WARRIOR DASH

Wow. Just wow. Yesterday, 3 of my friends and I ran Warrior Dash, a crazy 3 mile run with 11 obstacles along the way.  It was up in Mountain City, GA, a small town that doesn't seem to have much going on, so the entire place was crazy for the warriors.  We got there around 10:30 because one of my friends ran at 11. She was our scout.  The race took place at a camp, so there was plenty of open field.  This is where they had the stage set up, packet pick up, beer, food...so much stuff. So 11am rolls around and we go to the Start line to watch Laura take off.  There were about 500 people per wave.  There weren't too many costumes in the first wave.  Some of the costumes we saw while walking around, waiting to watch Laura finish included: cast of Wizard of Oz, a guy in a full suit, Where's Waldo and a lot of people wearing Braveheart gear.  I dressed up as a Hooter's girl and my friend was a Raisins' girl (form the South Park episode).  Our costumes were awesome.

So we watch Laura finish. She did an awesome job, I'd say she finished as one of the top 20 girls in her wave.  The fastest time yesterday was 14:49...insane. She wasn't too muddy when she was done, probably because the course was still pretty clean.  My wave was at 1:30, but between the 3 of us that were running that wave, we decided we wanted to run earlier because we were getting thirsty and hot.  We jumped in the 12:30 wave.  Off we went. First there was a short run to the other side of the lake where we walked over a plank to a little piece of land. From there we tread/swam through the lake to the other side.  Dripping wet, the next obstacle was running through tires.  Really hard trying not to slip when wet. Then there were 3 walls.  They weren't too tall, but it was muddy around them and hard to get a steady footing.  After that we head back into the forest to wait for the next obstacle.  I don't remember the exact order of the next obstacles, but they included climbing up a wall with a rope, climbing up a cargo net, jumping over a car graveyard and crawling through tunnels.  The tunnels had gravel at the bottom so a bunch of us scraped up our knees. Hey, no blood no glory, right? Back through the forest we go, where we just kept going up, which means we had to come back down via a steep-ish slope.  Next came the fun parts.  We slid down a mud slide and into a mud pit.  There was chicken wire and ropes in the mudpit.  I didn't want to get too muddy so I tried walking and ducking, so naturally I got stuck. Awesome.  So I just gave in and went chest deep in the mud.  It was slippery getting out.
Luckily, the next obstacle was in water.  We had to get over 4 logs.  My method was just rolling over the logs face first.  It was a good strategy.  Out of the water and to the last obstacle...jumping over fire.  I was a little worried because I felt tired (this is what happens when you don't run for a month...always train and hydrate properly).  I made it over the 2 fire pits, didn't burn anything and it didn't feel too hot.  Granted, I also found the lowest point of the firewall to jump over. 

We finished and received our medals.  The medals were cool but we really came for the viking helmets.  We also got one free beer.  The ticket was attached to our bibs.  I realized after the first jump in the lake my ticket was coming off.  I was more worried about losing the ticket than the obstacles.  Shows where my priorities lie haha.  We hung out for a little bit.  The event was really well organized.  We went back to Laura's friend's cabin up in the mountains (we had stayed there the night before).  It was beautiful, the view was amazing, great place to rinse off (real shower!).  So much mud and dirt in places there shouldn't have been mud or dirt.  My shirt is now stained orange as is my sports bra.  Which is fine by me.  Battle scars.

It was an amazing experience.  So glad I ran with friends.  I am definitely doing it again next year, with better training and more kick ass costumes. I would recommend this to anyone who has ever wanted to try these things but didn't know where.  Mud is surprisingly relaxing and fun after a nice 3 mile jog.