Wild People Run 2019, Belgien

It was a Sunday during my holidays. A little run took my attention. Nearby my home in Belgium is a village named Walhorn. I like to try new OCR formats and new things. So it wasn’t a question: I registered and took part!

After 10 minutes warm up, we started the 10km long track. More precisely I started at this distance. It’s up to every single runner to choose his own distance out of 5km, 7,5km and 10km and it was also possible to choose it during the run. It’s a nice feature for all who didn’t know who long they could run and a good feature for OCR newbies.

Let me say it was (and I don’t say this is a bad idea) more a trail run with obstacles. The track was very funny to run. Very varied underground - absolutely my favorite! The Obstacles were more or less all at the event area. Think positive: At this way the runners have the most possible viewers at the obstacles and the viewers will have the best view at all “important” parts. But on the other hand (for some not so sporty starters) the running parts are long.

The Obstacles weren’t very hard to do. Remind you: It was a very small run with less than 200 starters. Let’s show at two obstacles:

Balance over a lake. Take a lake, some pols and bars and it’s prepared. You should not and would not want to get wet. It seems to be easy but after 5km and with a high pulse it is not. You need to take control of your body. Got back from power mode to relaxed mode. Give it a try and you will see what I mean. You don’t need the big obstacles to challenge yourself.

The other one was the last one and it was a bit reckless by the organizer (my opinion!). I hope the operators only wanted to do it the best way they could. But more is not always the best way. A knee-high tunnel full of foam. Sounds like fun and - yes - it sounds like this for me at the start too. I don’t know how long the tunnel was, but it was too long. You can’t breathe, but you need to! You can’t see but you need to! And I breathed and as expected, I inhaled the foam. And unfortunately, I did it very deeply. Cough and gagging was the result. And it’s not just me. Every runner behind me had more or less the same problems.

Let me start my summary with the good things: It was a nice little run and a welcome change to an “normal” Sunday run. I will take part in it again next year.

But safety first! Some points need to be improved: At first the foam tunnel as I explained. The second thing: Never install tarpaulins and grids firmly and tight. If someone gets in panic and have to leave an obstacle as quickly as possible (by himself) this is absolutely necessary.

Once again: I will be back next year! Let’s rock it!