Taken a few days to get around to reviewing Challenge #16 but here
goes with Part 2 of Tom and Rick (and New Mubu)'s "Seriously, How Good
Was That?!" Obstacle Course Race Review. The scoring criteria and
categories are covered in a previous post which is somewhere on this blog (see bottom left in the Archive).
RIVER RAT RACE
10km Obstacle Run (featuring LOTS of water)
24th August 2014
Stockton-on-Tees
We had a fantastic day for it. Lovely weather up on Teeside which meant the dips in the Tees were actually very well received. Rick and I were joined by two new MUBUs in John and Nat. They both seemed to love it and may even have the bug!
General Event Organisation
Typical Rat Race organisation. Slick and easy to get signed up and
sort all the entrant details out. Nothing is sent out except an e-mail which contained
everything you needed for the day. On-the-day event pack was essentially
non-existent but sometimes that is not a bad thing.
7 - Good
Event Facilities
A single small shop selling Rat Race gear and a few eateries
dotted around the small event village. Being urban based there was plenty of
local car parking and a reasonable amount of toilets in the vicinity.
6 – Above Average
Registration
Seemed standard for these events. Pretty quick to register provided
you didn’t have a surname R-Z! Registration area was a bit congested but there
were only 1000ish runners so it wasn’t terrible
6 – Above Average
Location
Slap bang in the middle of Stockton on the Tees. Easy to find and
a decent environment to allow spectators to watch and cheer you on.
8 - Very Good
On Course Facilities
Only a single water station which could have done with being a few
km earlier in the race. Marshalls were plentiful and obvious, most of them were
friendly too. There were no distance markers which would have been helpful and
the paths were all open so there was the occasional dodging past slow moving
spectators. There were several “time on” and “time off” points dotted around
which helped to control the flow of people without penalising you in terms of
time. That said, we still didn’t really queue at any point.
6 – Above Average
Warm-Up
Only a couple of minutes long and didn’t really get us warmed up.
4 – Below Average
Variety of obstacles
Not a very muddy course but the obstacles they did have were
interesting and varied. A bit of kayaking, a wade up the white water rafting
centre and a plunge of the deck of a ship were all new experiences for us.
7 - Good
Obstacle/Run mix
The obstacles they did have were good but there were unfortunately
not quite enough of them. Plenty of running sections but some felt a bit
aimless and could have done with something just to break the flow every now and
then.
6 – Above Average
Terrain
Urban river environment so was always likely to be quite flat.
That said they managed to incorporate a bit of elevation change and the clever
use of the river at various points along the route was certainly interesting.
7 –Good
Post-Race
As you would expect from Rat Race, there is a nice chunky medal on
offer for the finishers. A pretty standard (but thankfully not black!) tech
T-shirt was given out at registration too. No goody bag but that also means no
silver blanket or pack of nuts, both items I seem to acquire in great numbers
these days. You did get a Curly Wurly though, which is worth a whole point on its
own!
7 - Good
Difficulty
Though this was quite energy sapping in places (mainly the
swimming sections) I didn’t find this particularly hard. We took an hour less
than Total Warrior which is the same distance.
Course: 6 out of 10
Obstacles 5 out of 10
Overall Thoughts
This was a fun event, helped massively by there being four of us
who stuck together pretty much the whole way around. Doing these things with
other people is, to me, what it is all about. The camaraderie was fantastic and
helped pull us through when it was getting a bit tough in places.
Overall Score
60% - This was really enjoyable from the
minute we set off North at 7:30am. We had a massive night out after which
turned the weekend into a brilliant one but I guess the actual event wasn’t one
which we’d give our kidneys to do again.
If someone wanted to do it again then I’d definitely go round with
them as it is slick, well-organised and fun. Not life-alteringly good, but not
bad at all
EVENT REVIEWS SO FAR
65% Total Warrior Lake District
60% Stockton River Rat Race
Next one is Tough Mudder NW
on 13th September. At 12
miles it’ll be just about the longest one we have attempted so a bit of
training may be needed. I’m running as part of my work team and there are about
9-10 of us so it should be a good chuckle.
Till next time,
DT
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