3 thoughts on “Viking Challenge”

  1. Nicole Sibley

    Last July, I took part in the Viking Hill Obstacle race, doing double laps of their 5.5 mile course in just over four hours. This year, I decided to forgo the traditional race in favor of the new 8 Hour Ultra Viking being held the day before the race. This was a “race” — more of a big training day where we could serve as guinea pigs for the newly designed course while testing ourselves in the process. Bonus for a t-shirt and plaque for participants.

    I arrived at Sunny Hill in Greenville, New York about half an hour before our scheduled 9:00 a.m. start. Viking Hill obstacle course is located at the Sunny Hill golf resort in the Northern Catskills. The course is fixed, so I’ve been there a few times to train, in addition to going there for races.

    Around 30 people were in attendance at the 8 Hour Ultra Viking. There were some very fit individuals who appeared to be training for World’s Toughest Mudder and other ultra-elite races. There were also some more basic athletes like myself, making for a nice mix. With the new longer course, I ended up doing two laps — the first penalty free (with around three dozen obstacles) and the second with only two penalties (20′ rope and the Dragon’s Tooth monkey bars). When I checked out the leader board, it looked like there weren’t any women who did more than two laps. There were some male athletes who managed four and five laps. Impressive.

    We lined up for a pre-race pictures, got some announcements from Asa, a Viking Hill regular and course managers who was in charge of the day, and then were off. The race was self supported, so I made sure to bring water and snacks. I ended up running much of the course with fellow Spahten, Sam. It was great to have her company and someone to chat with when the miles go long.

    The Ultra Viking course ran almost backward from the traditional course from year’s past. There were pro’s and con’s to this; however, overall I would say I prefer running the course in the more traditional direction. The main benefit there is that all the wettest sections are saved for later in the course, which is more comfortable for racers and allows for more running early on. That being said, some of the more challenging obstacles, such as the Dragon’s Tooth monkey bars and the 20′ rope climb, are in the second half of the course. It was great to be able to tackle these earlier on when I was fresher.

    Furthermore, we were not using elite rules for our race. This meant that we were allowed to use our legs on the Dragon’s Tooth monkey bars and climb the uphill segments like a ladder. For me, it’s almost impossible to get from bar to bar swinging because of the distance between the bars. I had never considered being allowed to use my feet. For me, this was a game changer, and I was able to make it through this obstacle — the only one that I failed during Viking Doubles last year — and have 100% obstacle completion during my first lap.

    Compared with previous years, and the traditional layout, the revised course was over 10K in length. (Sam’s GPS put two laps at just around 13.4 miles if I’m remembering correctly.) New sections of trail had been bushwacked. These sections crossed with more established trails, making the marking somewhat confusing at times. (Though, as I understand it, modifications were made before the official Viking Hill race on Sunday.) I am not a huge fan of extra miles created by bushwacking and back-and-forth running, so I would opt for the more traditional 5.5 mile course — which I consider the perfect distance — for next year.

    As always, the obstacles at Viking are lots of fun. They are challenging without being impossible, well-placed along the course, and interesting. There are more balance obstacles at Viking than anywhere else I can recall. For example, they have Skywalk, which is a massive set of balance logs with a rope traverse that is well over a hundred feet long. They also have the Hull, an inverted wall to a ladder. Finally, there are Odin’s Tables, which feature a ramp to rope descent. I cannot think of any other place with these obstacles. I love coming out to Viking to tackle them! For a complete obstacle-by-obstacle breakdown, you can read my write-up from 2015: http://perseid85.blogspot.com/2015/04/viking-hill-obstacle-course.html.

    All said and told, I completed two laps with Sam in 6:22 (plus, 15 minutes between laps to change shoes and eat a sandwich). The first lap took three hours and the second took just over that. The cut-off to go out for a final lap was 3:15 p.m. Since we arrived at 3:26 p.m. that was definitely out of the question. Regardless, I was tired and my hands were hurting. I got my t-shirt and custom plaque and was set to go!

