Warrior Dash Recap

I am not a morning person. I don't understand why all the races start so early. I know a lot of runners like to get up early and all, but a lot of them (or maybe just me) don't. 

That being said, I got up earlier than my alarm this morning--which NEVER happens--and started getting ready for the Warrior Dash. I had a little anxiety last night thinking about swimming through mud, but that didn't stop me from jumping out of bed this morning like a kid on Christmas morning to get showered & have coffee & be (mostly) ready when our chauffeur/photographer for the day (Thanks again Derek!) arrived. 

We ran through McDonald's (don't worry--just for coffee) and headed to meet up with our group. We got to the race and parked (for $20---whoa!) and headed to pick up packets & line up.

It was a beautiful day for a race! I've done 5Ks & I've done obstacle races, but I've never done anything quite like this. I remember my biggest complaint about the Diva Dash is that the obstacles weren't challenging enough.

Enter Warrior Dash. Unfortunately our photographer wasn't able to follow us through the course taking pictures, so I don't have many obstacle pics. I did find a pic of my favorite obstacle. It was a little warm here in Texas today (surprise, surprise), so this was very refreshing. 

You swam through the water and climbed up the wall with the water showering you the whole time. My biggest fear today was slipping on one of the many climbing walls or hills and breaking an ankle. I did not fall once. Yay! :) This obstacle is where I first started rethinking the mascara I had applied before the race.

In addition to the hill climbs & numerous wall climbs & rope climbs, there were water/mud obstacles, tires, dirt mountains, balance beams, barbed wire, etc. 

They were all challenging for me. Except maybe the the one where we climbed over tires. Ooooh....wait. I saw a spider in one of the tires, so that was definitely a challenge. ;-) 

There were two that challenged me the most. One was a very tall wall that you had to pull yourself up with a rope while using your feet to climb. I do not have the strongest upper body yet, and I still have way too much upper body to hold up. When I first started up the wall, my first thought was, "There is no way I can do this." Luckily my second thought was, "I must do this." Was it hard? Heck, yeah. But I did it. 

The other one that seemed super challenging to me is again for the same upper body problems. You swam/sloshed through approximately 4 feet of water to a large raft-like walkway. Then you had to climb up onto the raft by pulling yourself up with your arms while your feet were stuck in mud. Yeah, that was hard. Very hard. But I got up. Once you get up on the walkway, you see that you have to jump back in more water to swim to a second raft-like thing. 

 I thought, "Okay, fine. Let's do this." And jumped in.

This is where I rethought the morning mascara application a second time. I had assumed the water was approximately 4 feet like before. Nope. When I jumped, I was not expecting to go under. But I did. And inhaled water into my nose & mouth. Ewwww! Those that know me well, know I'm a wee bit of a germophobe, but since it was more important to stay afloat than to dwell on what I had just swallowed, I started swimming. I got to the second raft. This one was even more challenging to climb up on because you had only water under your feet...nothing to push up with. I struggled to get up & got a friendly shove by the person behind me. I probably could have made it up without the boost (eventually), but at that moment I was thankful for it. 

Once up on that raft, you had to (carefully) jump in more water and swim to the end of the obstacle. Done and done.

In between obstacles, I was trailrunning. I was trailrunning with a marathoner, a half marathoner and a triathlete. I kept up. Mostly. They did stop a couple times when they saw me struggling to keep up, but I did better than I thought I would. They were taking it easy to avoid any injuries with  a marathon coming up--the same day as my first half.

After the super hard ones, we finished up with a little jumping over fire (so awesome) and crawling through mud. Luckily our photographer was all ready & got shots of us crawling through mud under barbed wire. That's me below with the white sunglasses on.

And then we finished. 

And posed.

And showered.

And ate.

(The turkey leg was just for the photo op with the giant Warrior sized beer. I actually ate the patty out of a veggie burger. Yes, they have veggie burgers at the Warrior Dash. Oh, and they gave away sunglasses at the after party. I do realize I am wearing 2 pairs. Lol.)

Then we went home. And I realized I am a Warrior. Without a trace of mascara left. ;-)