Trois-Rivières Canada BattleFrog (AKA Marco Frog) By Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)
I have probably completed more OCR’s in Canada then any American in the past two race seasons and one thing I learned early and often, is that BattleFrog race director and elite racer Marco Bédard is a constant face you get to know at almost every Canadian OCR, and it’s not just racing, but he also can be seen hanging out and helping after he races, so I had been excited since it was announced he would be designing the Montreal course. I also happen to be a huge fan of the Rushwood venue and had high expectations the course would both be awesome and very challenging.
I by no means want to take any credit away from the BattleFrog build team and staff, but I am confident that no one else in Canada could have pulled off the course and cooperation of several obstacle course race companies that Marco was able to do this for this course. Marco is held in such a high esteem and respect that other companies like XMAN Race and Rushwood whom both have busy schedules made time to come help build the race course.
I have completed eleven BattleFrog races and this was not your typical BattleFrog race and for that reason I have decided to personally refer to this race/event as Marco Frog. Which again, is not to put down any other/previous BattleFrog races/events, but rather just raise my pleasure with this past weekend.
Registration and Festival
Registration was nice and fast early in the morning and I was able to get set up at the Xtreme tent right away.
The festival area was spread out, but that was a plus due to how the venue is set up and with the constant all day rain storm.
Pre-race MC
The main MC for the first time at a BattleFrog race for me wasn’t Coach Dewayne Pain, which was very odd and I personally missed him. This being a French speaking area of Canada, BattleFrog used an MC that spoke both French and English and he did a good job all day, and kept very active regardless of the weather.
For the Xtreme racers, Marco was our pre-race MC and he was amazing, his energy was so high and he just killed it as the MC and got everyone under the Xtreme tent (trying to stay dry) screaming, yelling and fired up. This was my eighth BattleFrog Xtreme and this was by far the best pre-race speech I have been part of to date. The funny thing is Marco thought he didn’t do a good job, I made sure to tell him he was dead wrong and killed it.
The Course
The course was almost exactly the advertised 8K and it used the Rushwood terrain to its fullest potential. The course had to be designed with several zig-zagging sections to fit the 8K distance, but it still included some very technical runs, climbs and descents perfectly. The addition of the all-day rain only made for a tougher and more challenging course, which I am convinced was all part of Marco’s master plan and he figured out a way to conjure the major rain storm.
The course started out right away entering the woods and I couldn’t help but think this is already different than how Rushwood’s race started last year. I am familiar with Rushwood, so I was expecting the course to right away have some tough trails go both up and down, but actually the first mile was pretty tame, I started to think maybe the course is going to be easier than I was expecting, but that was wiped from my mind pretty quick and we started having to climb both up and down some sections that were really slippery and muddy, I can tell you these trails are no walk in the park on a dry day, so now that they were wet, it made them much more of a challenge.
The course was well designed using basically using the staple obstacles from three Canadian races, BattleFrog, Rushwood, and XMAN race, so I personally being a big fan of all these race series was a very happy camper with the obstacles. As far as obstacles racers familiar with BattleFrog go, they included Platinum Rig # 1 and # 2 which as was to be expected played a major role in deciding the Elite podium finishers. BattleFrog also had its standard Monkey Bars, Wreck Bag Carry, Jerry Can Carry, and the HOOYAH obstacle.
XMAN Race also brought some of the obstacles I have come to know and love, such as the hanging monkey rings to leg/traverse across, the Ninja warrior type slanted short walls to hop/skip across, its combination straight bar and monkey bars obstacle, the tip of the spear was more so a tip of the needle, which was a modified version of the well-known BattleFrog obstacle redesigned by the XMAN Race team, they also had a few other very cool obstacles that I are unique to the XMAN race series.
The remainder of the massive amount of obstacles on the course were part of the Rushwood permanent course, like its awesome Warped wall, a slanted wall racers have to sprint up and climb down, that was tougher due to the rain, the Rushwood hoist, several Rushwood climbing obstacles that also were harder due to the rain, and several crawls that I have never enjoyed with my hydration back pack on.
I believe Platinum Rig also had one of its newer obstacles on the course that I commonly refer to as the Irish Table obstacle.
Being a course that didn’t use the typical BattleFrog arsenal of obstacles, most of them did not include a novice, intermediate, and Elite version, but the carries and Rigs did as this is the normal for BattleFrog courses this year.
The Bling
The bling has had a semi change for 2016, the finisher medals for the 8K and Elite are new, but the medal for the BFX is the same, which is cool, because it is still sexy and awesome. The shirt has a new color, logo, and simpler design for 2016 and what was interesting is several racers this weekend commented to me they did not like the new shirts and miss the original shirt with the BattleFrog on them. For the Canadian events BattleFrog has a special shirt, special BFX bracelet with the Canadian Red Maple leaf on them and for BFX racers that completed five laps they received a Maple Leaf in the place of the silver star. They didn’t actually have the stars and Maple Leafs with them this weekend and will have to mail them to all the BFX racers.
Overall Feelings and Event Rating
I so wanted to do at least three BFX laps on this course, but my back, which has been really bad for most of 2016 just wasn’t having it and I raced most of lap # 1 in major lower back pain and not able to stand up straight so I am very sad and embarrassed to say this was the first BattleFrog BFX I was not able to complete at least the required three laps!
I loved the course, I loved seeing obstacles from three OCR companies I have come to always look forward to racing. I cannot say enough good things about Marco and how hard he worked both race day and prior to make this race happen, he has such a passion and is an amazing ambassador for this sport and I personally think everyone should refer to this race as Marco Frog (sorry BattleFrog).
Like I always do, while I raced I think about how I plan to write these race recaps and what I plan to rate the race and everything was a five out of five, other than the lack of volunteers on the course, but then I remembered when I personally volunteered for BattleFrog in 2014 in NJ, USA (English Town) and it rained really hard the night before and most of the early day and this caused almost half of the volunteers to no show at the event, so I made it a point to ask several of the BattleFrog staff if that was the case this time and it was. If the volunteers that signed up (some being Elite racers) and committed to show and help out did, they would have been fine, so I am not going to deduct any points from my rating when it wasn’t BattleFrog’s fault. The BattleFrog staff worked hard and smiled all day and had an amazing passion to put on a great event, so I am giving this event/race 5 out of 5 stars.
I want to point out, I was personally critical of the Toronto BattleFrog only the week prior so it’s awesome to see BattleFrog/Marco step it up big time and they have a lot to live up to with future Canada races.
Text by : Walter F Hendrick ( OCRSandy )