Warrior Dash recap!

Saturday's race was a great time! We had perfect weather for a mud run (high 80s, no clouds) and we had no problem getting to the race or finding parking. I met a neighbor friend at the race and since we were early, we jumped into an earlier wave at 3:30pm. At the start, flames shot out at the start line and we were off!

From the beginning, I could tell I should have started closer to the front. The trail was narrow and we got stuck in a fat person bottleneck. It was ok because I wasn't racing for time, but it was still a little frustrating how many people didn't seem to understand to move to the right if they want to walk/be super slow.

The first obstacle was this elastic band spider web thing that was pretty easy.  I stuck close to a tall dude and let him do all the work of moving the bands out of the way. I wasn't sure when we hit the second obstacle because there were some super scary downhills that I thought were part of the race, but in retrospect they were probably there because the race was held at a motocross track.

We hit mud from the very beginning, and the funniest part was how many girls tried to avoid getting their shoes dirty at the beginning. I'm not sure they knew what they signed up for...

One obstacle required us to get down on our hands and knees and crawl through a long wooden tunnel. The mud was deep and it smelled like cow poop (and if it smells like cow poop, it's probably cow poop). By the time we hit the half way point, I was already pretty muddy.

Up another big hill!

At the halfway point there was a cargo net climb that was about 15 feet tall. Confession: I'm not good with heights. Like, really not good. It doesn't come up often, so I thought maybe this would be ok.

I have to climb up with muddy hands?

Ok, let's do this.

Almost over the top

Actually, this seems like a horrible idea

Hey people behind me, I'm coming back down, please move.

Look, walking around is much less scary

There is no shame in not wanting to die on a race obstacle. :)

One of the obstacles was a long waterslide (or really, a piece of tarp on a rocky hill with a hose turned on) and that was a little interesting. The girls in front of us were going slowly, but we leaned back and picked up some serious speed. I almost rammed into them, but I did my best to stop before I killed them. As a result of my speedy slide, I skinned my butt. Oh yeah, you read that right. Running is a glamorous sport indeed.

I thought the fire jump was the best obstacle, but my husband didn't get a picture of it. He did get some fun pictures of the last obstacle, the mud crawl!

I paid money for this

The best part is that everyone is watching me crawl through mud

Are we still racing at this point?

After this messy crawl, we were done!

All done!

Who wants a hug?

Getting dirty makes you tough, right?

The hat is the best part.

After we finished, I gave my timing chip/free beer coupon to Jeff as thanks for being such a good photographer for the event and then we headed over to the hose area.

This water was COLD

Trying to entice the hose dude to actually spray me

This worked.

As clean as I was going to get.

Overall review of the race: This was really fun and I'd recommend it to anyone. You do NOT need to be a runner to do this race. I saw lots of people in this race who obviously were not runners, yet they still seemed to be having fun. Don't do this race alone! It's a very social thing. Also, be prepared to see a lot of exposed flesh that maybe shouldn't be exposed to public air, if you catch my drift.

Fun moments: I was running behind a guy with a Powerade bottle full of a brown liquid and when I asked him about it, he told me it was whiskey and asked if I wanted some. You have to love a race that has people sipping whiskey the whole way!

Funny costumes caught by Jeff:

Pimps can be warriors too

Chiquita run!

Dying your hair doesn't make you not look like you're dying in a race

Denim cutoffs on a very tall dude.

I don't even know

I forgot to bring my flip flops down the race area, so I was stuck with my muddy shoes. I developed this ingenious way to get home without sullying my car:

AW Yeah

What race recap post would be complete with a picture of me running out of a portapotty looking disgusted?

Hot day + portapotty + beer = UGH

I don't know how long it took me to run this race, but it seemed like it was over too quickly. I need to find a longer race! Well, I think a lot of people thought 3.1 miles was too long. Look at this dude at the half way point:

He looked like he might die

So, who wants to run a mud race now??