This year I ran my 3rd Warrior Dash with a group of friends, the same group of super fun people I ran with last year! Our fearless leader and creative director, Pat, came up with a great idea for our costumes! We all dressed up as convicts and were “Team Prison Break”. (And I thought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be IMPOSSIBLE to beat!) I met my friend Christina at her apartment early Saturday morning and we tried on our black and white striped dresses (We wore running shorts underneath, In case you were wondering! 😉 ) and did some “functional testing”. We were cracking ourselves up doing squats, hurdling over chairs, and low crawling in her living room. We realized some alterations were needed, and took on the role of impromptu “fashion designers”….a cut here, a snip there….Voila! Perfection!
We gathered up our gear and headed over to Pat’s house to meet the rest of the team for a waffle breakfast and car pool. Pat’s teenage daughter and some of her friends decided to join us crazy old people this year, after hearing how much fun we had at the last Warrior Dash. 🙂 It took us a LITTLE longer than expected to get on the road….we had to perfect costumes, then do cute poses for our pre-race pictures! It’s all about priorities people! 😉
There was this one….
“Team Prison Break” before getting dirty!
And this Pre-race pyramid was TOTALLY necessary!
After goofing off all morning we FINALLY made it to the race! It costs $10.00 to park and then you end up walking about 1/4 mile to the registration tents. They have waves running all day, so seeing the other runners walk back up the hill covered in mud got me hyped to run! Registration and bag drop off are well organized and went quickly. THANKFULLY! Since we barely made it in time for our wave! Haha And there were also plenty of port-a-potties for last minute pit stops before your wave. There was one major change for this years race, the Warrior Dash is no longer timed. My competitive side was slightly disappointed but after running the race I decided it was actually a positive. Runners were much safer and there was more of a “team work” mentality to the run this year compared to previous years. Everyone was helping each other over obstacles and making sure people who fell down along the course were OK.
We lined up for our wave in the starting coral, and did a “1, 2, 3….PRISON BREAK!” cheer as we ran across the starting line. It was pretty much impossible to run the first mile with the crowd of people trying to make it up some steep and VERY muddy hills. There were a lot of people slipping and sliding, falling over, helping each other up, and laughing. There were 12 obstacles along the course, that were challenging but nothing too insane. My favorite obstacle was the “Mud Mounds”….there was some rain earlier in the day so the hills were super slippery and the trenches in between the mounds were filled with water. Our costumes attracted a lot of attention; runners and volunteers along the course were calling out things like, “You better run faster if you’re going to get away from the Warden!” Haha…So clever and cute that I overlooked the fact that they were calling us slow! (No man left behind!!! ;-)) And it’s always fun when other people are getting a kick out of your costumes!
Other runners navigating the “Mud Mounds”
I like any race where it’s acceptable to get this dirty! It honestly makes me feel like a big kid! I had the biggest grin on my face, splashing through the mud and climbing over things the ENTIRE race! I even had one of the other runners nickname me “Smiley”! Haha This race is more about having fun and camaraderie than getting your fastest time. (Now that the race isn’t timed, that isn’t even an issue!) Our group started together, but ended up divided into two teams, “The 25 and Under Escapees” and “The 30+ Escapees”. The 30+ group crossed the finish line together, a low crawl through THICK mud!
At the finish line!
Posing for Free Honest Tea!
With Christina in the “Facebook Photo Booth”
I was free of responsible parental responsibilities for this dash, so we enjoyed some of the finish line festivities. The finish line party for this race is definitely a PAR-TAY!! The D.J. was playing awesome music and “Shock Top” had a very legit bar set up. We got our free beers (Not a huge fan of the citrus blended into the beer, but hey…. it was free!) and danced covered in mud long enough to satisfy my “Woodstock” fantasy! You can donate your muddy shoes at the end of the race, so we tie wrapped our shoes together and added them to the muddy shoe mountain before walking back up the hill for our “showers”. BTW…The people who volunteer to clean these shoes are Saints!
So about the “showers”….this is one thing Warrior Dash almost failed on this year! The hoses that they had set up for runners to clean off with were broken! Yikes! We just happened to be lucky enough to get there at the same time as a water truck, an improvise, pulled up. We literally got hosed off with ice cold water out of a fire hose! It wasn’t the MOST pleasant thing….I was all ready shivering BEFORE my “shower”, but I have to admit…it was a LOT of fun! 🙂
Hit the showers!!
Overall, the 2014 Warrior Dash was a great event. There were lots of fun people and an awesome atmosphere. It is definitely more of a party than an actual race, but if you go into it with that expectation you won’t be disappointed!
Have you ran a Warrior Dash or another mud run? I’d love to hear about it! Did you have lots of muddy fun?
Headlong Running Betty 