So you've been following your diet and exercise guide for a month now, and starting to feel pretty good about yourself. That's awesome! Keep it up!

You might have set some goals already, but why not train for something just a little different?

Mud runs, or obstacle course races, are not your typical road race. They feature lots of new and interesting obstacles (think kids game shows from Nickelodeon), lots of mud, and a ton of fun.

I'm sure you've seen some of these races on TV lately. Spartan Race does a ton of stuff with NBC Sports and Tough Mudder had one of their large events televised this year. But those are far from the only races you might enter.

So if you're just getting started and would like to know what might be around us, or where you can go to get your feet wet in the world of OCR, here's a couple races that you can hit up this year.

Spartan Race: Competitive and fast.

There are A LOT of Spartan Races, both local and nationally. I'll be posting more around us in the future, but this is just in the immediate Hudson Valley.

April 29th. Vernon, NJ. Beast Distance (12-14 miles)
May 13th. Citi Field, Queens. Sprint Distance (-3-5 miles)
June 3rd and 10th. Tuxedo NY. 
Sprint Distance (3 -5 miles)
August 26th. West Point. Spring Distance. (3-5 miles)
November 4th. Vernon NJ.
Super Distance (8-10 miles)

Tough Mudder: More team oriented. More original obstacles.

July 22nd, Long Island. 2 distances. (5 and 10-12 miles)
October 7th, Trenton NJ. 2 distances. (5 and 10-12 miles)

Warrior Dash: Less tough obstacles. More "field day" vibe.

May 20th, Warwick. (3.4 miles.)

Those are really the big 3 in terms of national races. There are others (Savage, Bone Frog, etc) and smaller local races I'll get to later. For now, those are plenty of races to spend money on and train for.

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