interesting one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can all come up with ideas.
Speaker 1:It's putting that into practice, and that's the other thing we need to get to is how is everyone going to step up and try and make a?
Speaker 2:change. Well, the funny thing is that we know full well we have a very small circle of people that listen to this podcast, so therefore we I can highlight everyone that listens to to us uh waffle on is very passionate about ocr, so we we've got an audience of people that I think we can happily say right, help OCR grow. We could probably need to stop calling it OCR, because we actually just realized we've got two categories of OCR. We've got obstacle challengers and obstacle racers. There we go, categorized it done. How can we help?
Speaker 3:them as an exam board?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's not an exam board. How can we get them people into into the sport in general? And by sharing this podcast is helpful, like please, please, share this, rate us, tell us, tell us how, what you want to talk about next, how share it with someone who's thinking about doing one, because we've talked about how fit do I need to be. That was a good episode of like people understanding how do I get into the sport in general. This one is a good waffle of like how we actually struggle to grow this sport. It's just the it's so confusing. This sport is just it's not defined itself correctly. It's not labeled itself correctly, because you've got brands that are trying to own the actual sport when the sport isn't even defined yeah, we're, we're already the.
Speaker 1:It's already changed positions so many times that now we're lost in the, in the, the murkiness of murk yeah, I think it's, it's getting, it's definitely getting better.
Speaker 2:Defining the, the race distances in the uk in terms of challenges, in terms of racing, like like, the 3k series has been really good this year, you've got the ultra series, which has been good defining the distance. You've got the um, uk ocr series defining, like, the variability of obstacle course racing.
Speaker 1:So we're defining it as a I don't know like, maybe like a league, leagues, leagues good to have and I think this is across the board as well, because, don't forget, we're talking specifically, specifically about british, british obstacle sports and british obstacle challenges and all that. But there's loads of things happening in different countries and it's all developing differently and I think that's what doesn't help as well, because there isn't that inclusiveness across the board, across different countries, because different countries are pushing it forwards in different ways. They're not having training centers, they've got really difficult, it's just all a bit of a mix. So then, when it comes to these combinations of everything coming together, everyone's always like, no, it should be this, no, it should be that, and that's not helping the sport. We need to actually have some sort of across the broad, broad board board across the broad board across the broad.
Speaker 2:There you go across the broad yeah isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, and then that's what makes it hard to then like collaborate with other sports if, if they don't fully understand what our sport is, they don't even know what they're collaborating with. Like we just um that was a recent thing that came out, wasn't it? The pentathlon have collaborated with british obstacle sports, but that's because we've defined the the finer detail of their sports. They kind of understand what we do. They don't really they. I doubt they would care much about anything but the 100 meters because they don't understand it. So how do you think we should be collaborating with, like high rocks or another sport that's that's getting a lot of attention at?
Speaker 1:the minute. I think that's where we should be heading towards. I don't think we should be concentrating on one one, okay, so I think we should be throwing it out there to everyone. Like I said, if you teach amanda fish, elite for a day, but if you know, hang on a minute. I did that wrong. You can't.
Speaker 2:I turned out that newsreader's done, but if you know, hang on a minute.
Speaker 1:I did that wrong. You can't. I turned out that newsreader is done. But if you're getting, if you cast that big net out and you, you involve all these sports. I mean, you think about it right martial arts people will be great obstacle sports in martial arts. You think about basketball. People in basketball will be great um obstacle sports. You think of rock climbing. It's been shown before. There'll be um obstacle sports. You think of rock climbing. It's been shown before. There'll be great obstacle sports. You think of kayakers. They'll probably be great obstacle sports. They like getting wet. They've got god strong arms, do you know? I mean, there's so many sports out there, but we're we're not fishing, we're just out there. We're just out there sitting on the bank. We're not. We're not casting our rod, we're not checking out other sports. We bank, we're not casting our rod, we're not checking out other sports, we're not fishing, just having a pint. Yeah, we're sitting there having a pint on the riverbank.
