Featured Review: Bone Frog Challenge Fall 2016

Suffice it to say, it was a sufferfest. Of course, four sentences is hardly the sum of the story. Let’s get into it.

Bone Frog Challenge typically takes place at Berkshire East in Charlemont, Massachusetts in May. The 2015 Bone Frog will likely go down as one of my favorite races of all time with over fifty obstacles stretched over a 15K course. The race was meticulously executed. This spring, I took place in the race again and also enjoyed it. As a result, I was quite excited to see they had a fall 10K championship race planned for late October. I signed up right away.

Fast forward a few months. Suddenly the championship was a standard 9 miler. The October race would be another Bone Frog Challenge. I had been excited for the shorter course, but this struck me as fine. They didn’t have enough racers, I presume, to support a championship — it would be too challenging for people to qualify. (I had signed up for the open wave, for which you did not have to qualify.)

The weather in New England is a fickle thing. Thursday I drove home in a swarm of snow. We got around 3″. Bone Frog posted pictures on Facebook of Berkshire East with obstacles covered in snow. Bone Frog’s course features two water crossings. All I could do was shake my head.

The morning of Bone Frog, I left my house at 7:00 a.m. to make it to the venue for my 9:00 a.m. wave. I live fairly close — less than an hour away — and it was an easy drive. Parking ($10 per car) was a breeze. The turn out was a lot less than for the May event, making both parking and registration a snap. Volunteers were plentiful down in the festival area and on the course. The weather was dreadful, and these people are real champions!

I connected with my fellow Spahten and good friend, Matt Puntin. Cool things about Matt include almost everything (i.e. He has obstacles in his backyard!); however, today’s cool thing was that he’d agreed to run Bone Frog with me, despite the fact that I am quite a bit slower. I was seriously off my game during the race, and having Matt with me was key to finishing. Having a good battle buddy makes all the difference.

The weather in Charlemont was unfortunate. It was damp, at times rainy, and in the low to mid 30s. There was snow on the mountain. Everything was slippery and wet. The saving grace, was that there was no wind, but this was still going to be a rough day.

Our 9:00 a.m. wave was pretty small. There were a lot of fellow NE Spahtens. Some others had chosen to do the Tier 1 Challenge, which involves doing the 9 mile Challenge course followed by the 3 mile Sprint course. They had taken off about 15 minutes prior. We had some brief announcements — a good thing in the cold — and then we were off!

The 9 mile course was almost a reversed version of the course in May with stripped down obstacles. Of the Bone Frog Challenges I’ve done, this will not rank as a favorite. I’ll go through the course map and some of the obstacles to give a bit of a breakdown of the course with my feedback.

The course featured around three dozen obstacles; however, this included a lot of repeat obstacles:

• Four wire crawls and one net crawl
• Two sets of tires to hop through
• Two sets of tires on horizontal logs to go over
• Two water crossings

I should remark that I was definitely having an “off day.” The course did not engage me, I was very uncomfortable, and my performance was lackluster. I am deeply effected by the cold, and I had a challenging day.

There was a lot of trail running during the course. The trails were great. They were technical. The terrain was slippery and people were sliding all over; however, the paths were interesting. There was a lot of climbing up and down the mountain, but there was equally a lot of cutting across the mountain on single track trails. A problem though was that the trails were not as well marked as they could have been. I have never gotten lost on a course during the day. (And only once gotten ever so slightly off course — missing less than 50 feet — during the night.) During Bone Frog, we got lost twice. The second time, we ended up having to cut across the mountain and underneath the mountain coaster at Berkshire East. Yikes! Also, for the third time, I wished that the course had mile markers.

The low turnout, while bad for Bone Frog, meant that there were no hold-ups at the obstacles. The course moved smoothly. While there weren’t any new obstacles I can name, there were a lot of fun ones from the past. I’m a fan of the Solar Walls, which are two huge walls of at least 15′ with a rope to climb them. My hands were frozen from the crawl right before, so I had to use my legs around the rope to make sure I didn’t slip down. I also like Slide for Life. Here, you climb through a hole in a platform and then go down a traverse rope. This is unique obstacle and fun. I have to get a boost to reach the hole in the platform, but then I’m good to go.

I should mention that many Bone Frog obstacles are not short-person friendly. I cannot reach on Slide for Life, Swingers Club, Get a Grip, Drunken Monkey, or Black Ops. I also have yet to complete Swingers Club and Get a Grip, both of which are obstacles where you swing from hanging grip to hanging grip. Drunken Monkey, peg monkey bars at varying heights, I have made. Today, I was able to climb up and grab a bar, but this left me unable to get to another. Also, they were super wet, and I kind of fell half off. Matt seemed quite alarmed, and I did not elect to try again. I have made Black Ops at my first two races but did not complete it today. I made it up the rope climb but did not attempt the monkey bars, which were dripping wet. I couldn’t feel my fingers at this point, and was doing my best to just keep moving and make it to the end. Like I said, I did not have a fantastic race and did not make a number of obstacles I normally would have.

There were a few carries — the Ammo Carry for the first obstacle and the Wreck Bag Carry. Both were very short and manageable. I even found them easy. This was a great relief! I enjoyed a number of the cargo climbs and, as always, had fun on the walls. They have a number of thru walls, which are a nice way of mixing it up.

I ended up finishing this race in just over three hours. It was my fastest Bone Frog yet, due entirely to the reduced number of obstacles and zero wait time due to low turnout.

All and all, I would give this race a 3.5 out of 5 stars. (Though I would give having Matt as my battle buddy five stars for sure.) The course was less diverse than I might have hoped, with lots of repetition, and the obstacles were less interesting than in the past. I have never gone off course before and found the markings to be a bit lacking. That being said, the volunteers were great and we got an awesome medal and t-shirt. (Though I still miss the shirts from 2015, which were the best finisher shirts ever and even came in curvy fit!) The weather, which is no one’s fault, definitely put a damper on the day and made the race a whole lot less fun. Still, no matter what, Bone Frog has some really great obstacles. I’ve seen them several times now, and might be a bit jaded, but I don’t take for granted the good work that they do.

I won’t be able to make the May race since I’m running the Vermont City Marathon the following weekend. However, I look forward to doing Bone Frog again soon. It’s a #racelocal favorite, and while this fall’s race was not their strongest showing, I’ll be back.