Grand Ledge couple starts obstacle racing company, plans mud race for 5,000 runners

Starting your own business doesn’t necessarily require starting small. For Vertical Threat, LLC’s first 5K race, Grand Ledge-based owners Matt and Leesa Dykstra are hoping to see a crowd of 5,000 – and that’s the low-end of their goal.
 
“We have capacity to handle 10,000,” says Matt Dykstra. “We felt comfortable setting that goal because a national brand held an event like this in Flint and they attracted 20,000 racers. The attraction to this kind of race is phenomenal.”
 
Dystra is obviously not talking about just any old 5-kilometer race. “Rock the World” is both a music festival and a family-friendly, obstacle-laced 5K, complete with mud, dirt and hills.
 
“My wife and I had been noticing the boom in obstacle racing for a couple of years now,” says Dykstra, who was a coach in Grand Ledge for ten years. “I’ve run a few 5Ks, and I don’t care for them because they’re kind of boring.”
 
There’s no risk of boredom at obstacle races. Between the mud, the music and climbing over obstacles, Rock the World, which will take place in Grand Ledge’s Fitzgerald Park on June 30 and July 1, will be a wild time.
 
Rock the World will be the first of two obstacle-themed races for Vertical Threat, and Dykstra plans to schedule as many as six races throughout the state and Midwest next year. The race will also serve as a collection point for Medals4Mettle, a nonprofit that gives donated marathon medals kids fighting for their lives in hospitals.