OCR's Ranked From Best To Worst

This is my opinion and I'm sticking to it! If you disagree; welcome! Let's crack on.

First of all, there are a lot of OCRs that I haven't had the chance to make it to yet. Every year I plan out my races based on distances, types, and cost. I had season passes for Spartan Race for 2 years, and they had the most races and options, so I ran a lot of Spartans. However, I am constantly looking for, and hoping to, branch out to new races. Small locals ones, big name ones (Tough Mudder...so expensive historically). This list is only made up of OCR events that I've participated in to date, so let's look at OCR's ranked from best to worst.

1: OCR World Championship

Look, this event had it ALL. The variety of obstacles is insane. They have the best obstacle line up out there because they bring obstacles in from all sorts of races. If at all possible, I'd love to get up to OCR World Championship in 2022. Unfortunately, my current job in the military makes longer-distance travel difficult most of the time. We'll see though. I still have amazing memories from the last time I was able to make it to OCRWC in 2017. It was in Canada, and it was epic.

2: Spartan Race

There are hundreds of thousands who love Spartan Race, and yes, there are a lot who have some legitimate complaints about their customer service issues. That being said, I've never had any real issues with Spartan Race. I've run like 50 of their events and love the locations and setups.

3: Savage Race

I actually like Savage Race obstacles a lot more than Spartan Race. However, although I've run 12 of their races, those 12 events have happened at 2 locations. Just due to the limited races they put on each year, it's been difficult for me to get to enough of them. Also, they didn't (don't?) have a season pass, which made their events more expensive; even though I have taken home some good prize money.

4: Bone Frog Challenge

I have only been fortunate enough to participate in one Bone Frog Challenge event to date. It was a very fun event. It was in 2017, but I still think about it sometimes and if ever I can get to one of their events again (they don't host too many each year), I will. I loved their obstacle variety. They had some very creative setups and it was a good change of pace from other companies.

5: Mad Anthony Mud Run

99% of you will have never heard of this event. It's a local race in Waynesboro, VA held each year at the park (dog park as I call it) where I used to run with my dog when I lived in the area. Each year they get around 400-500 participants. The course isn't challenging and neither are the obstacles, but it's a great local event with a decent turnout. Yes, I'm biased because I spent innumerable hours training at that park and won the event 2 years in a row.

6: Battle Frog

Yeah, I ran one Battle Frog the year they went under. It was one of my first OCRs ever. It was a lot of fun, and the obstacles were quite challenging at the time. I was all ready to sign up for another event and then they cancelled them all.

7: Terrain Race

I've run four or five of these events...all before they fell apart, changed ownership, and switched up a lot of stuff. Anyway, all of the events I attended were pretty good. I took home three podiums and they were nice because they were inexpensive but still decent races. My wife and I (girlfriend at the time) did a Terrain Race together for her first ever OCR and she liked it a lot!

8: Warrior Dash

Sorry Warrior Dash (RIP), but I only competed at one of your events, and unfortunately, I found the course poorly marked and the obstacles few and far between. I know, you weren't supposed to be one of the hard-core races, but still. My worst nightmare (seriously, I have dreams about this frequently before races) is going off course and losing because I couldn't follow the course marking. As a result, I don't like poorly marked courses.

There you have it! I'm hoping to expand my OCR horizons as much as possible in the coming years while still getting to bigger events for the competitive aspect. The races I most want to do moving forward are:

Indian Mud Run

City Challenge Race

Highlander Assault

If you know of other small, but epic OCRs, leave them in the comments so myself, and others, can find them!