367. Garfield Griffiths on Cigars, Bacon, and His History of Race Directing!
Release Date: 01/15/2024
Obstacle Running Adventures
When Mike was preparing to run his first Spartan Ultra he reached out to some elites to see who else would be there. Joe Rucco explained that he was going to miss it in order to take on Toughest Mudder Atlanta ... well, he won it! We have had him on the show a few times in the past ranging from to and but we never had him on for his own episode so we reached out to change that! You'll hear him talk about how he found the sport back in 2012, his love for both hybrid racing and OCR, how he balances his family life and training, winning Toughest Mudder Atlanta, a slight injury he...
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Part of being a weekly podcast and playing the role of media in a sport means that your own athletic goals need to be put more in the background ( doing , recording and producing , heading , etc.). That being said, there are still a couple challenges left that Mike has been wanting to take on in the sport of OCR. One of them being wanting to try a Spartan Ultra Beast for the past 8 years, now just called the Spartan Ultra. Katelyn wanted to do an episode interviewing Mike about his first Spartan Ultra experience, he figured that it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting as him doing...
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The returned for its 4th year and it was the second time being at the venue of ! Katelyn spent the whole time at our table trying to get some more people to follow our social media and subscribe to the show. Mike spent the entire event interviewing all the vendors, some athletes, and plugged into the speakers for the speeches, and awards. The day went by way too fast and there were easily 20+ people who we wish we interviewed to have on the show as well! This episode is part 2 of 2 and has the announcement, speeches, awards, and about 9 more interviews! Start – 3:45 – Intro...
info_outlineObstacle Running Adventures
The returned for its 4th year and it was the second time being at the venue of ! Katelyn spent the whole time at our table trying to get some more people to follow our social media and subscribe to the show. Mike spent the entire event interviewing all the vendors, some athletes, and plugged into the speakers for the speeches, and awards. The day went by way too fast and there were easily 20+ people who we wish we interviewed to have on the show as well! This episode is part 1 of 2 and mostly has vendors interviews (see time stamps for specifics) while part 2 will have the ...
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had their final obstacle course race in 2023 but later announced that they would making a return in 2025! It was unfortunately the same day that we had scheduled the but we have been running his events since 2014 and it was going to take more than it being a double event coverage day to keep us from supporting New England's most beloved and award winning event and of course Robb himself. We were only able to stay for a couple hours in the morning (7:45-9:45) but we were able to talk to a variety of athletes as well as Robb McCoy the race director. Start – 3:46 – Intro 3:46 –...
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We have been busy and didn't get the chance to do anything fun for April Fools this year, there also weren't any events that grabbed our attention that we could've done an episode on (other than maybe British OCR 3K Championship but time zone differences make it difficult)! Due to this we are releasing our third reRUN rerelease episode on the first April Fool's episode that we ever released. The first half is actual coverage of an event that is unfortunately no longer around but you'll know the April Fool's part when you get to it ... or maybe not! This fooled a few people back...
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Many years ago we remember the being advertized on 's When we found out that a friend was doing it this year, we were surprised to realize that it was still around! This friend was who went down to take on the events with his girlfriend . We figured that if we didn't know it was still around then many others wouldn't as well, so we decided to have them on show to talk about it! We talk about their background in the sport, the island of Bermuda, the 3 different events, unique obstacles, what cause the races supported, additional things to do while on the island, and much more!...
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"If we want more books written about the sport, we need to buy books written about the sport" is a phrase that Mike and many others have repeated for years regarding OCR! Due to this we have had a few authors on the show ranging from to ! reached out to us about her book "Sober Up: Spartan Style" which was published in December of last year! As described on the website, the book "sheds light on how Spartan Race and DEKA, Spartan’s partner sport, have reconnected individuals with themselves and others, particularly after struggling with substance misuse....
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We have covered the for the past couple years. This year, it combined with the ! We weren't sure if we were going to go and cover it this year since it was later in the year than usual and events are starting up but we made the trip and booked a hotel to just cover Saturday. Even though we just covered one day of the event we were able to get over 60 interviews causing us to split everything into part 1 and part 2 episodes. Check the time stamps below to see who we talked to for this second half! Start – 3:24 – Intro 3:24 – 7:06 – Quick News 7:06 – 8:07 – Content...
info_outlineObstacle Running Adventures
We have covered the for the past couple years. This year, it combined with the ! We weren't sure if we were going to go and cover it this year since it was later in the year than usual and events are starting up but we made the trip and booked a hotel to just cover Saturday. Even though we just covered one day of the event we were able to get over 60 interviews causing us to split everything into part 1 and part 2 episodes. Check the time stamps below to see who we talked to for this first half! Start – 3:31 – Intro 3:31 – 5:20 – Quick News 5:20 – 6:44 – Content...
info_outlineWe are very proud of the number of guests that we have had on the show over the years. A big name in the sport of obstacle course racing that we hadn't gotten around to yet was Garfield Griffiths though!
With the news of him no longer being a race director over at Spartan Race, effectively ending his 12 year old career of race directing for brands such as Battlefrog, Savage Race, OCRWC, and Spartan itself, we figured that it would be a good time to reach out and have him on!
We talk about the changes that he has seen in the sport over the years, lessons learned in race directing, favorite race venues, his love for cigars and bacon, and how his position in the company has changed.
We also discuss fun facts like him being the creator of Savage Race's "Wheel World" obstacle and what he wanted to call it, his history of spinning recorrds at the first ever Ultra EDM show, and how he started a Facebook group for dad jokes that now has 45 thousand members.
0:00 – 3:27 – Intro
3:27 – 4:58 – Quick News
4:58 – 5:37 – Content Preface
5:37 - 1:00:30 - Garfield Griffiths Interview
1:00:30 - End – Outro
Next episode will hopefully be an athlete who we have had an eye on for months!
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News Stories:
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Related Episodes:
I Am A Spartan Podcast's Episode 154 with Garfield Griffiths!!
The OCRWC's Podcast's Season 3 / Episode 10 – Garfield Griffiths
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