As always this episode is jammed packed with helpful training strategies for your next obstacle course race.   In this episode I have a great interview with Helene Dumais from Platinum Rig Obstacle Relay Race World Championship.  This is an incredibly unique race and Helene fills us in with all the details.  To register or learn more check out the links section below.   In the inside Mike's mind segment I go over my thoughts in strength training for OCR.  Mark Rippetoe has a great quote, "Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and are more useful in general."  This is a comical quote but some truth to it.  We know that strength is important for your training.  But how strong do you need to be and are you even doing strength training?  I give my insights here.   In my research review I discuss the concept of Apnea, or breath holds, in training.  This study specifically looked at breath holding as part of a warm up, but I give insight on how you can apply this to your training, especially when dealing with races at altitude.   And finally I have on Tony Matesi, who just released his book, Legend of the Death Race.  As a lifelong athlete, Tony prioritizes health and wellbeing above all else and created the blog “The Legend of the Death Race” as a resource for Obstacle Race Training. Tony constantly seeks the next challenge and has competed at elite levels in Tae Kwon Do; gymnastics; competitive cheerleading; obstacle, endurance, and adventure racing; Ultramarathons; and spent ten years on stage performing as a lead ballet dancer in the Chicago Festival Ballet rendition of the Nutcracker. He has competed in three Spartan Death Races, placed 3rd at the San Diego Alpha Warrior, made it to the City Finals on American Ninja Warrior, created a Death Race training program, helped open the gym REACH Fieldhouse in Chicago, launched Spartan Endurance Internationally and brought the ultramarathon event SISU 24 Ultra to the Pacific Northwest.  In this interview Tony shares his insight on training for ultra distance events from both the physical aspect and mental.  He stressed the importance of developing relationships while racing versus being the long wolf.   He also explains how a key idea of the Nintendo game, The Legend of Zelda, can be applied to every day life.   All this plus much more... Full show notes:  www.ocrunderground.com/episode-69