Warrior Dash...great now I have a rash.

On Sunday I journeyed with four friends (one of whom was our own personal photographer) to North Plains for the Warrior Dash. My day started off like any other. Get up before kids, make coupious amounts of food for the kids, feed kids, clean kids, and then dress the kids. A process I have down to a 30 min science. A non-stop 30 minutes of go, go, go. Because if you don't hussle there is going to be blood and it's usually mine. :)
After the battle at home was won, I kissed the hubby and reminded him why he loves me as I dashed out the door to meet my friends. The five of us carpooled to the race. Which was wise because it was a good 1/2 mile warm up to get to the registation table.

(photo courtsey of Quisa Morrow)

This is Dave and I checking in.



Once we all checked in, it may or may not have been a race between my good friend Dave and I as to who could get the chip onto their shoe the fastest. A little caveat about my friend Dave and I is that we rib each other in every workout or run we do. We encourage each other but also push each other. Some days he stomps me (always in workouts) and some day's I stomp him (Warning! Caveat coming. Sometimes on our runs because if I hear him behind me I can bust out a pretty quick pace just so I can rib him about it until he beats me) So to say that we are a little competitive with each other would be the understatment of the year.

So here we are all bibbed (is that even a word?) up and ready to race. 

I think one of my favorite parts of this race was the people. I love to people watch and let me tell you Warrior Dash is like people watching on steroids. I mean check out some of the people we saw in our little time frame. 

 

Who doesn't love the TMNT?

Or these guys in suits. Sweet!

So after some great people watching we watched our friends take off in the 10:30 wave. Then my friend Dave and I talked and jumped into our chute and chatted away until it was 11:00 and we were released. It was everything I read about in Joe's post about the down hill start. My friend and I must have passed at least 30 people on that trail going down. Then it was all up hill from there baby. I mean UP HILL. I may have cursed my coach while going up the hills because just the day before we did stair repeats. Three miles of Stair repeats. Oh, my quads my poor quads. But you know it was great to see all the costumes as I passed them. You know the saying, "It's all fun and games until someone gets dunked in the log rolls." What? Never heard that saying? Well it should be a rule. They said the log roll water was only waist deep, yeah maybe if you are 6' 5". Dude, this 5' 6" chick did not have waist deep water. The nice part was that people behind you helped roll the log over, to get you on the other side. I like to think it was all about the men behind me being gentlemen and helping a lady. No. It was not. As soon as I finished all the logs and was trying to climb claw my way to up the muddy bank I was knocked pushed over no less than four times. Yeah, thanks guys. Then again I might have been giggling like a little school girl once I was passing those same guys on the trail a minute later. What? You would have done the same thing.

At this point I could do a blow by blow of the course and how hilly the thing was but you already recieved that information from Joe's post. However, I want you to realize how much fun it is to run with friends. I was on the last hill about to do the last two obstacles when I slowed to a walk to look for my friend Dave. He was behind me at the halfway mark, yelling at me to hurry up and pass that guy in front of me. So I thought he was still close behind. At this point I knew I had the fire logs and mud pit left, and I wanted to finish it with my friend. So I walked. I walked really slow, heck I even walked backwards up the hill thinking he must just be a few seconds behind me. I waiting for what seemed like 7 mins (it was probly more like 4 minutes) waiting for my friend. He still wasn't there by the time I was at the top of the hill so I decided I would just have to finish without him. (Although, I did tell him I had enough time to take a nap and eat lunch while I waited for him. So you guys are going to have to back my story up if he ever asks. ) I did the most beautiful jump over the fire logs you ever did see and then it was onto the mud pit.

These are my friends going through the mud pit. You have to crawl in the mud under barbed wire before you run to the finish line. A little known fact about me is that I hate... HATE... to get dirty. Muddy is several steps beyond dirty. So for me to do a crawl through the mud and not have it be to rescue my kids from the pits of hell is saying something.

Can you see me hating this part? Well I didn't. I was already muddy and wet so the competitive side kicked in. I kinda had fun through this part. Yes, I giggled like an idiot while running through the finish line.

My friend was 1.5 minutes behind me. But when he came through we smiled and said, "Next year...." That's right we are already planning on running it again next year if they come back through the NW. Only next time my hubby is coming, too. I can't wait to share it with him next year and with more friends. It was so much fun.

After the race you can hike another 1/2 mile to the wash off area. My friends and I dubbed this the Roman bath. It's a pond that was clear yesterday but after thousands of people 'clean' off in it. Well it was not clear as you can see.

Once we were clean and changed we took our muddy shoes to the donatation area. Warrior Dash cleans them and recycles them.

This is us happy to be clean and not taking our smelly shoes home with us. Our friend Quisa told us all to flex our Warrior muscles for the camera. After that is was beer time. We wandered down to the beer garden to listen to the band, which was great because they played Fat Bottom Girls by Queen. Not many bands can pull that one off. Being married to a muscian who does a spot on Freddy Mercury vocal impression I have an ear for such things.

While in the beer and food area we found our beloved 'suit guys' again.

While they were waiting for the next band to set up, the mc had the people doing crazy dancing. A train line, people on each others shoulders, hokey pokey, and running man were just a few of the dances he had them do. It was AWESOME!

I must say, this is the one race you must do for fun. It's not for time. It's for a good time. Next year I recommend grabbing a few friends and heading down to the Warrior Dash. You just might be lucky enough to get some cool battle scars like my friend Dave. Laugh and run on, my friends!