Overcoming all obstacles

Corey Spilski works at Sinclair Refinery as a welder in one life and a serious competitor in Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) in another.

OCR is a sport in which a competitor, traveling on foot, must overcome various physical challenges in the form of obstacles. The races are designed to result in mental and physical collapse.

Obstacles include, but are not limited to, climbing over walls, carrying heavy objects, traversing bodies of water, crawling under barbed wire and jumping through fire. Many obstacles are similar to those used in military training while others are unique to obstacle racing and are employed throughout the course to test endurance, strength, speed and, dexterity. Races vary in both distance and challenge level, combining trail running, road running, and cross country running.

The concept of using obstacles for an endurance event is a contemporary phenomenon. It is widely thought the Tough Guy is the oldest obstacle course race, with the first race in 1987.

Since OCR's inception in 1987 there have been many variations of courses created to draw in a wide variety of athletes.

There are sprint courses ranging from one mile to five miles.

Then there are endurance courses that require an athlete to race a course anywhere from 24-100 miles. There are also events that are based on hours. The 24 hour World's Toughest Mudder is an OCR that tests a person's mental and physical ability.

OCR is relatively new to the racing circuit and the World Championships had their fourth year at Blue Mountain.

Spilski said he was Rawlins born and bred. After graduating high school he attended college in Casper where he attained a welding degree. Once he graduated, he came back to Rawlins and worked construction on the State Penitentiary project. From there he joined the workforce at Sinclair Refinery. He has been with Sinclair for 16 years.

Spilski learned about OCR about five years ago from a co-worker at Sinclair, and tried it for fun.

"After I ran the first race and found out how much fun it was, I found a new hobby," Spilski said. "I ran races a few years just for fun and then the year before last, I said, what the heck, I might as well compete."

Spilski does well in the competitive age class of 35-39. In OCR, there is a pro class and then there is the age competitor class.

"Age class competitor has some real elite athletes when it comes to these races," Spilski said. "Pro is amazing."

To train for OCR, Spilski is in the gym six days a week for two to three hours where he does a mix of running and weights.

The OCR World Championships on Oct. 13 held in Blue Mountain, Ontario, had him place 66 out of a competitive field of 309 in the 15K race . His time was 3:03:25. A race must be finished by five hours or the time will not count. Not all that started the race completed the course. The grueling event had only 51 percent finish the race.

"Completing a course isn't easy and usually I run a 15K race faster," Spilski said. "The footing was horrible and 90 percent of these obstacles, I had never seen much less done before."

There were 67 nations represented with over 4,000 competitors all told.

Spilski said the Blue Mountain championship was not only challenging because of the obstacles, but also due to weather.

"It was a three day event and rained every day-and that can make it so much harder," Spilski said. "Plus it was steep terrain and after falling a couple times, I had to slow down so I didn't seriously hurt myself."

The only other person he knew of competing at the Blue Mountain from Wyoming was another man in the open competition from Rawlins. Spilski is not positive there were no other competitors from Wyoming.

States surrounding Wyoming have OCR competitions with exception of South Dakota. The Cowboy State does not have competitions yet either, but going south to Colorado there are several.

Spilski said a course contains obstacles that are similar to what is used in armed forces boot camp.

"It is about pushing the body to the limit," Spilski said.

He gave examples of what a competitor might encounter running.

"There are uneven monkey bars, rope climbs, heavy carry obstacles such as sandbags, crawling under barbed wire and scaling walls," Spilski said. "Then there is the Platinum Rig Two obstacle course that has rings, rope, low monkey bars, crawl under a cargo net and climb over on the other to ring a bell."

Spilski is nationally ranked No. 6 in his age group and said that is how he got to go to the world championships. To be invited, a competitor had to be in the top 20 of his age group nationally.

He said a typical race has a couple hundred runners, so his ranking is impressive.

Spilski said none of his racing would be possible without the support of family, friends, co-workers and business sponsors. He said sponsors are essential. As OCR is getting more popular, it is getting more expensive to be able to compete.

"I could not do this without the sponsors, family and friends," Spilski said. "All that help me are equally important for what they contribute to get me to these races."

He said his family is always there waiting for him at the finish line.

"One family member or six, there is always someone there waiting for me," Spilski said.

He is signed up for five races so far for 2018 and has plans to enter three others making it a total of of eight. He is going to do his best to qualify again this year for the 2018 OCR championships that are going to be held in London.

Spilski encourages others to get involved in OCR. He recommends watching videos of races that are on the internet because pictures and verbally describing races does not show the intensity needed to compete.

He said people should not be intimidated by the sport because it is fun. Spilski does encourage friends and co-workers to try OCR.

"If I can get one person off the couch and train for this sport, it is worth talking about and encouraging others to try it," Spilski concluded.