Warrior Dash Recap...

I have been wanting to write this post since Saturday afternoon, but just now finally got the time.  Well, I did it y'all!  I finally completed my first Warrior Dash.  Last Saturday was a day full of firsts for me.  It was not only my first Warrior Dash, but it was also my first mud/obstacle race, and also (some might be shocked to read this) my first competitive race.  EVER.

This is going to be a long post, so strap yourself in for the long haul!  I will kind of take you through the progression of things as they happened.  Some of the race is fuzzy to me, but I should be able to piece it together.  Also, there are going to be lots of photos!

It all started after work on Friday.  I had a nice day of meetings and then left the office early to burn some vacation time that I would lose if I didn't use it.  Abby got off around her normal time.  We packed and loaded up the car and took off for the great big huge city of Lebanon.  OK, it was tiny!  The drive reminded me of the country where I grew up.  Which is now all developed, but that is a different story.  Once we arrived in Lebanon, we checked into the hotel. The hotel was clean and service was friendly.  It was the ONLY hotel in Lebanon, so I was happy that I called very early on and got one of the 60 rooms available.

After checking in, off to dinner we went.  We went to a pizza place.  I know, not the best pre-race food, but it sounded good.  It was the greasiest pizza I've ever had!  I LOVE pizza, I could eat it every day of the week!  However, I only ate ONE piece!  That is saying a lot if you know me.  That is how greasy it was!  Also, it took us about an hour and forty-five minutes to get in and out of the restaurant!  Sometimes you forget that life isn't all hustle and bustle.  This was a nice reminder.

On top of the slow service at the restaurant, I did not get any data on my phone.  Nope, notta!  Totally killed me!  I mean, what do you do when you are waiting over an hour?  Duh!  You get on your phone and check all kinds of stuff on Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, etc. right?  NOPE, not here!  So what do you do then?  Yep, that's right.  You people watch!  And there were lots of sights to see!

After dinner, we just went back to the hotel and hung out with each other and waited for Billie and Derek to show up with their kids.  Billie was also running in the WD.  They arrived and we all caught up for a bit and then shortly after we retired to the room.  Baby A did NOT want to go to sleep, so she had a late night!  Other than that, all went smoothly! Abby couldn't sleep all that well on a different mattress than usual since she was 34 weeks pregnant and all! Despite her restlessness, I was able to sleep through it all.

The next morning I got up to my alarm that I had set for 6AM and it was officially RACE DAY.  I had some nerves, but was more concerned about the logistics of getting to the course, etc.  I took a quick shower, got my backpack ready and then Abby and Baby A got ready for the day.  We headed down to breakfast.  Thankfully the hotel had complimentary breakfast.  I kept it light and ate high protein foods.  I also continued to load up on water to prep for the HOT day ahead.  Our other friend, Tim, that drove from NC to meet us showed up during breakfast and it was great to see him.

We then all piled in the car and headed to the fairgrounds to park.  OK, they called it a fairgrounds, but really it was a field.  That's it.  A. Field.  After that, we headed to the shuttle buses and caught a ride.  It took about 15 minutes to get to the site where the WD was being held.  After getting off the bus, we had to walk uphill in gravel about 0.5 miles to get to the actual venue.  Poor Abby.  She was a trooper though!

Once inside the venue, stuff got real!  It was a reality now!  Time to do this!  We (Tim, Billie, and I) signed up for the first wave at 9AM.  There were waves of 500 people every 30 minutes starting at 9AM.  We chose the first since it would be the coolest and for strategic reasons.  We checked in, got our race bibs, timing chips, shirts, hat, etc. and then began to prep.  I chose to go shirtless as I figured less clothing = less weight from mud and water.  I think it was a good choice in the end.

Here are some pics of us before the race started:

Time flew and the time to get in the starting gate/corral was upon us. Here is a pic of the starting gates/corral:

We all got into the gates and heard the announcer start and could see the clock inching closer to 9AM.  I was surprised that nerves never really set in for me.  However the adrenalin was definitely there!  One thing I would work on in the future is where we started from.  Yes, it was a chip timed event.  However, there are huge bottlenecks, so the closer you are to the front to start with, the less time and effort you have to spend slowing down and even STANDING/WALKING waiting for a clearing.  I think I definitely could have improved my time by starting closer to the front, but that is just something I learned for the future!

Once it was time for us to start, flames were shot off high into the air and it was on!  Unfortunately the spectators weren't allowed on the course and could only see the start and finish lines.  However, there were some professional shots taken and I will upload some of those.  

Once the flames shot off and we were off and running my heart was pumping fast!  I would say we started middle of the pack, around 225 or 250 people from the front.  So in my mind, I had that many people I needed to pass!  This was all off road and most of it was in trails in the woods with obstacles at slight clearings.  After the starting gates, the course narrowed significantly for probably 0.2 miles and it was kind of stop and go.  A tad frustrating!  However, I knew that the first obstacle wasn't for a mile.  So I just kept weaving through traffic to keep pushing myself.  With the terrain and all the people it was difficult to set a pace, but I tried to do my best.  I saw the 0.5 mile marker and was in awe that I had already gone that far.  I was getting pumped for the obstacles!  I felt like I was making good progress and then saw the 1.0 mile marker!  What?!?!  

Right after that mile marker, the first obstacle was Rubber Ricochet.  This was no challenge at all.  It was a bunch of tires hanging and swinging.  They weren't very close, so I just dodged them to not slow down or waste energy.  Then directly after that, there were tires you had to run/step through.  I was scared about tripping, but didn't even give it any thought and just booked it through them without issue.  

