Here’ an article from November 2011, reporting on why there is so much interest in the obstacle course racing craze. One of human needs obstacle course racing meets is variety. People are seeking a different experience in their training and in the events. Our Ultimate Towner events offer variety, and also an opportunity for people with a greater variety of ability levels to experience that variety. Here’s the article. LAST AUGUST, nearly 5,000 people gathered in Killington, Vermont, to compete in the Spartan Beast race, a 12-mile cross-country run up, down, and across the ski hill’s muddy slopes. A guy in a red cloak and Spartan war helmet announced the rules—“no whining, no complaining”—prompting a loud “Ah-roo!” from the crowd. The course featured more than a dozen obstacles, including a mud bog strung over with barbed wire, a greased climbing wall, a hurdle of smoldering hay bales, and a final gauntlet of brawny, shirtless “warriors” waiting to thrash racers with padded cudgels. Yeah, it hurt, but that’s part of the allure. Obstacle races combine mud and trail runs with boot-camp obstructions and even mind games, all designed to result in mental and physical collapse. Last year in the U.S., roughly a million people signed up for events in the four most popular series:Spartan Race, Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash, and Muddy Buddy. None are more than ten years old, but already there’s talk of world domination in the air. “By the end of 2012,” Tough Mudder’s website says, “we aim to replace Ironman as the preeminent brand in endurance sports.” Nobody’s quite sure what’s driving the sudden interest in hell-week-as-sport, but sheer novelty has to be part of it. “It’s a lot more fun to compete in, more fun to train for, and more spectator-friendly,” says Hobie Call, an air-conditioning technician from South Jordan, Utah, who has won 11 of these races. Joe Desena, Spartan Race’s founder and a former Wall Street trader, agrees. “People have grown bored with traditional linear races,” he says. Apparently, they’re also tired of made-for-TV adventure ordeals like Eco-Challenge, which ended in 2003, and Primal Quest, which is rumored to have seen sponsor cash dry up. Last year, Desena put on 29 Spartan events in 16 states, from three-mile sprints to the 48-hour Death Race (see Mark Jenkins’s firsthand account of the latter in “Bury My Pride at Wounded Knees,” November 2010). In 2012, Desena plans to hold up to 40 events. The rise of obstacle races comes just as high-intensity workout trends like CrossFit are mushrooming, giving Spartan, Tough Mudder, and other competitions massive social-media potential. In October, in advance of the Death Race, Desena announced that racers who failed to hype the event online would have an extra obstacle added to their race. ­Cultish tactics like these have helped Spartan galvanize a network of more than 630,000 Facebook fans, up from 50,000 a year earlier. Tough Mudder has over a million. And then there’s the quasi-military motif of many of the events. “Mention anything about the armed forces on our forum,” says Desena, “and you get a thousand replies.” Though race participants are mostly civilians, some, like Jeff Cain, 41, a University of Kentucky professor who’s completed two ­Warrior Dashes and two Spartan races, appreciate the soldier’s-­fantasy-camp vibe. “I love the battle,” says Cain, “without the bullets.” Indeed, obstacle-course challenges take much of their DNA from boot-camp classics like the 18-year-old Camp Pendleton Mud Run, held near San Diego, and Staffordshire, England’s Tough Guy Challenge. Founded in 1986 by an eccentric ex-officer in the ­British Army, the Tough Guy originally included a 40-foot crawl through flooded tunnels and long mud slithers with machine-gun blanks fired overhead. In 2011, more than 5,000 people competed. Stateside, the impressive turnouts have made obstacle-course events a commercial windfall. Last June, Beaver Creek, Colorado, attracted more than 20,000 people to its first Tough Mudder. By comparison, the XTerra off-road triathlon championship, held there in July, drew just 2,000. “Tough Mudder was among the biggest summer weekends in the history of Beaver Creek,” says Tim Baker, the resort’s executive director. “Our lodging was sold out for two nights.” http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/first-look/American-Gladiators.html