During his running days at Columbus North, Gabe Ocasio used a few different methods to win cross-country and track races.
Rock-paper-scissors was never one of them.
But in the second Tougher Mudder race of Ocasio’s life, he and fellow competitor Jake Viss of Wisconsin found themselves helping each other through the final three obstacles over the final half-mile of the eight-mile race.
So as they approached the finish line, Ocasio and Voss agreed that the winner would be determined not by who had the best finishing kick, but by a game of rock-paper-scissors.
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Ocasio threw rock. Viss threw scissors. That gave Ocasio the victory in the Oct. 5 Nashville, Tennessee, Tougher Mudder.
“I led for 7½ or 7¾ miles, and (Viss) came up on me, and we came to the third-to-last obstacle, and we actually had to help each other at the obstacle,” Ocasio said. “After that, it was a lot of teamwork, and we had to go rock-paper-scissors at the end. I threw rock, and he threw scissors, so I got the win that way.”
Officially, Ocasio finished in 1 hour, 10 minutes, 18 seconds, two seconds ahead of Viss. Jeremiah Stoller took third in 1:11:58.
Ocasio, a 2011 North graduate who ran at three in-state colleges and now helps coach the cross-country teams at Northside Middle School, competed in his first Tough Mudder event in August at Ceraland. He finished seventh in that race in 1:05:27.
“Doing the Tough Mudder at Ceraland really opened my eyes,” Ocasio said. “It’s a lot of upper body strength. It’s really neat to run and then do some ninja-type stuff during the run.”
The Oct. 5 event was held on a farm in Lebanon, Tennessee, just outside Nashville.
“That actually made it interesting because it was much tougher than the Ceraland course,” Ocasio said. “The terrain was uneven.”
Ocasio, who is in the process of getting sponsors for a 2020 Tough Mudder season, said most of the 25 obstacles at the Nashville event were the same as the ones at Ceraland.
“That made a huge difference, already knowing the obstacles,” Ocasio said. “I had the running part down. Then, the combination of having two more months of training for that specific race helped me.”
