Fun! My goal for Savage Race 2018 was to have a good time and chill with my NE Spahten friends. Check and check. I already have plans to register for 2019.
Savage Race came up to New England for the first time in 2017. I had been eager to check it out and, if you read my blog post from that race, it didn’t disappoint. Savage Race prides itself on having the best obstacles and being the perfect distance. Well, this is somewhat true. Savage has some great obstacles and does an amazing job of blending challenging obstacles that will make the pro’s work hard with obstacles that are downright just for hahas. Think crazy inclined monkey bars juxtaposed against a mammoth water slide, and you have some of an idea of the variety here. All of Savage’s courses are 5 – 7 miles in length. Both of the times I’ve run, we’ve topped out at just over seven miles, so a little on the longer end. It’s enough to be an adventure while still being attainable and not too much of a beat-down for your average athlete.
Saturday morning of Savage Race dawned cool with clouds and temperatures in the mid-60s. Not bad considering that the race venue, Carter & Stevens Farm in Barre, Massachusetts, is wide open fields. I was happy. I hopped in the car and drove the 40 minute drive to Barre. Official Savage parking was $10 with a shuttle bus to the venue. The parking + bus combo is a real “no” for me. Fortunately, Barre has tons of local parking from $5 to $20, all within walking distance to the venue. I opted for the cheapest $5 parking, which was about a quarter mile away from the farm and totally walkable. I was pumped to avoid a motion-sickness-inducing bus ride.
At Carter & Stevens, the Savage team had everything organized. I quickly checked my bib number on a sign adjacent to registration, signed my waver, and got in line to get my timing chip and bib. The wait couldn’t have been more than a minute or two. From there, it was a quick walk over to the NE Spahtens tent, right next to the finish line in the heart of the festival area.
Savage Race does the festival area right. Heavy on food options, light on the overbearing music. (Seriously, I really dislike it when the festival areas have earsplitting music. Thank you to all the races that do not do this. It’s very nice to be able to actually talk with our friends at the races and hear one another and not be overwhelmed with sound.) Savage had a merch tent, which you had to pass through to get from registration to the festival area. Sponsors, such as Rxbar, were in evidence. There were three or four food trucks, including a pizza oven. Carter & Stevens own Stone Cow Brewery was providing the post-race beers. There were changing tents, hoses, and ample portable bathroom, including a sink with water right outside.
Last year, Savage Race, was an unofficial reunion for my Ragnar Cape Cod and Ragnar Trail Team, the NES Ninjas. I was pleased when a few days before this year’s race, many members of the team indicated they’d be at the 2018 Savage Race. A trip over to the NES tent to coordinate my gear pre-race didn’t disappoint. All of the best people were there! (Almost…we were missing a couple.) I was excited to join forces with fellow Ninjas Jess (our captain!), Bobby, and Shaina, plus a couple of brave significant others.
After the elite wave went off at 9:00 a.m., the NE Spahtens team wave was next. We headed off to the start line. There, we experienced the normal OCR-style pre-race announcer fanfare before heading onto the course.
Carter & Stevens has the benefit of being a fairly flat venue, which is something I enjoy. That being said, the terrain is pretty uneven, with areas that are not unlike Swiss cheese. Ankles beware! The course was mercifully dry this year, which made it much easier to navigate, unlike the marsh that was last year’s course. Similar to last year, my group adopted a strategy where we ran most of the flats and downhills, if the course wasn’t too uneven. (We called this “green light.”) We walked really technical sections or anything even close to being considered uphill. (We called this “red light.”) This “strategy” ensured maximum fun and allowed us to finish in around 2:41, aka. by noon / lunch time.
Many of the obstacles from last year were back for 2018. Savage Race did some permanent build at Carter & Stevens in 2017, meaning that the larger obstacles were similarly placed. It’s a huge testament to Savage that the course nonetheless felt totally fresh. The order of the other obstacles was varied and the trails were adjusted a good deal. Nothing felt stale.
Of course, the main focus in OCR is the obstacles. Here’s a rundown of the course.
1. Low Crawl: Like it sounds, a crawl under barbed wire. Unlike some races where crawls are no longer under barbed wire, Savage retains the spiky stuff, so be careful!
2. Squeeze Play: For this obstacle, we had to squeeze our way under three sets of swiveling barrels that were set close to the grounds. Being smaller was definitely a benefit here.
3. Barn Doors: Ladder wall.
4. Backscrather: Alternating five foot walls and short crawls. I seem to recall three walls and two sets of crawls.
5. Blazed: Fire jump. The flames were not too high, so it was just a matter of being mindful and taking a good leap. Naturally, this is a premo photo op, so we paired off to make the most of it. I’m pretty sure that Jess and I will be looking down at our feet in our picture just to make sure we aren’t burning our toes.
10. Mad Ladders: This obstacle featured a common rope ladder, followed by a rope with rungs, a cargo net, and then another set of rope with rungs and rope ladder. I recalled that last year, this was actually a bit more tricky than I thought it would be, especially with how the second rope rotated a ton. I did better this year by staying up high and not spending much time on the rope with rungs.
