So you’ve signed up for a weekend full of events but still haven’t made the commitment to race the 5k Charity Open at the OCR World Championships. It’s the final event of a weekend packed full of races but it provides a memorable experience in its own way. If you haven’t signed up yet, you may want to rethink your decision and here’s why.
1. Complete Your Medal Collection
If you’ve been following Obstacle Course Racing World Championships’ (OCRWC’s) blog posts or been to a previous event you know how epic the medals are. They seem to get bigger, heavier and more stylish every year. Without running the 5k Charity Open, you’ll miss out on completing your collection for every OCRWC medal in 2021. Your shadow box or medal rack is going to look a lot better with the glorious medal of Stratton Mountain with red highlights.
2. It’s Time to Give Back
Endurance sports and racing are inherently selfish. I spend lots of time training instead of spending time with friends or family. Furthermore, as I race it is a zero sum game where my gain in placement is someone else’s loss in placement. The cool part about the charity event is you are using your endurance skills and training experience for something to benefit the community. The 5k Charity Open money for the Stratton Community Foundation providing resources and help for the children and families of the local community that is hosting the OCR World Championships.
3. It’s only 5k
You may be tired from a weekend of racing, but 5k isn’t very far. The charity event doesn’t go to the top of the mountain so you don’t have to worry about tired race legs. The course typically runs up part of the mountain, makes sure to hit some of the fan favorite obstacles, runs through the festival and back to cross the finish line one more epic time!
4. Bring Someone New Into The Sport
With the charity event being shorter it is much more manageable to those who are new to the sport or to family members who showed up to watch you race. In 2019, one of my teammates brought her whole family on the course for the charity event. Your family that’s been watching you race all weekend and waiting around the festival area gets to see what all the fun was about by taking them onto the race course. Perhaps it will be the start of something new and wonderful for them…or worst case scenario, they’ll have a lot more respect for the challenge of Obstacle Course Racing (OCR).
5. Run With Your Friends
If you are like me, you take racing seriously. I’m an all-in, all the time, maximum effort type of person. This means when I run OCRs I’m running by myself and pushing the pace. However, the 5k Charity Open is not timed and no one cares what order you cross the finish line in. This means you can grab some friends who are faster or slower than you and actually enjoy the jog while playing on the obstacles. Rather than flying through the obstacles with a max heart rate, you can your friends can have a blast running together.
6. Practice, Practice, Practice
The OCRWC is a once a year, unique event with obstacles you may not see again until the next year. This means your only chance to practice on them, improve technique and boost your efficiency is race weekend. Take the time to walk/jog the 5k Charity Open and spend an extra ten minutes analyzing technique and trying new methods on obstacles. Don’t forget the camera so you can share some of your favorite techniques and bold, dynamic movements to your social media channels. Your obstacle proficiency will thank you in 2022.
The 5K Charity Open is a great capstone to a weekend packed full of fun events. Take a minute to relax, enjoy the course and not worry about trying to keep a band or do every obstacle perfectly. Experiment with some new techniques, expose someone new to the sport and enjoy the final event of the weekend. After a weekend of intense racing, it is time to play on the course one more time while raising money for a good cause. Grab some family or some new OCR friends and finish your weekend with the 5k Charity Open at the Obstacle Course Racing World Championships.