Speaker 2:Mate, I would love if I had money to buy a bit of land, have a permanent obstacle course and then have a league that is just like a team league, not for obstacle course races but like for gyms, like David Lloyd versus Nuffield Health versus LA Fitness versus someone's boot camp, caveman conditioning Like kind of like a park run where every Saturday they just come down set a time and then they go. They just come down set a time and then they go. It's, it's an opportunity for everyone to have a go at it and just permanent course with a league, kind of like a football league, that it would be amazing wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:you need something like the generation game, don't you remember that? Uh, mo mo won't remember that bit too young for that ship, sorry well that that had basically was a game show and at the end of it they had an assault course that you well even like Gladiators when they had the end bit of that. Do they have that on Gladiators now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Eliminator.
Speaker 1:Just on the end of it, the Eliminator yeah, we need more things like that to promote it, but it needs to be promoted as obstacle course racing or obstacle sports or whatever.
Speaker 2:That would be obstacle course racing. Yeah, it would be a challenge as well. So it'd be obstacle sports. Hmm, course, obstacle sports, course, obstacle course racing. That is obstacle course, racing that part of it. Yeah, you're racing an obstacle course or an assault course. Yeah, yeah, you know that one we did. Um, uh, where was it? There's a good obstacle course at that hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, near vista vista hotel. Yeah, that's got one that was. That was great and I had right next to the uh thingy. What, what promotion do they have? Who knows about that?
Speaker 2:no, no one knows that there's a great obstacle course there. They've just put it on the gym as an assault course, but it's incredible.
Speaker 1:But it's an assault course, perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all you need. Yeah, mo I was chatting to Dave about this the other day that we do miss the mark on having a permanent challenge for us to baseline our performance like a. What is there? Like a comp, a very simple compromised 5k course that we could just turn up to set a baseline, six weeks later come back and then set another baseline. There isn't, because we just keep changing our courses all the time.
Speaker 1:But then that's a bit of the appeal.
Speaker 2:Can't hear you Mo.
Speaker 3:You almost need to make a park run for OCR races, and then you eventually start to branch out and more and more people come and I'd make it through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where can we do this? It sounds like an accountability course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because then you just have your mandatory obstacles which would be so awesome because you wouldn't have to change any attachments. No, no.
Speaker 2:It's frustrating because you wouldn't need one. I wouldn't even make it that technical. I'd have one overhead.
Speaker 3:I'd literally make it rings and monkey bars, and that's all I'd have. That's it. That's all you'd need.
Speaker 1:I'd have some sort of like low traverse or something just like a couple of wooden blocks underneath that maybe be on something that moves Like two tree trunks on a strap and you just gotta shimmy across the bottom of it and then change from one tree trunk to another, just something like that. So you're using that hanging core you need.
Speaker 2:You need that a pair of monkey bars, some hurdles and a crawl and you're done done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly that is it 1.5k.
Speaker 2:Well, you could do 2.5k to two laps. Some park runs are two laps anyway, so yeah.
Speaker 1:These should just be in parks. How can we test?
Speaker 2:that out.
Speaker 1:To be fair, right in Queen Elizabeth Park At a park. Well, this is the thing In Queen Elizabeth Park they do have an assault course which has a route around it. Yes, it is not the best assault course in the world. I mean I go there and train and I do laps of it, but yeah, it could be that just better. And that could be in any country park around the world. Well, in the country, they probably have similar things in some of the other countries at OCR that are probably quite good, just better. And that could be in any country park around the world. Well, in the country, they probably have similar things in some of the other countries that have ocr that are probably quite good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I was going around willow lake the other day with kiara and I was getting her. She's probably gonna hate me for exposing her like this, but we were basically going on all the obstacles and, like she was doing, they have like a frames and balance beams and monkey bars and all sorts and she was doing all of them. And I was saying to her you're literally, she always tells me, I know I can't do ocr, like it's too hard, but she was literally doing ocr on this walk we were doing and I was saying to her like this is what, like this is ocr? And I mean she just doesn't like the idea of running for all the shit and yeah, the comfortable nature of it.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, she, she doesn't like that, she doesn't she? When she watches me at nuts covered in mud, she's like, yeah, that's disgusting and she wouldn't want to do that, but just exposing her on this walk to like obstacles, she was loving it, we were having the best time, so you just need to make that all the time.
Speaker 2:Do you know the other barrier that we've got? Maybe we can link Gormo. What were you going to say?
Speaker 3:I was going to say maybe we just need to link up with park run and in parks where there's an obstacle bit you could do like an obstacle version of the park run, like you could do. That I wouldn't, it just wouldn't work because you need marshals and stuff.