    The Ultra Viking was fun, a good deal, and great training. It lacked some of the fun bonuses of a real race day — less participants, less food, less fan fair. It was great to get to be the first people to test the new course, but that also had some drawbacks. Overall, I prefer the traditional 5.5 mile course layout. I also felt like I “missed out” a little by not coming for the real Viking Race on Sunday. Next year, I want to make Viking part of my race season, and it will definitely be the traditional race day that I will choose to attend.

  2. Nicole Sibley

    The July 2016 Viking Obstacle Race may just be my favorite race of the season. The race takes place at Sunny Hill golf resort on the Viking Hill obstacle course, a 5.5 mile course with around 33 obstacles. I have been up to Greenville, New York in the Northern Catskills a couple of times to train at Viking, but I had yet to race there. Last year’s race conflicted with Tough Mudder. This year though, I was going to opt for the Viking Obstacle Race over Tough Mudder. I am glad I did.

    For the first time this year, Viking was offering the opportunity to do a double lap. This meant racers would get to cover the entire course twice for a total of 11 miles and just under six dozen obstacles. I decided I was up for the challenge. I wanted to get some good distance training in for this August’s 24 Hours of Shale Hell. In 2015, I had done the eight hour version of this race, successfully completing two laps (totaling around a half marathon distance and six dozen obstacles). With all the distance running I’ve been doing this year in order to train for my marathon in October, I thought doing some endurance obstacle course racing would be a nice complement. I have fewer obstacle course races planned for 2016 because of the marathon training — I didn’t race in June and don’t plan to race in September.

    The June break was because I was just finishing up my spring semester of school, for the first time not taking a summer class, and was wanting some free weekends to run and spend time hanging out in Amherst/Northampton. I wanted no commitments. My June was a blast. I didn’t race, but I did a ton of training. I got in some great runs, made it up to Viking with my friend, Matt, to train one weekend, and spent a lot of quality time relaxing. The lack of race commitments in September is the simple result of needing time for school work, with classes starting again in the fall, and needing time for my really long marathon training runs.

    Back to Viking Obstacle Race. On Sunday, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and headed out to drive 2 hours to the Catskills and do two loops of the Viking Hill course. The Viking Double was an elite wave. I have never run elite before. In general, in obstacle course racing, anyone can run elite. Usually, it means you run earlier in the day and that you pay an extra fee. There are also sometimes more challenging rules, such heavier carries or mandatory obstacle completion. In the case of Viking, they were requiring mandatory obstacle completion for all elite and Viking Double racers.

    What mandatory obstacle completions means is this: In order to receive prize money, you have to complete all the obstacle. Every participant received a wristband. When you failed an obstacle, your wristband was taken away and you were not ineligible to win your division. The good thing is that with mandatory obstacle completion, you are allowed to attempt the obstacle as many times as you’d like (while giving first dibs to people who are approaching the obstacle for the first time). The Viking Double had a cut-off time of 12:30 p.m., allowing participants 4.5 hours to make it around the course twice. For people who had the time, they could spend it giving a challenging obstacle a number of tries.

    I arrived at Sunny Hill at around 7:15 a.m. and 45 minutes before my scheduled wave. The elite would go off at 7:30 a.m. and then the Viking Double would follow. Parking was conveniently onsite and free. Spectators could join for free as well. (Note: This is not a good spectator course — it’s all in the woods and all spectators can see is the finish, so if you’re the kind of spectator who likes to follow your racer and take video and photos, know that Viking is not the best course for it.) Check-in was a snap. Viking has a tent by the lake where the race starts and ends. There was pretty much zero wait time. I received a finisher t-shirt, bib, timing chip, and my Viking Double wristband.

