Most obstacle races require some type of endurance training in order to sustain the movement required to make it to the finish line. There is a new obstacle race called Epic Series and it is the first race ever to develop its obstacle course based off of functional fitness. This is every fast twitch muscle having athlete’s dream race and if you have fast twitch type II, even better. It requires speed, agility, power, and explosiveness. If you like to kill it right out of the box, you’d love this race.
What is functional fitness? If you haven’t heard of functional fitness yet, you might not regularly read up on the current trends of fitness. Functional fitness is designed to train your body to better perform daily activities, activities you find in sports and other areas of life, depending on what you do for work etc., in order to decrease the chance of injury. With this in mind, the obstacles you can find on this course are weighted squats, weighted lunges, burpee walls, atlas toss, and even push presses.
As you approach the race site you can view the entire course from the sidelines. There is an outside lap surrounding the obstacles and then the obstacles are placed in a series of lanes. You complete each obstacle in the lane while a judge watches to make sure the obstacles are completed up to expectations, nothing can be modified. The SoCal event allowed elite racers to compete at any point in time during the day. In the future all elite racers will have to compete in the morning. Once they have completed the main course they will then compete in a second timed short course with no running, strictly obstacles. The finish time of the short elite course will be added to their main course finish time in order to establish rankings. The best part was the fact that you didn’t have to rush into the elite short course right away. Elite racers had the entire afternoon to complete it.
It’s really exciting as the process is happening. Participants can view what their competitor is doing and prepare for how they will take on the elite short course. Everyone is cheering for one another on the sidelines, it can get intense, but in an exciting fun way. The racers will never find themselves alone on either of the courses or miles away from everyone else, which makes it more powerful not just for the racers but for the spectators as well. All day long racers and supporters were relaxing under the sun watching people compete. With all the great vendors present, beer garden, lots of food, not only was the race enjoyable but the entertainment lasted all day.
One would think upon embarking on this course that it would be easy. It’s not. Making through obstacle after obstacle with speed and agility with room for almost no error is challenging. One error can cost a racer, unfortunately, a first place spot or podium spot in a matter of seconds. Chris Herber was about 15 seconds behind Joey Patrolia and then proceeded to take the lead at the bangers. Even though he was doing his best to take advantage of the lead one slip on the balance beam cost him the first place finish. Even after a quick recover, Joey passed him and took first place.
This is a race where anyone can win and it happens fast. At the end of the day Cassidy Watton took the overall win for the entire event. There are first through third place finishers for male and females and then the best accumulative time wins the entire event. Congrats to all finishers!
Live Epic. Be Epic.
*Photos By: Epic Series, Samantha Wishner, Cassidy Watton, Chris Herber, and Caleb Rosales.
Samantha Wishner
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