Speaker 1:but maybe this is where it's meant to be going, then maybe this is the goal that once it's actually a sport in the uk, we could link up with british athletics and then, on a british athletics course, rather than doing a cross country, they just throw a couple more hills in it or whack a carry in it, and then there you go, bob's your uncle, you got a. Instead of it, just throw a couple more hills in it or whack a carry in it, and then there you go, bob's your uncle, you've got a. Instead of it just being a trail run, you've got a branch of obstacle racing where, yes, it's just a few hurdles, a few crawls. Just put a net, a carry and a set of monkey bars in and there you go, you've got your, your 5k obstacle course, and then you've got your league part of british, british athletics rather than british obstacle sport yeah, and it's got to be the easiest version of ocr you can find.
Speaker 3:Like we can't get frustrated if it's like this easiest 15 kg carry like we can't get frustrated with that, it's got to be easy yeah, and that's the one battle you have is also how varied OCR is, and then it becomes a battle of oh, how do we do the timings? Do we penalise people for falling off stuff?
Speaker 1:No, because it's simple. You just have that A to B and it's just a race. There's no rules, you don't have marshals.
Speaker 2:If you fall off, you fall off. Mo, I think that's the thing. It's not a race. There's no P1, p2,.
Speaker 3:P3.
Speaker 1:It's just you've completed First finisher. I mean everyone likes to win it.
Speaker 2:Yeah everyone likes to win a park run, but we know full well from being very we've raced so many times that if the obstacle's short enough, even if you fall off, you're not winning against the best person, because if you're solid at obstacles and you're quick, you're still going to win. So it doesn't, it won't matter too much as long as they're all short, like monkey. Bars are literally like three swings and then off. You can make it all so short. The only bad thing comes if you start going round it. Probably that'd be the only one. Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3:But again, if you're getting, it's not a thing where. That's why I would almost scrap the league stuff, because I'd do it exactly like park run. Rather than celebrating placements, I would celebrate oh, I've done 50 park runs. Or I've done 100 park runs and give them a t-shirt for that. I wouldn't bother about. Oh, I've done 50 park runs. Or I've done 100 park runs and give them a T-shirt for that, I wouldn't bother about. Oh, I've come first today, because it just doesn't really matter, because people could just walk around the obstacles.
Speaker 2:What are we calling it? Park assault?
Speaker 1:Assault park no yeah yeah, something like that no.
Speaker 3:What is it? I think we leave the listeners to come up with a cool name, something like that no, what is it, park? I think we leave. Let's leave the listeners to come up with a cool name.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to hear the best name for a park run obstacle race. And also, if you know anyone that knows how to sort this stuff out, let us know, because maybe this could be coming in the future. I'd love to do it. Or British Obstacle Swords, if you're listening we'll help.
Speaker 2:Ships. We don't need to create obstacles. We need to find a way to create collapsible, portable obstacles. That's what we need to build. That's our new niche. Imagine like a pop-up wall that's actually can hold people.
Speaker 1:That'd be cool well, that leads, well it's. I mean, we've talked for ages in this one, but that leads to our like another thing of this topic, which is you know what? What's obstacle?
Speaker 2:sports selling what do you mean?
Speaker 1:well, you know, every sort of sport has merchandise or things that people need to buy. What is obstacle sports selling? What is that thing that people spend money on, that gets sponsors and things I don't know exactly? So that doesn't keep people in the sport because there's no sponsors wanting to put. I mean, look, there's no obstacle sports clothing, there's no obstacle sports shoes, there's no obstacle sports clubs, there's no sponsors wanting to put. I mean, look, there's no obstacle sports clothing, there's no obstacle sports shoes, there's no obstacle sports clubs.
Speaker 3:There's no obstacle sports nutrition, there's no obstacle sports, anything yeah, but you make something big enough that the sponsors have to come, like we have it with training centres, like if it got big enough where people would start to sponsor training centres and then there would be shoes that come out of it and there'd be that stuff will come.
Speaker 2:After you make something big, you need to make something that people want to make that I was gonna say that would be the fun to talk about next, because it's it's all of the fun stuff that we could make that we need that we don't currently have. Like, I was thinking the other day that you know like people run around with gloves but there's no point putting gloves in your pocket because they're only going to get soaking when you get submerged in water. But you can easily create a waterproof pocket, like in shorts, that has like tape seams.
