The Year of the Run: Warrior Dash Race Report

I had to drag around immense guilt most of the weekend for not going on my long run Saturday morning. But I had so much to do around the house (my husband comes home later this week and I can't let him know what a terrible housekeeper I am!) and in the yard, that I just couldn't squeeze in 2 hours of running on Saturday. And I had the Warrior Dash on Sunday afternoon, so there was no way to get in a long run this morning either.

I rad the Warrior Dash in North Texas last year and had a blast. I was dealing with a stress fracture in my foot and my running buddy had a stress fracture in her fibula and tibia, so we were quite the pair. There was no way we were going to miss out on the race, so we sucked it up (hello painkillers) and powered through. This year, we were able to pull a group of 9 together. Since there were great costumes last year (I think the guy in the full business suit, including briefcase was my favorite), we thought it would be fun to have a group theme this year. In my lazy head, iron-on transfer shirts were the perfect solution!

The back said "Damn it feels good to be a warrior"

The Warrior Dash is just over a 5k distance, and I had run it before, so I had no concerns about finishing. We all made a pact beforehand, no man (or woman) left behind!

The team in matching shirts

We started promptly at noon, and while it was warm out, it wasn't 89 degrees like the start line thermometer was reading. We realized afterwards that it was so high because of the starting line flames! This was the first race that I've ever run without a hat and I realized that I sweat a lot...I never notice it in the gym since I have a nice towel. But, with nothing clean to wipe my face, the sweat ran into my eyes and it burned!

Several of the obstacles were the same this year, but they did change the course up this time. I think my favorite obstacle was the water hazard. It was an ice cold pond/lake/really slow moving river and you had to make your way through and climb over floating pontoons. I could not have made it over the pontoons without the help of the men on the team (no woman left behind)! I enjoyed jumping over the fire (duraflame logs in a trench), though it wasn't difficult or scary. I tried to do a "spectacular" jump for the cameras...so we'll see what they actually caught! And the last obstacle was the mud pit. I vowed to cannonball into the mud pit this year. However, that wasn't possible due to the shallow pit and nowhere to really jump from. I did make a big splash falling in though! And I made sure to kick my feet the whole way to ensure the guy behind me was covered in mud!

The team, post race

I did it!

Dirty doesn't even begin to explain it. We were covered from head to toe in mud. It was in my clothes, ears, nose, and even got some in my mouth. That is particularly disgusting because someone apparently threw up in the mud pit not long before we arrived. Hopefully antibiotics can cure whatever I catch. We were able to get some of the mud off in the fire shower. No, you haven't lived until you have taken a shower by fire hose. During this "shower", you are standing in mud up to your ankles and can barely get the surface mud off. I stood there for several minutes with my eyes closed because I had nothing clean to wipe my face with after getting sprayed and my hands were still covered in mud.