Bone Frog Challenge Massachusetts Review

The Bonefrog Challenge is a new race company. It is designed and ran by the Navy Seals. They had been building the obstacles for 3 months prior to the race, so I had high expectations for this one.

I arrived with some of the Reload Fitness Team at about 7:30am on Saturday morning. Parking was on site, which I love. We set up the Reload Fitness Tent, offering some samples of the products and explaining how amazing the company is, and how it stands apart from other supplement and nutrition companies. Other vendors had set up too. I immediately recognized “The Playout Game” set up, I had to go investigate. The Playout Game is a card game based around fitness. Each card has a different exercise on and it turns fitness into a game you can play buy yourself or with friends. I was loving them, so I took a deck home with me!

After some giggles I got registered and ready to go for the 9:15 elite heat. It had been a long time since I had exercised or ran, but I was just going to take it easy, I didn’t want to re-inure myself. At around 9 they called the elite heat to the start line. The race was at a ski mountain, but the course veered immediately off to the left, not directly up the mountain, which is what I was expecting. The elite heat was small, both men and women together, and there were less than 50 of us. It took the pressure off considering this was my first race in a while. We had a moment of silence for the Boston Marathon victims, then the National Anthem, and then we were off!

Once we were out of sight of the spectators and tucked away in the woods we hit the steep inclines. It felt never ending. The Navy Seals had utilized the terrain well! We found ourselves on a constant up and down, we never knew what was coming next. The obstacles were pretty unique and extremely well built. The rope climbs, and all the ropes used throughout the course, did not have knots, which is something I prefer. The wall was 10ft, instead of the standard 8ft. There were logs that you had to climb over, which were time consuming. The monkey bars were also creative; one set being the up and down style above water, and the second set involved climbing a rope to a platform and swinging on decline monkey bars where the bars spun. There was also a lot of water on the 9 mile course, which was fantastic. One water obstacle required racers to balance and walk across a log to a dock in a large pond, then use a cargo net (I use the cargo net like monkey bars and swung underneath, others climbed on top and rolled across) to get to the middle of the pond where racers would drop into the water and swim the rest of the way. This happened within the first 2 miles, so racers were wet for the rest of the race. The only obstacle I was not super keen on was the slip and slide. These can be 50/50 at any race and this one just didn’t do it for me. I stopped halfway down and had to walk the rest of the way.

The penalties for the obstacles varied depending on what obstacle it was. There were burpees, military presses, jumping jacks, squats, and push-ups. The only problem I noticed was that the penalties weren’t being enforced at some of the obstacles, which is important in an elite heat.

I crossed the finish line as the 3rd woman, 2nd in the elite heat. It was a wonderful feeling, to have been out for so long yet to still be able to push myself and finish top 10! Bonefrog Challenge did awards at 4pm but did not distinguish between elite and open, despite having an elite heat, which is unusual in the world of OCRs these days.

Overall, this was an excellent race. It was very well organized, there didn’t seem to be any problems. There were plenty of volunteers and the course was challenging with over 30 obstacles. When racers crossed the finish line their medals were awarded to them by veteran Navy Seals, which was awesome. Made the experience very personal.

Definitely look out for this event and do it if you can. You wont be disappointed!

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Nele Schulze

Nele Schulze is an obstacle racer and endurance athlete in New England. Nele is a member of the New England Spahtens and previous Death Race competitor and Survival Run racer.