Speaker 1:Well, not only that, you want shorts that don't rip all the time, exactly, yeah, well, you can get non-rippable stuff, can't you?
Speaker 3:because it's it's stitched differently, like it's yeah the merch when Reebok was in the sport as well, they were making and it wasn't always the best stuff for OCR, but they were making things and advertising it for obstacle racing and it's just because then they were part of and it was like this is, the sponsors will do it if the product's big enough.
Speaker 2:So if you can get the actual sport big enough.
Speaker 3:The shoes and everything like that will come Before climbing shoes. They were probably using something else that wasn't a climbing shoe, the same way we use trail shoes Like it's just then climbing.
Speaker 1:Got so big that people thought, oh yeah, let's invest in this well, the athletes started designing stuff to make themselves better for that sport yeah, well, we know some people drill holes in the bottom of their trainers so they um can get rid of water quicker.
Speaker 2:For ocr or change the grips yeah, I feel we got anything else to talk about. Have we talked about everything we haven't? Took this. We could literally talk about this forever. How we can grow the sport of OCR. But we some, I personally believe that OCR grows grassroots and also competitively and also from challenges from all of the race, the training venues. But I don't know what you guys guys think.
Speaker 1:I think it's a step, yes, and I think there's so much more. That's neat. I think there is so much more that's needed to grow the sport, and I think sometimes people are still thinking the sport has grown, but I think it's taken a back step and we need to do more to get it to a place where it is a bit more of um. Well, I think it just needs to get to a place that's better than it is at the moment.
Speaker 2:Well, we want to grow it. So, listeners, if you know someone who's asking questions about ocr, let us know what the questions are. We'll answer them. We create a whole podcast episode for them. Or if you've got someone that you're trying to convince is amazing at it and can and doesn't want to pay loads of money like ethan, for instance let's we're doing a whole episode on that tell them where you can get. How cheap can you make ocr? We'll do an episode on that, because there is. There is ways you can be competitive and it's cheap. Go down to a time trial own. Literally. You could become like the king of time trials and pay 10 pound a pop to do a time trial.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could do that don't even have to touch a race. Yeah, exactly, don't need to be a, don't need to go to a spartan or a big race to become, um, a big name in ocr in the uk as a very good competitor, because we've got so many time trials that if you was, if he was going around, your name was at the top of every time trial.
Speaker 1:I'd, I'd, we'd know about you yeah, actually that's a great little entry level as well, because, yeah, if you're racing those time trials, you're stacking yourself up against people and then all of a sudden you're like hang on a minute, I'm getting better at this, I'm training for this. Now you feel a lot more comfortable to compete against to better people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah well, that is david tucker. You never hear him at a race, but a lot of people in the community know who he is just because of time trials it literally doesn't do, hardly do any races, but you go to any time trial you're like, oh, I've got a race against david. He's a bit of a threat even like outsiders that you think it'd just be rumble, that know him, that's his home ground, but even people like, yeah, that don't I mean he's been mentioned on who's hot before yeah, as many times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we want to grow.
Speaker 2:We want to grow ocr completely and we also want to grow the names that are said on who's hot, that's, that's the biggest thing yeah, it made me really struggle yeah right are we got? We could talk about this forever, but we want to hear everyone else's opinions like let us know how we can grow and and also we know how you listeners can grow. This sport for us is sharing this podcast with other people. We don't have a marketing budget.
Speaker 1:We just post whenever we get time yeah, this, this is a very, very open conversation. Although it's just us three having the conversation right here, I think this is one that we all need to step up and talk about. But talking doesn't make change. You still need to do, and that's what we all need to do.
Speaker 2:We need to do yeah we made that step with this podcast. We did something and we, we just want to do more. I feel like we can, we, we should make a promise we've been more informative when we go to different training venues rather than just the real of us looking cool well, I was looking cool, you, you weren't no, I wasn't no you were just slow yeah, right, mo, you got anything else?
Speaker 3:I'll wait for your three second delay and then you can respond no, I think I think we've waffled on, I feel like maybe we've gone around in circles a little bit sometimes here, but we've got some good ideas. So yeah, I feel like we should leave it here Cool.
Speaker 2:Right to the next one.
