* From: Beth Jones
* Event: CMC Poconos
* Date: 2014-05-17
* Event Details
Parking: Fantasitc. Plenty of onsite parking and was FREE. This was a huge perk of the race.
Facilities: The Camelbak Ski resort was absolutely brilliant. Great place for the race and excellent spectator places to watch the race. There were portapotties by the pit and by the registration area. Also some on course. The park toilets were open for people to use as well.
Vendors: Once again quite a few vendors. Again, the park also had their vendors open so there was a nice variety of foods (They offered Paleo meals from Custom Fit Meals) and was very happy to see the Wreck Bag vendor there. I did miss the Zico vendor.
Schwag: A nice cotton finishers shirt, custom dog tags and a drawstring bag. The bag was from Vitamin Shoppe. Admittedly, I miss their own branded bags, but this was a decent quality bag. I love the dog tags and love that they are custom for each event.
* Race Details
The race was phenomenal!! Started off with the PIT – 5 minute AMRAP with a 5, 7, 9 rep scheme. I did Alpha which was 5 burpees, 7 box jumps and 9 situps. After the PIT, the race began. We went immediately into the wading pool which had some pretty gnarly waves for the shorter folks. From there, several ladders, and the Brooklyn Bridge was early this turn. Some other obstacle highlights – the snow crawl and mound of snow climb was rather interesting to say the least. CMC made excellent use of the terrain, so some of the climbs up the ski slopes were awesome! With the help of the previous day’s weather, we did one stretch of climb in a running stream. The fun part of the climbs were that while they never seemed to end! Beautiful trails in this park, so there was always great views and scenery to keep you engaged. We ended the race with wading through the tubing pool to the finish line.
There was ample water stops on the course. The volunteers were great as usual, and there were plenty of first aid people and lifeguards near the water. The course was also extremely well marked.
After the race, you went to get your bag and shirt. It was off to the side, so no crowding of the finish line. The one downer was that the beer seemed to be Coors Light, even though there was a local brewery. Also, as happens in many races, nothing for the non beer drinkers. I would love to see more races offer cider or wine as an alternative so we all can enjoy the post race drink.
Overall, a seriously great event. CMC definitely know how to put on a race, and I will definitely be back next year!
* Rating
Excellent
—————-
* From: chris jones
* Event: cmc Pocahontas
* Date: 2014-05-17
* Event Details
Parking is on site, hard standing and could not be better there is an extremely convenient hotel too, the chateau. There was also a nice range of vendors including the marines, air force and some naval geezer in his fatigues taking pictures. The race goody bag contained a t shirt in Cotton shame it wasn’t a technical shirt and a set of dog tags unique to this race. Very nice.
The event was typified by excellent organisation and friendliness. This was probably the most enjoyable event I have done in 4 years of OCR .
DO IT
* Race Details
I was a pit virgin, I am also a crossfit virgin ( and proud of it) so I was a bit baffled by the concept of the pit. There was no need really, it is possible to avoid those metallic bits n bobs so I stuck to burpees, step ups and sit ups thereby avoiding doing myself a mischief. The course itself started with the wave pool, different, it was hilly and challenging including snow a real cold pile of the white stuff. Obstacles were different overhanging wall climbs, swinging ladders, nothing that could not be done though. There were about 5 water stations lots of first aid people and stewards certainly the best organised course I have run. This was not a tough mudder course.
This was an event I would do again
* Rating
Excellent