    After check-in, I headed by to my car to organize my gear and change into my Icebugs. I put on my Viking Double band. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to retain it. I have a very high obstacle completion rate at Viking; however, I have a lot of trouble on Dragon’s Tooth, a set of monkey bars that has a very steep uphill and downhill section. I had yet to make that obstacle. As a person of shorter stature, the span between the bars on the uphill section is challenging. I had worked on this obstacle a bit last time I was at Viking and didn’t quite have the technique or strength down to do the ascending section. I was going to try my best but feared I might lose my band here. Either way, I was determined to complete my two laps of the course. That was the challenge for me — having the endurance to make it around the course without missing any obstacle other than Dragon’s Tooth. That would mean I’d have to do a number of challenging obstacles — a 22′ rope climb, a five panel traverse wall — twice without losing my grip strength.

    We lined up at the starting line a little bit before 8:00 a.m. There were probably around 30 people, only a half dozen or so of whom were women. The race director, Tinker, gave us some announcements, and then we were off!

    I started out in the back of the pack; however, I knew that we had a long race ahead, and I wasn’t worried. I won’t do a complete obstacle-by-obstacle breakdown here because I have that information posted on my blog in a previous write-up about Viking — see that post at http://perseid85.blogspot.com/2015/04/viking-hill-obstacle-course.html. What I will recount is some of the unique aspects on Sunday’s race.

    Because I was more-or-less in the back, I was soon running mostly by myself. I did see people. Because of the mandatory obstacle completion rule, there were volunteers at each obstacle. Viking is a very wall-heavy course, featuring at least a dozen walls. many of them in sets of three, increasing in height. There were volunteers at each set of walls. The volunteers were great! They were encouraging and helpful. I wanted to keep an eye on my time. Viking features a lot of water, so I wasn’t wearing my Fuelband and had no idea of time if I didn’t ask every now and then — I wanted to make sure I got my two laps in under the cut-off. I wasn’t too concerned. When Matt and I came up to train we had taken a very manageable pace, stopped to do extra work on Dragon’s Tooth, and still managed to finish the course in two hours. Still, if I got tired and my time suffered on the second lap, I wanted to be sure I’d have the time I needed.

    A main challenge of the course on Sunday was how wet it was. It had rained the night before the was raining or drizzling during much of my first lap. The skies cleared by the time that lap was over, but the walls and balance obstacles were slippery. This added to the difficulty. I recall having a challenging time making it up the 10′ rope wall, because it was so slick, making the rope hard to grasp. This obstacle doesn’t usually trouble me in the least — suffice it to say, in obstacle course racing, weather really matters.

    I was moving along efficiently without seeing many others until I reached the Asgard Skywalk. With the wet conditions this balance obstacle was causing some significant problems. There was a line of people attempting the obstacle again and again. The Asgard Skywalk features a lengthy set of balance logs, a traverse rope, and then another set of balance logs. If you failed on any portion of the very long obstacle, you had to start over. I was glad to be wearing my Icebugs. On a wet day, they were a game changer. I had no problems on the Skywalk, though I had to take it slowly so as to not run into people. My success was a matter of good gear over good skill on this obstacle. Like the weather, footwear matters.

    After the Skywalk, I found that I was running with other people, at least some of the time. Viking Obstacle Race probably attracts somewhere around 120 to 150 people, so the course was never crowded enough to cause significant obstacle back-ups. I moved along pretty well, the only big challenge for a while being a bucket carry that was added right before the Tree Bob. This obstacle required you to take a bucket filled with around 45 pounds of water and carry it around the lake. Fortunately, the lake was not large because carrying a 45 pound bucket is a serious challenge for me.

    Pretty soon after, I reached the dreaded Dragon’s Tooth monkey bars. It was a mess. The bars were set from the rain and people were failing left and right. Just as the Asgard Skywalk was costing people lots of time and they tried to meet the mandatory obstacle completion, so too was Dragon’s Tooth. The difference was that while most people cursed the Skywalk, they inevitable made it, while Dragon’s Tooth was a “band cutter” (as we say in OCR). I gave it a try and made it across the flat section, but I couldn’t make the swing up to beyond the third bar on the uphill monkey bar section. I made a good effort but decided that repeat effort would not yield good results and would just serve to exhaust me. I had really wanted to keep my band — it’s a badge of honor! — but I also wanted to play it smart. My goal was to finish two laps. I knew this obstacle was one that I have yet to make. I wanted to focus on my larger goal of finishing with a decent time and completing all the other obstacles. I moved on.

