2 thoughts on “Renegade Run”

  1. Ann

    This was my second time doing Renegade Run. I personally love this race – it’s super close to home, no charge for parking/bag check, and no carries. =)

    Venue & Festival – For a small race, I think they’ve got a pretty nice festival area. Vendors, multiple food trucks, and a big inflatable thing for the kids. I believe the wet conditions prevented the rock wall from going up. And it’s a great time of year for running in Wompatuck with the leaves changing color.

    Course & Obstacles – Obstacles are primarily six-foot walls and incline walls (which were crazy hard in the rain), but also some more interesting obstacles like the series of swings to step across and a cargo net suspended between two walls (also hard this year with the wet conditions). The course itself switches between trails and paved roads and the obstacles are nicely spaced out.

    Swag & awards – The usual medal, beer and shirt. They switched to a tech shirt this year, which should have been nice but the small I got is way too big for me. Last year’s shirt fit me really well so this was a disappointment. I really wish more races would do ladies-fit shirts.

  2. KFitz

    This was my third year participating in Renegade Run.

    The race was located at Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, MA which is just ten minutes from my house. Locating the park was easy enough, but once inside, it wasn’t clear to me where the starting area was. After traveling for about five minutes, a couple of volunteers were directing people where to park.

    As I pulled up, I asked, “Should I just follow them?” while pointing at the truck in front of me. They informed me that I should. I then followed the truck into festival area and found myself trapped. So if you saw a green Camry at 9:30 AM awkwardly doing an eleven point turn to exit the festival area… that was me.

    Once I arrived the free parking lot, a few volunteers were directing everyone on where and how to park. It was fast, easy and free! No complaints there.

    The parking area was just a few minutes from registration, so the bag check was unnecessary, but again totally free which is great.

    Registration didn’t take long at 9:30 AM, but the lines at 10 AM seemed to stretch out a bit.

    My wave started promptly at 10:15 AM. The MC was in costume and in high spirits. He provided an overview of the race, gave props to the sponsors and wished everyone luck before sending us off.

    There were twenty-five obstacles along the course, though many of them were repetitive. There were three water stations. Every obstacle had at least one volunteer and everyone was very helpful. The course was marked well in most sections, but some of the trails were hard to distinguish from the rest of the woods due to the fallen leaves. I ran into a Spahten that had gotten lost at one point.

    The race started fast on flat pavement for about a quarter mile before hitting a series of unders and overs that did a great job of separating the runners which prevented potential bottlenecks down the line.

    Most of the obstacles were 4′ to 6′ walls with ledges or “A” frame walls with ropes.

    There was an eight foot wall that lead to a cargo net crawl, but you could jump and grab the cargo net to get yourself up and over.

    The monkey bars were a bit of a surprise since they were greasy and wet. They weren’t very challenging, but you had to be sure to take your time since any kind of momentum generated could have easily resulted in slipping off.

    There were stair obstacles that were more awkward than challenging, but they seem to be a signature of this race.

    There were a couple of balance beams that stretched on for 20’+.

    There were also a series of thin yellow ropes that you were supposed to crawl through. They weren’t set up in a particularly challenging manner, so it was easy to just hop and dodge through at a jogging pace.

    There was a section where you could do a partner carry or opt for twenty burpees. A friend of mine happened to catch up to me right at the partner carry, so we tried that. I carried her for the first section. When it came time to switch, she carried me. Neither one of us saw where we were supposed to finish the second partner carry. That was a bit tough on her since she’s a 110 pound woman and I’m 180 pound man.

    There was a pile of tires to run through which was a bit trickier since the tires were slick from the rain.

    Towards the end of the race was a large cargo net climb and a ten foot latter climb.

    One of my favorite obstacles of the race was the series of swings that you have to traverse. Last year, it was surprisingly challenging, so I knew what to expect this year. It was fun to see people rush into it confidently and then completely lose their footing as soon as they made the to transition to the second swing.

    The course had a decent balance of pavement and trail. This year, I’m glad that I chose to wear trail shoes since it was a rainy morning and there were plenty of slippery leaves and rocks. None of the hills were steep, but there was one hill climb that seemed to go on for ten minutes. My plan was to walk the uphills with the assumption that there wouldn’t be many. That probably hurt my time, but I appreciated the use of the terrain.

    After crossing the finish line, they had a medal waiting for you if you’re into that kind of thing. I don’t care about medals, but if you do, it’s not the most impressive medal you’ll see. Still, it’s nice that a local race can provide one at all.

    Also at the finish line, there were bananas and water as well as oranges that were impossible to peel.

    They had live music, an inflatable obstacle, energy bars, hummus, chips, Advil, pain shots, smoothies for free. They had several food trucks set up as well.

    Every competitor over 21 could get one free wine, Coors Lite or Sam’s Octoberfest.

    I enjoyed this race. It’s very local and pretty small scale. The obstacles are approachable and easy, so it’s a great introduction for newbies. I prefer challenging OCR’s, and that’s not what this was.

    If you want a challenging OCR experience with penalties and strict enforcement, you’ll be disappointed. A friend of mine was very close to finishing first, and he saw people skip obstacles entirely just so they could finish ahead of him.

    That being said, Renegade never claimed to be the world’s toughest challenge. If you want to have fun and enjoy an easy race, it’s perfect. If you want your friends or relatives to give OCR a try. This race is perfect.

    If you live on the South Shore, you should run this race!

Leave a Reply