Growing the Sport of Obstacle Course Racing

/ / Published in Blog

OCR Buddy posed this question to the community on the Facebook page and the community responded loudly.

In some ways, you can call this an open letter to the OCR Racing Community from the athletes themselves. These are the changes we want to see in order to see our sport continue to grow and thrive.

This is just a sampling of the answers.

They need to have new obstacles. I like to think of OCR as amusement parks with different rides. But having the same rides years on end gets stale. Old rides get upgraded (e.g. wooden Colossus is now Twisted Colossus) or unpopular ones get torn down and replaced with new ones.

-Jay Nagtanan

Stop trying to become American Ninja Warrior. Grip and rigs are important and necessary for OCR but some races are starting to overdue it. Add more strength, grit, and balance obstacles!
And stop jacking up prices and then constantly offering discount codes every single day. Just lower the price, but keep them affordable for the 95% who aren’t elite.

-Jason Duly

One common theme was about feeling like races are catering to the elites.

Stop focusing on elites and give all attention to increasing open wave participation – Kevin Jones
Cater to ALL participants and not just the Elites –Andie Redford Cruser
There is way more than elite runners 🙄 make it more affordable for the everyday racer. Id travel to way more for cheaper races.- Kristen Anne
Also, athletes want to have more races for kids, families, and beginners.
Kid’s & entry-level courses, fixed practice & training locations!– Brett Stewart
Having a family race will be awesome…– Tracey Webb
Allow juniors to join their parents on the same course.– Nicola Simmons
Pricing and marketing issues also was a common theme.
I definitely think some of the larger brands like Spartan need to consider cheaper pricing options. Advertising needs a boost so we can reach those people that are interested but just haven’t committed. I find a lot of people don’t realize you don’t have to compete. – Sherry Valenzuela
Easy
Offer good value for money.
Have a family wave so adults can run with kids.
Get back to basics – less rigs more fun!
Definitely treat Marshals well. They can really make an average day great!- James Parrish
Set up registration pages and FB Events sooner so we can share. Also, need better advertising to people not yet in OCR.– Phillip Fralish Webb
The lasting overarching theme is coming together and less compeition.
Unify- Christian Sullivan
We could not add all the answers that had been shared but encourage everyone to take a look at the original post and share your thoughts as to what we can do to further grow the sport.

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