The Everyday Warrior

The Warrior Dash is where it all began.

Prior to last year’s Warrior Dash, I was a mud / obstacle run virgin. Quite honestly I was scared to death of doing it. I even said “This is sooooo NOT my kind of race!” What a difference a year makes! Now I LIVE for these types of events!

The day before the Warrior Dash I woke up feeling excited and my endorphins were already pumping. I could not wait for race day! I may have even been annoyingly perky and overly happy all day. Just ask my co-workers! The morning of this year’s race was much different from the morning of my first Warrior Dash. Gone was the fear and hesitation of competing in such an event. Instead, I felt confident and prepared for the muddy obstacle filled fun ahead!

At this Warrior Dash, I met up with two bad ass girls (Brittany & Jessica) who also happen to be two of my teammates from my Tough Mudder race! Once you run a Tough Mudder with someone you are bonded for life. True story.

We are all squeaky clean in this pic! Not for long!

Both of the girls had never done a Warrior Dash before. But again, they are Tough Mudder chicks so …….

Once it was time to line up for our wave we decided it would be best to start as close to the front of the pack as possible. Last year I started in the back of my wave and it resulted in a lot of bottlenecking at obstacles. We also decided that we wanted to push ourselves just to see what we could accomplish. With that goal in mind we squeezed our way to the front of the wave and once our race began we sprinted to the first obstacle.

Obstacle #1: Barricade Breakdown - I don’t know what it is about climbing over walls and under barbed wire that does it for me but this is one of my favorite obstacles. They had this last year and there was also something just like it at the Tough Mudder.

Obstacle #2: Capsized Catamaran - I did not do this obstacle. I know, I know….but let me explain. This required you to swim to a barge, hop on the barge, go across the barge, get back off and swim to the other side. I am not a strong swimmer and we were warned very loudly that the water was over 10 feet deep and weak swimmers should not attempt the obstacle. I hate passing up an obstacle. Had this been a Tough Mudder I have no doubt in my mind that someone would have seen my hesitation and would have helped me through it one way or another. Unfortunately the camaraderie that exists in a Tough Mudder race does not exist in the Warrior Dash. I am not knocking the Warrior Dash. They are just very different races. With that in mind I knew that if I could not rely on myself to get across then I should not attempt it. It should also be noted that my time was not any better for going around the obstacle as I waited for Brittany to complete it.

Obstacle #3: Chaotic Crossover – Another repeat from last year. It is a giant cargo net laid horizontally across support beams. Fun!

Obstacle #4: Hard Rain - Sounds harder than it was. Basically it was an elevated platform that you had to climb up while water was being forced upon you. Force may be too strong of a word. That water wasn’t very forceful more like refreshing. At the top of the platform you had to turn around and lower yourself down.

Obstacle #5: Mud Mound – Another newbie! You had to climb up and over huge mounds of mud / dirt that were a tad slippery.

Obstacle #6: Road Rage- An oldie but a goodie. It was like running in a junkyard. Over cars and tires. I was surprised by the number of people who were going AROUND this obstacle. I know it sounds hypocritical, but really…why would you go around this?

Obstacle #7: Great Warrior Wall – I redeemed myself this year on this obstacle. Last year I panicked at the top of it but this year I climbed up and over like a pro. That’s not to say that my fear of heights is cured. I just know I can do it now.

Obstacle #8: Mortimer’s Crossing – Another new one! You had to make your way across a rope bridge. It wasn’t high off the ground at all, so it was easy.

Obstacle #9: The Trenches – This was big trenches in the ground with large logs on top. This was a pretty quick obstacle to get through.

Obstacle #10: Storming Normandy – This was barbed wire that was low to the ground that you had to army crawl through. Hard on the knees but fun.

Obstacle #11: Cargo Climb – Same as last year but it’s definitely one that should stay around. By the time I got to this obstacle my arms were feeling the effects of being abused in ways they aren’t normally. I need to work on my upper body strength. I also still had trouble with turning around at the top of it so I could come down the other side. My height does not work in my favor when it comes to that.

Obstacle #12: Warrior Roast – It wouldn’t be a Warrior Dash without fire jumping. What’s not to love about it!

Obstacle #13: Muddy Mayhem - The very last obstacle is the muddiest of all! One last army crawl under barbed wire in a big pit of mud.

Crossing the finish line! Muddy and happy!

When I crossed the finish line I glanced up at the clock to see how we fared. The clock said 43 minutes and some change. If memory serves correctly it was 43:45. I was pretty pumped about that! Unfortunately, for whatever reason my time and Brittany’s time is not listed on the Warrior Dash results page. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised about this considering my time last year was listed in the wrong age group – by 60 years!!! But I am still bummed that this year’s was not listed because I would have actually placed 17th or higher in my age group depending on exactly how many second I was over 43 minutes. I don’t normally place that high and I would just like to have it officially recorded somewhere so I can say “Hey, look what I did!!!” I’ll get over it…eventually.

My new bling!

I had a super fun time at the Warrior Dash and you better believe that I will be back for more next year!

And in a few years, perhaps my future Warrior will do one with me!

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