    For the most part, the course after the monkey bars went smoothly. There was an additional obstacle that was added for the race. It required participants to swim across a shallow pond, swimming under a half dozen or so logs. All of the water at Viking is kind of… natural. There is a lot of silt, dirt, reeds, grass, and bugs. Not the most pleasant, especially when grass pieces get in your clothing and feel like tiny snakes, but it is natural.

    The most challenging part of the course, post-monkey bars, is the massive 22′ rope climb. I was determined to make it though, and was able to get up the first lap around with out too much trouble, if not in an entirely effortless way. Soon I was approaching the Viking Gate and the end of my first lap. I crossed the line, quickly ate half a Larabar from my drop point, and then grabbed some chomps for the second lap. With cool, if very humid, temperatures, I was using the four water stations on the course instead of racing with my hydration pack, a strategy that I really liked since it was so much easier not having to manage the pack.

    Within no more than two minutes I was off for my second lap. As it turned out, I was the first female Viking Double to come through. I have never been first in anything sports-related ever. I knew it didn’t matter because I’d lost my band and wasn’t competing, but it felt kind of cool to be “in first place.” (Okay, not really, but kind of…) I felt great! My endurance was in a good place from all the running I’ve been doing, and I felt strong on the last lap — I was really no more tired than on my first time around. It was exciting to see volunteers and have them say, “You again!?! Great job!” I was moving smoothly.

    I realized how tired I was when I got to the last mile or so of the course. Back to the 22′ rope climb. Honestly, I barely made it. I was determined to have the Dragon’s Tooth be my only failed obstacle of the day. I made my way up the rope at a snails pace, stopping to rest on the knots several times. Each upward pull was a struggle, but I was persistent and finally made it to the bell. Success!

    The rope climb made me realize that I was tired. I had less than a mile left. I had had a fun day, but I was really to be done. I kept moving, jogging through the last mile and completing obstacles. I got each one. Finally, I could hear the festival area in the distance. I ran towards the Viking Gate and became the first female Viking Double to cross the line. My time was 4:02.

    I had done it! I got my medal from a volunteer and headed over for a free sandwich and beans, followed by a hosedown of my shoes. While I was washing I heard the first place women’s double finisher come in. I cannot imagine how much effort she must have put in getting through Dragon’s Tooth and keeping her band — what a great accomplishment! I was pleased with what I had done too. I completed 11 miles and just under six dozen obstacles. I had completed the goal I set out for myself and identified where I need to work for next year. I also got to see how distance running was having a tremendous impact on my endurance. I was able to keep going, moving quickly, feeling good for much longer than before. Who knew marathon training would be such a help for my obstacle course racing.

    Suffice it to say, Viking Obstacle Race is going to be on my 2017 calendar. This race is challenging without being a beat down. They have some unique obstacles — for example, Viking has far more balance obstacle than I’ve seen anywhere else and they are all much more interesting. The course terrain is nicely “run-able.” The trails are not too rugged and there aren’t any serious climbs. I love being able to run along between obstacles and enjoy obstacles that I find difficult but do-able. I had a blast doing the Viking Double. You’ll see me there again in 2017. After all, I need to try to keep my band.

    (More on my blog: http://perseid85.blogspot.com/2016/07/viking-hill-obstacle-race.html)

  3. Paul Jones

    I love this race, and this venue. An all inclusive golf resort by day – and when they hold an OCR, you can stay onsite, walk to and from the race, all your meals are included – and it doesn’t come much better than that.

    The course is relatively flat, but the obstacles installed and designed by Rob Butler and feel very much like Shale Hill and will challenge anyone.

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