You will have seen many many posts from me about OCR and many more about Nuclear Races. During their Rush and Fallout events, and also taster sessions the routes often go through the Wild Forest Obstacle Activity Centre. And yet outside of the events I had never been.
On Saturday I was signed up for my induction and was going with my friend Emma. For some reason, despite loving going to Nuclear, I woke up that morning feeling incredibly nervous. I have an injury and knew there were some things I would have to miss or take it easy on but as it was an induction didn’t think this would be too much of an issue. Then I started thinking what if everyone else was amazing and I am not. Total crisis of confidence.
Then I found out a friend Chris from Nuclear was taking the session and it made me feel better knowing that I would have a friendly face there. Plus my friend Emma doesn’t drive so I had to go. I don’t know what I was worrying about as I got there, felt right at home and Chris was amazing.
The intention of the induction is to go round the course with an instructor who provides advice on all the obstacles and explains the centre. Once you have your induction you are then able to visit the centre to train in future.
The centre has loads to offer including a 2.7km run with obstacles, a 346m jump course with 32 different jumps that is great practice for when you are taking part at Nuclear as it makes great use of the natural terrain that includes lots of ditches and jumps.
There are also running trails that are clearly marked set within the forest and a large section for core and weight work and hanging/balance style obstacles.
Following our induction Emma and I spent more time at the centre going back over every obstacle and following the trail sections. We were lucky to bump into Tracey who also works at Nuclear as she was training as well as some members of Nuclear Phoenix (Nuclear Races Pro OCR team). Everyone is so friendly and so willing to give advice, lend a hand and help out. There is no feeling of worrying you are not good enough and as I have learned before from sessions with Coach Scotty at The PT Barn the advice given is invaluable and with simple techniques you are able to make an obstacle more achievable.
I am thinking about what I want to achieve in 2018 already and I know that it will involve more time at both the PT Barn and Wild Forest working on technique and building confidence.
If you are training for an obstacle race why not head down to Nuclear and check their facilities out.
Word of warning – if you do the log carry then try not to drop the log on your foot as you finish like I did! Busy filming for my blog and carrying a log do not go hand in hand!
Leave a Reply