Right after this obstacle there was a bit of an open field where I was able to pass quite a few people.  The crowd had definitely thinned out and there wasn't much traffic going forward.  Only had to pause/slow when we were in trails and someone had fallen (of course we asked if they needed help, etc) or going down a big hill, etc.  Everybody was very helpful to each other and we would all yell "stump", "rock", "jump", etc. when there was something that came up out of the blue.  A true showing of good sportsmanship by all that I was around.

After the open field, it quickly turned into rough terrain of trails in the wooded area.  Right around a bend was the next obstacle.  It was called Deadweight Drifter.  It was a mud/water obstacle.  You had to jump into the water (a pond).  And by jump I mean run into the bank.  As soon as you got close, there was trouble.  Tons of mud!  Not hard mud, nope, but that mud that as soon as you stepped in it, your shoe disappeared.  I was struggling just to keep my shoe on.  As soon as I could, I started to swim.  In fact you HAD to because it was very deep in the middle!  This was much better than walking through the mud.  There were 2 or 3 (I can't remember) logs you had to go under or over in the water and then swim to an exit which was as muddy as the entrance.  I choked on a bit of water and got slowed momentarily, but all was well.  The mud was thick!  As soon as I exited, you could feel your shoes emptying of water and all.  It was AWESOME!

That exited to more trail running.  STEEP and SLANTED trail running which was not so easy in wet and muddy shoes, but all made do.  I saw a lot of people go down on this part of the run.  The rest of the course were little trail runs followed by an obstacle.  Don't get me wrong, little here means shorter than the beginning.  There was NOTHING little about this course.  It was steep both up and down hill for long periods of the course.  

Here is a picture somewhere after the first water/mud obstacle and on a trail somewhere:

While we were running the course, Abby and Baby A and Derek (Billie's husband) and their two kids were all soaking in the atmosphere.  So to break things up, here are some pics of the "festival" and spectator areas and some of the kiddos:

It was a HOT day and they were all troopers for coming and cheering us on.  It was a shame they couldn't see the course other than the start and finish lines.

OK, so back to the course.  The next obstacle was called Chaotic Crossover.  This was a wooden frame that was covered with cargo nets.  So you had to climb up and then climb over/crawl over cargo nets and then climb down back to the ground.  More trail run, then Deadman's Drop which was a wall you had to climb up and over a wall with 2x4's as hand and foot holds used to climb.  More trail run, then I can't remember the name of it, but it was a series of boards that you had to run up and down and up and down like a balance beam.

After more trail running, up came Storming Normandy where you had to crawl under barbed wire and then through a cargo net.  Then after some more trail running and hills came a couple of more wall obstacles.  The first was the same as the last wall, except it had either 2x4 holds OR a rope you could pull yourself up with and then the usual climb down.  Then came the wall with only the rope to pull you up that was on a slanted base rather than straight up and followed by a regular descending ladder type climb down.  After some more trail running was Treacherous Trenches where they had carved out little trenches with boards and barbed wire hanging over.  The worst part of this one was the "ground" was full of jagged rocks!  Here is a pic of me coming out of that one:

Some more trail running followed by another slanted wall that you had to climb up.  Then once at the top, there was a fire-pole slide down to the bottom.  It was a tad scary since we were all wet from water/mud and sweat!  But it worked fine.  At one point that obstacle was shut down due to an injury on it and then they had volunteers help people not hit as hard.  That all happened in later heats I believe.  Once getting through some more trails, you could start to hear the music playing loud!  That meant the end was coming!  I couldn't believe it was already here!  And then I was wondering if I was just getting close to go farther away, etc.  Nope, it really was close!

The next obstacle was a huge cargo net climb up and down.  This was by far the tallest obstacle and a little frightening once at the top, but adrenalin just kicks in and you go with it!  After the cargo net climb, I turned the corner and saw smoke.  That meant one thing...  The finish line was VERY close!

The obstacle, second to last, that was causing the smoke are two lines of fire that you have to jump over.  As soon as I saw the smoke, I started for a dead sprint.  Here is a pic of me jumping over the flames:

I think this is probably my favorite picture of the whole event!  Right after the Warrior Roast was the Muddy Mayhem obstacle.  With this one, you had to army crawl under barbed wire until you hit a man made muck of mud and water and crawl/swim through it to the finish line.  The spectators could see the Warrior Roast and Muddy Mayhem portions along with crossing the finish line.  Here are some pics of me doing those:

This is an awful picture!  But it shows the medal you get.  I was so out of breath and tired and wet!  Yuck!!:

Wow, I still can't believe I did it!  It was such a rush.  And in all honesty, I wanted to do it again on Sunday! I can't wait for the next one I compete in!  After I finished, I met up with my cheering section and waited to cheer on Billie and Tim.  Here are some after pics of the three of us:

So how did I do?  I think I did pretty good for it being my first race of this kind or any kind really!  I finished in 32 minutes and 23 seconds.  Of my heat of 500 I finished 18th overall and 7th in my age group of men.  Overall for the entire race, I finished 302nd out of 5,169 and 86th out of 1,008 men in my age group.  There is definitely room for improvement, but I was very pleased with my results!  The thing I am most proud about is that I accomplished a goal I set for myself at the end of 2011.  When I read about this race on Lindsy's blog (Tim's wife) I set the goal that I wanted to compete in one of those!  Well, I can say I have done that now!

If you want to read about the day from Abby's point of view, stop by her blog and check it out.

While there were some issues with the logistics of the travel to and from the venue (more so as the day progressed from what I have read) and other issues, I think all went really well.  I had an awesome time and really can't wait to do another.

Wonder what the next challenge will be?  Until next time blogosphere...