A few weeks ago I trekked over the the west coast of Australia for some OCR action hosted by Red Dust and I wasn't disappointed!
About an hour south of Perth on a beautiful property in Keysbrook, Red Dust OCR ran their Momentum weekend which comprised of 4 x different events. There were 5km, 10km and 15km races, with obstacles being more plentiful and difficult the longer the race went. There was also a 6hr Delta-V event, an overnight endurance event inspired and run by ex military operators. After knowing about Red Dust for a while, I was thrilled to finally get over there and see the quality and attention to detail put into the events they have been running after starting a few years ago. Everything from course design, obstacle innovation and quality, overall branding and even the suppliers brought in to provide food were top notch and the weekend was a fantastic experience. Keep reading below for a lot of what went down including the elite report and my live podcast with the overall event winner.
THE ELITE REPORT I stood with the competitive athletes lining up for the elite 10km event on Saturday morning and conditions were sensational for a morning jaunt in the hills. Racing started hard and fast and front runner Sam Shepherd took off faster than I could manage. I was impressed by the course design and use of terrain, new race director Adrian is an OCR veteran and it showed with some clever use of the hills on course. In a fairly flat area, we were able to tally up 550m of vert across the 10.9km course. The venue was a good mix of terrain, it was the same place that Spartan hosted APAC back in 2017 if your OCR memory goes back that far. I ended up slowly reeling in competitor that had gotten the jump on me to take 2nd place elite in the 10km event, but I wasn't even close to superstar Shep who had me by at least 15 minutes. This one had special significance for me, It's the first time Dominika and I have both stood on the elite podium in the same race.
The day got significantly warmer for the 5km later, I decided to run with my gimbal and film the whole race start to finish. Once again the race was a little long, measuring 5.77km with 250m Vert on my Garmin Epix 2. I'm not ever concerned when an OCR event goes over, you should be training for the unexpected and in my opinion you're getting your moneys worth. You can catch the sped up footage over at my IG page to get an idea on how the course was, though I would argue that just like a Spartan event, the shortest race is always the least interesting in terms of terrain and obstacles. We returned the next day to run the 15km event, I ended up coming in 4th on tired legs, missing the podium by a few minutes. The event measured 15.2km with 783m vert and had some beautiful technical single trails, with loose footing and jagged rocks these were an interesting feature in the race for me. The big standout performance was by Shep, who absolutely demolished the competition in all three events, winning the 15km by half an hour. Victorian racer Shannon Hunkin also put in a stellar performance, taking the gold in both the 5km and 15km events and a silver in the 10.
Here on the men's podium for the 15km, OCR OG Shannon Dally is helping Shep to a well deserved shoey, the other shot has Shannon Hunkin and Dominika on the 5km elite podium. I grabbed a finish line chat with Shep that you can catch HERE
Catch my full Live podcast with Sam Shepherd by clicking HERE or the pic below
The Red Dust team are back on August 19th for their brand new Stamina event! This is going to be an Enduro style event north east of Perth with single lap, 3, 6 and 12hr options and I'm so fucking there for it! If you want more info, head to the Red Dust site HERE to check it out. Don't forget to use the discount code OMR for any tickets you get, either for Stamina or their November Kinetic event. Don't forget there's now a page at our website with all the discount codes we have! https://www.onemoorerep.com/races
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