Trail Smitten Mom: Warrior Dash Race Report

Bad Asses reporting for duty!

The Warrior Dash proved to be crazy fun. Everyone should participate in this event at least once in their lives. I signed up with a group of fellow momma women warriors. We plotted, planned, ordered matching Bad Ass socks, painstakingly tied strips of tulle on elastic to create our signature tutus, decorated our vehicles, booked accommodations at a cool funky brew house hotel and arranged for a group photographer to capture our moments of warrior greatness. What we didn't do much of was train. I mean, really, it was a mere 5K! Sure, there were "12 hellish obstacles" between the running but competitors drink beer, eat giant turkey legs on bones and wear fuzzy hats with horns afterwards. How tough could it be?

Warrior Dash: Craziest Friggin' Day of Your Life!

We arrived to our battleground. It was quite the production! Reminded me of a giant music festival. We decided to check out some of the obstacles to see what we were up against. Maybe this wasn't such a joke after all. You could really get hurt out there! Climbing over slippery cars in a scrapyard, jumping over fire, jumping from shaky platform to shaky platform, swimming through water and up and over unwieldy logs, crawling under barbed wire, flinging yourself up and over cargo nets... Perhaps we should have done a little obstacle training, perhaps some upper body weight training? Too late now. Good thing I was just doing this for fun and not to win!

After much anticipation, our wave finally started. I believe I heard someone say that there were 300 to 400 people in each wave. It was so crowded! One of my race pet peeves is to be locked in and stuck behind people. I don't like to be slowed down. My girl, Chelsea and I decided to make a break for it. She took one side, I took another and we sprinted up the steep hill that forced most participants to hike rather than run. It was muddy, slippery and rooty. We were passing people left and right. It was an awesome feeling but I hoped that we weren't using up all the gas in our limited tanks.

Before we knew it, we were at our first obstacle "Deadweight Drifter" where we would "wade through waist deep water" and hurl ourselves over logs until we made our way across a little cattle pond. I stepped in and promptly found myself chin-deep in water. WTF? What happened to waist deep water?! Next thing I knew, I had lost all footing together and was forced to swim with a mob of people. It was mayhem! I am a good swimmer, but this shit was scary! Someone's head was just asking to be clocked by one of those unruly logs! FUCK! As if that wasn't bad enough, my cute, custom made sparkly tutu became water logged and sunk to my ankles. I pulled it up and proceeded to hurl myself over a log that a kind, burly man spun for me. Darn thing slipped again as I swam towards the next log. I saw my tall long-legged friend Chelsea, fearlessly make her way across the pond and decided that I'd have to sacrifice my tutu. Pulled the thing off and let it sink to the bottom of the pond. Good riddance! This obstacle was by far the scariest and riskiest of the day. Was I ever glad to make it to the other side all in one piece.

Next we climbed and leaped our way over a bunch of busted, rusted cars in the makeshift wrecking yard. It was slippery, some dashboards showed evidence of feet breaking through, there was even sharp metal from here to there as well. Maybe I shouldn't have snickered so much at the "hellish obstacles". Chelsea was an animal out there! Sheer determination. She was not a woman to be fucked with. She took on each obstacle as if it were a personal attack. I hoped I could keep up with her! The running portion also proved to be more challenging that I anticipated. It was a 5K but it went up and down, up and down and up and down steep, uneven, slippery and/or rooty terrain. It was trail runner heaven. I loved the running portion and really challenged myself to run it all rather than succumb to walking like so many of the other participants. The obstacles turned out to be a nice opportunity to lower my heart rate and catch my breath.

Hellish obstacles that followed Deadweight Drifter and Road Rage:

#3: Great Warrior Wall: Climb a very tall vertical wall and slide down the other side. The knotted rope proved to be ever so helpful on this one but the dismount was scary! I had to put fear aside and hope that I wouldn't get splinters in my ass as I slid down the wood eight feet back down to the ground.

#4: Rubber Ricochet: Ram your way through a sea of tires swinging from ropes. This was super easy but fun.

#5: Deadman's Drop: Another wall but this time there was a wooden ladder for the dismount. Thank God!

#6: Chaotic Crossover: Bear climb over a long horizontal cargo net. Not as easy as it sounds!

#7: Barricade Breakdown: Hurl yourself up and over a barricade, then roll/crawl your way through mud under barbed wire and repeat this five or six times. This was FUN!

#8: Satin's Steps: Initially wasn't worried about these but they were wobbly! My short little legs had to make great big leaps to get me over. A fellow competitor jumped on my platform when I was on and nearly flung me overboard!

#9 Assassin's Escape: Up a ladder and down a fire fighter pole. Easy peasy lemon squeezy! Geez, this event is awesome! Chelsea and I were making great time! I was proud of us! So much for not being competitive!

#10: Cargo Climb: Climb up and down a very tall cargo wall.

#11: Warrior Fires: leap over two rows of thigh high fire

Mothers of Multiples ain't afraid of no fire!

#12: Muddy Mayhem: Scramble beneath barbed wire in a muddy soup then climb up a slippery slope and slide belly first to the finish line.

Being muddy has never been so much fun!

I finished in 39:46 which comes to a 11:22 minute mile average with the the obstacles. I was 49th out of 598 in my age group. Best of all Chelsea and I stuck together the whole time and raced our little hearts out. It was awesome to be there to cheer on our fellow "Warrior Women" when they crossed the finish line with huge smiles on their faces.

Our post race bath in a muddy pond (tutus proved to be as effective as loofahs!), free beers, live music, fabulous people watching, fuzzy hats, "I Survived the Warrior Dash" t-shirts and turkey drumsticks that tasted like bacon followed. It was a fantastic day! We couldn't wait to sign up and participate again the following year. Fortunately more fun was to be had since we had decided to make a girl's weekend of it. Real showers, more beer and food and a soaking pool awaited us and the magnificent Grand Lodge.

I still smile every time I think of this crazy event. It was SO much fun! I highly recommend that you take the plunge, take a walk on the wild side and be a warrior!