This was my first Conquer the Gauntlet and I’d heard a lot about it, especially the difficulty of the obstacles, which made me put this race on my must-do list for this year’s race season.
The Good
This is a family owned, family run, race series and feels that way. The festival area had plenty of room and plenty of places to sit, but not a whole lot of things other than people cheering on runners, warming up or getting a beer, and talking about the brutal race they just conquered. All of the staff I met were the friendliest people you could imagine, and they all genuinely cared about making this race awesome.
The starting line speech kept with the “local” family feel. Conquer the Gauntlet didn’t hire Coach Payne or some other hype man for some ridiculous sum. One of the staff in the bed of a truck yelled out the rules for certain obstacles, told us it was “complete it or lose your belt, no burpees, no body-builders. “We do obstacles, not exercises!” We walked up to the start line, got a count down, and then we were off. No hype man needed.
The course was mostly flat with some small hills at the end and one short steep climb out of the creek. The obstacles were no joke, they were the hardest set of obstacles I’ve faced at any OCR. Most obstacles were grip strength/body weight oriented and some rather challenging balance obstacles including a slackline. Only three obstacles relied on brute strength, one of which was an interesting take on the sled pull. A crank pulling a 150-pound sled towards you then you had to drag the sled by hand back to its starting position. 
The Bad
While the obstacles were amazing, there were a few problems, the Z-beam (which was made of 3 ten foot 2x6s set up on the narrow side at right angles to each other) had 4 lanes but were not secured properly when I went through. Only two lanes were open due to the 2×6’s having fallen over on the other two lanes. The volunteer said that someone was coming to fix it asap.
I was in the first elite heat in the middle of the pack at that time, so there was a minimal build-up of people waiting. The only other negative about the race would be that the Conquer The Gauntlet website said that all competitors would get a “too-fit shaker bottle” but Too-Fit didn’t show up to the event. I’ve seen this happen at other events and I can’t blame Conquer The Gauntlet for a sponsor not showing up.
The Awesomely Difficult
One word – Pegatron – A beastly horizontal peg board. The first section has foot holds then the foot holds disappear and you have to rely on grip and shoulders and core to carry you across the gap. I have a horizontal peg board in my basement at home which I can do pretty well. This board was much different.
The holes are spaced wide enough that you have to go up and down rows making you use more of your muscles than if you could move across a single row. The pegs were an eighth inch smaller than the holes making the pegs fit into the holes easily but also making it easy for the pegs to slip right out and put you in the dirt if you didn’t put enough weight on them.
Coming into Pegatron I was toward the front of the pack of elites but fell behind as it took 5 tries to finally get it. I saw more people throw down their elite belts than I saw beat the obstacle. Conquer The Gauntlet says it only has a 19% success rate. It is an amazing obstacle and I loved that CTG has the guts to put in obstacles most people won’t beat and will give even the elite athletes a run for their money.
More of the Awesomely Difficult
Conquer The Gauntlet had three other extremely challenging obstacles. Stairway to heaven, a set of stairs your climb from underneath much like the devil steps in American Ninja Warrior. This is another obstacle I have at home which turned out quite different on the race course, but these steps are steep with gaps of over a foot between each step. Placed not too far after Pegatron and a brute strength obstacle, forearms were still burning but the sight of the nasty green water below gave me the strength to conquer it. They followed this with a rope climb just a few feet away.
At the end of the race, you were greeted by an 8-foot wall. This would be no problem, except after that 8-foot wall was another, and another and another and one more for good measure. Then it was time for some monkey bars. These aren’t your typical monkey bars. Yes, they are setup in an ascending/descending formation like so many other race series. The tricky bit though is that every other bar was not fixed and spun when you grabbed it and transferred your weight. The monkey bars are usually a very easy obstacle for me, but going up these was certainly challenging. Volunteering after my race I got to witness countless people hit the water after grabbing those spinning bars.
Conclusion
All in all, this was an amazing race that I will absolutely do again (in a heartbeat) and would recommend to every OCR enthusiast out there. If you live within the touring range of Conquer The Gauntlet this should be a must-do race. If you don’t live in the area that CTG goes, I suggest you sign up early and make some travel plans. They may not have huge endorsement deals or fancy multi-race marketing schemes but Conquer The Gauntlet has challenging, innovative obstacles and they put on one hell of a brutal race.
All photos courtesy of Conquer The Gauntlet and Run and Shoot Freelance Collective
Justin Smith
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