11. Mud N Guts: Muddy barbed wire crawl.
12. Wheel World: This obstacle was awesome! It consisted of four horizontal wheels that you had to grab and spin from one to the next. Grip strength required. This obstacle was pretty high up — a complaint of mine from last year, when I needed a boost to get onto the first wheel. I managed to climb up the scaffolding to get onto the wheel this time. Last year, a lot of people slipped back into the water on the dismount, so this this time they had added a rope. This was great, and I was able to make it the entire way through. Also, no back-ups at this obstacle this year (compared to a 10 minute wait last year) — well done, Savage Race, for making this adjustment.
13. Davy Jones’ Locker: 15 foot jump from a platform into the water below. I’m not afraid of heights, so this proved no problem, but I definitely can see how this might give people pause. I will say, that if I were to hover looking over the edge it would be harder. I climbed up and went for it — fun times.
14. Great Wall: Eight foot large wall. I was able to grab the slide and use it to stabilize and jump for the top, where I could pull myself over.
15. Twirly Bird: Twirly Bird was the only obstacle I failed at my first Savage Race, and it bested me again this year. It was a rig where you have to “swing from your standard ring grips to a mop-like cluster of rope strands without touching the ground.” The rope strands were extremely hard to manage. I tried twice before realizing that I’d need some coaching around technique to get this.
16. Big Cheese: A neat twist on a common theme. This is not your standard wall. Instead, it’s a quarter circle with little cheese-sized wedges cut out for you to climb.
17. Me So Thorny: Another crawl. This one had enforced lanes with barbed wire on both the top and the sides! The volunteer at this obstacle was hilarious and made my day. He kept saying, “Eight obstacles to go. Unless you just arrived — then it’s nine. Or 8.5 if you’re in the middle of this one.” Hehe.
18. Battering Ram: This obstacle was new this year, and to be honest, I’m a bit “meh” about it. The obstacle featured a hand grip hanging around a pole. You have to kip to move the grip along and then transition to a second grip where you do the same thing over again. Below is an image from Savage to illustrate. I found it hard to get the ram to move at all but perhaps more time would have perfected my technique. As it was, I got about a quarter of the way across before abandoning ship. I tried again, and found the one on the new lane pretty jammed. I’ll try again next year.
19. Block Party: Pull a cinder block on a rope up a short incline and then carry it down again. Bonus: Half of the cinder block was filled with concrete. The block was heavy without being impossible, and I was able to move it without too much difficulty.
20. Savage Rig: This rig was awesome! I love a good rig, and the Savage Rig was an especially good one. The rig started with a couple of rings, a rope, and a low ring to step in. You then transitioned over a horizontal bar. From there, next up was another rope, followed by a ring. I opted to grab the rope from my seat on top of the horizontal bar and swing for all I was worth, smashing the bell. Nailed it!
21. Colossus: This two part obstacle starts with a 16 foot quarter pipe. You then have to climb a ladder before descending from the 24 foot structure via an almost vertical water slide. This entire obstacle is kind of insane! I loved the quarter pipe (which has ropes at the top, so it was no problem to pull myself up). I don’t adore slides, but I manage. Kudos to my teammates Jess and, especially, Shaina who are afraid of the slides but both did awesome. The slide was well constructed and so fast that I hardly remember going down it. I recall sitting at the top and then smashing into the water. Crazy.
22. Holy Sheet: This is another new obstacle for Savage. Here, you are hanging from a sheet that you move along using only your hands, before transitioning to a set of small ball grips to swing to the end. Yikes. This was a tough one. I made it along the sheet and went to transition to the small ball and completely missed and ended up hanging just from a danging piece of sheet. Not good. Nothing to do but call this on a miss.
23. Nuttsmasher: This obstacle is a set of kind of wobbly balance beams over water. We legit saw a racer almost seriously smash his nuts when his foot slipped near the end. (For those who are worried; he was okay — he hit his knee.) Yeesh.
24. Sawtooth: Monkey bars with a twist! Sawtooth is one of Savage Race’s signature obstacles and one I loved last year and was excited to do again. The 35 foot span starts with uphill monkey bars and transition to a “tooth” where you have to kip up to a higher bar. From there you transition to downhill monkey bars. This obstacle, according to Savage Race, has a 40% completion rate. I enjoyed completing it on my first try again this year. (Bonus: The bars started down low enough that I could reach on my own!)
25. Pedal for the Medal: I am going to give this sponsor-themed obstacle a bit of a meh, definitely a meh considering it was the final obstacle. Racers had to lay on their backs and pedal their feet on a giant wheel to pull in a tire. It was interminable and a bit of a let down for the final obstacle considering the other epic offerings!
We crossed the finish line, clocking in just over seven miles and 25 obstacles in around 2:41. What a fun event!
I availed myself of a free post-race beer from Stone Cow and some Mediterranean food from a truck. (Though I totally missed the Baby Berk food truck from last year with their tatter tot poutine!)
Once again, Savage Race will go down as one of my favorite events of the year. Why? Because it’s so darn enjoyable! Good friends, engaging obstacles, a challenging but do-able distance. What’s not to like. See you back there next July.
