Battle Frog Boston (Barre)

I have a decent selfie game, Thanks Nicole

So ever since last year, In NJ, at one of the first Battle frog races, I heard, read, and saw awesome things about this race company. Hard as hell, with really cool, and unseen before obstacles. And they kept that reputation going strong from last year, now I know nobody wants to say they have an easy race. Especially when you have the image of the navy seals you are portraying. But when you have awesome obstacles, that people struggled with, and athletes on facebook telling you how great and hard everything was. I really expected more from them, a LOT MORE, but that is because they flooded the market with their name, and the image of a harder race. So I am okay at these races, faster than some, slower than others. But This race really did not live up to the hype in my opinion, There were a bunch of excuses that I heard third hand, so I can not repeat them. The RD is pretty cool, and after talking to him, I am even more bummed that I can not make his other races, because he seems to know how to have fun at a race. But there were some things I just can not look past. For instance, the rope climb, really early in the race, between 2 trees, only one set, and at most it felt like a foot apart from each other, Now when you have so many ropes close to each other and have so many racers, you wind up hitting each other, several times each rope. They really should have spaced them out and put another set up between another set of trees, or put them somewhere that they could build a standing structure. The issues I had with the obstacles continue, For example the wreck bag carry was 50lbs only, nothing lighter for the girls, and I saw several women out there that clearly barley weighted 100! and what about the kids that are running the adult course! The last obstacle, the tip, which consisted of A frame walls, connected with 2x6's to walk across, and you had to traverse by hanging ropes, then finger grip at the top of the walls. So I like the obstacle, and it was an example that they can give you a challenge, but they need to work on it. So I weigh about 180, Tall, and when I was the only person on the wall, the middle support 4x4 on the ground lifted up, I knew I was fine, but the amount it moved for a little person like me, it would have been scarier for people that weighed over 200, and I heard that it was scary for people bigger than me, proving that they need to work on proper building, the quality NEEDS to be better. The penalty they give out for failing an obstacle are 10, 8 count body builders (see video below) which I like, I had to stop myself from jumping, but I like that they do not tax you as much as say 30 burpees.

2014 (thanks Nicole) vs 2015 (Thanks fellow spahten)

This is cool, From the battlefrog FB page

They also did not have a whole mess of obstacles that they had at previous ones, warped wall, traverse ropes, monkey bars, traverse walls. They did however have tire flips that I like, but seldom see at races. They have 3 sets of incline or decline walls, fun, and different from just solid walls, I like the idea to do something different, They had a decline "wall" that was climbing up several metal poles across, which was different and fun. Barbless barbwire crawl, which is great because it was less than a foot off the ground, except for the ditches they dig, but it was nice to not have sharp steel to avoid.

Pro's:

•  Fun course (even if it was not as challenging as advertised
• Huge swag for biggest teams (buff, extra beer, free parking for1/4 of us, bracelet, and shirt and sleeves to be mailed at a later date)
• BFX bracelet got you to the front of the line at all obstacles, the volunteers knew this and told you to go to the front and nobody said anything about it, nice touch
•  barb wire crawl had NO BARBS, pretty low, but nothing sharp! It is nice to not get scraped in the race
• No full submerge in mud, I truly feel like it is not needed in an ocr, and is a nice change of pace
• The course was seriously well marked, it was obvious where the trail went ,they had plenty of arrows, and way more of those tiny flags, seriously, you really would have had to tried to get lost

Con's:

• Portapotties, wile clean, and nice, were placed uneven, and in almost the same location as Spartan race put them in the super the month before at the same venue. to the point that i almost fell off often wile sitting down
•  BFX was not explained well at all: nobody knew where we were putting our drop boxes, no one looked over them, the fact that we were able to skip obstacles was explained at the last min, The wrist bands were not given out until the meeting before the race
• signing up for BFX means signing up for elite, then making several phone calls, and paying more fees, so it was an absolute pain in the but to reg for it. there were issues with people being reg'ed for it, ect
• very different from last years races, they are dulled way down, and there was a bunch of contradicting reasons from staff of all levels (much easier, except that the rig was "the longest in the world" dulled down slide, and generally easier obstacles, with various different reasons as to why. The company Is changing direction, but not advertising it, so they are still saying they are a hard race, when in reality they are a starter race, with a few of the harder obstacles
• The "tsunami" Obstacle from last year was much cooler, and harder, It was a warped wall to a warped slide down, Which looked really cool, and just an example of the shift in the company
• the rope climb had too many ropes too close to each other, to the point that everybody kicked, kneed, or somehow hit the people on either side, and got hit as well with nothing a racer could do about it
• barely any shower space at all, luckily there were not that many people there that day, but for the BFX people they had run out of water, major bummer
• Start line Announcer left a WHOLE lot to be desired! Elite started early no countdown, no anything, just odd, and very unhyped, and left a whole bunch to be desired. However, Coach pain Dewayne, announced for BFX, He did great, but he seemed to switch rolls shortly afterwards, He should have been the one to announce all day, the other guys was bad, and I heard they had several start line announcers at the start through the day.
• Bag check was not marked, and so few people that I was waiting for like 10 min with nobody next to me right in front of my bag, missed several times by the volunteer and the employee working bag check. They zip tied the bags together, and onto a metal fence wall inside of the tent, which was odd, but it worked, to cluster the bags by bibs, and no bib numbers on the outside of the tent
•  The womens changing tent was next to drop box area for BFX, and they did not fully close off the tent, I hope nobody else noticed!
• 16k course, 15k medals, they still have the old medals for the new course, not a huge grip, but still, kind of disapointing considering the fact that they are trying to be a big name in OCR, trying to be with the big boys (Spartan, Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash). They have a differnt medal for just the 8k, and a pretty badass one for BFX
• No mile markers anywhere 
• The buses were really far apart, I heard several friends complain about the long wait, I do not know if that is just the venue, or what, but it seemed longer than most races I have done

Now I am being kind of hard on them, but they kind of asked for it. They have been hitting social media really hard ever since their inception, to the point of high annoyance, way beyond just getting their name out there. And they pushed for the whole really hard race, and did not live up to expectations. On race day it was explained that they are changing the direction of the company, and I had heard about a whole mess of layoffs, that being said, they never pushed their re branding anywhere. So going into it, I, Like may other people expected a lot, and felt as if they over promised, and under delivered, by a lot. To be fair, BFX was fun, even if getting registered was a pain, and disorganized (much like a bunch of festival, and pre race morning) and I am sore in the shoulders and upper back from running  3 laps, but they still left me wanting more from them. When they changed the race from 15k and 5k races on the same day and went with 8k or 16k, It really changed the dynamic of the race, and being told to run twice if you kept your original 15k, at least there was a route around the festival area so you did not have to deal with the start line. You did have to deal with people being on your course, because it was minimally marked, and 2 of the three times I had to go into deep grass, and not know where my footing was, because people were waiting for friends to leave the showers, and nobody explained to them, and I was too busy focusing on getting around them to say something, but they were most likely spectators that had no idea what was going on.

So They also just opened up reg for next year, and sent an email to participants with a 50% off code, wile offering 40% off from before memorial day to just before this race. This is just another thing that makes me weary about this company. Super hero scramble did the same thing at amesbury last year, wile the race was great, it was their last one, I do not think Battle frog is as bad, but they do not inspire confidence, I may do another race again, but I will have to volunteer, as I am concerned about paying in advance for one of these races. If they are around next year, and have a better venue, I may do it again, but I am on the fence.

Until Next time
Stay active
Stephen