Warrior Dash!!

Apparently this is going to just become my race diary blog!  Why?  Because I did a Warrior Dash yesterday and that is what you get to hear about.  I'm not going to write about my trip to visit Miranda or the long car drive to Arkansas.  Nope, that's going to have to wait.  Right now, you get to hear about my race!  Miranda had called me way back in September to ask if I wanted to come to Tulsa and do a Warrior Dash with her.  Um,... YEAH!  She talked our dad into doing it as well, but I think that might have been a ploy to get Mom to come down as well and babysit her boys, so she could run it with her hubby too.  Her plan backfired though, and she called me a few months ago to confess she wasn't going to be able to run it with me because she was suddenly in the process of procreating and somehow it seemed very wrong for a 19 week prego lady to be doing such an arduous thing.  I was so happy to hear of her impending joy that I was only a little disappointed she would miss the glory of dashing with us.

Yesterday was the day!  I took my trusty little camera which has taken crappy photos of all my other races, and sadly discovered it had a crack.  That rendered its waterproofness no longer so.  I took it with me anyway and snapped pictures till it suffered total immersion and died a wet death.  Let me share what I did get picture of!  (And if Miranda emails me any more, I'll post those too!)

 We signed up for the 11am heat and got there nice and early.  Good thing, because the line to park was lengthy and the walk was a ways.  Yeah, Superman.... He's with me!  I thought this was just too cute. Superman, pushing his stroller. (That's Dan, my sister's hubby.)

 Did I mention how excited I am that Miranda will be having more of these?!  She makes some really cute kids.

Dan is ready to fly!

Callie, Rylee and Camden, wearing our Warrior Helmets.  What's better than a race that gives you a challenge, and rewards you with a cool shirt, a cool helmet AND a medal?!!  Oh, and you get to jump over fire, too.  BEST race ever!

My brother in law was not the only one dressed up.  Check out this guy.

And these girls dressed as the Ninja Turtles.  Sorry, I couldn't get a better picture in the crowd.

The kilts were great too, but someone was disappointed to discover they were wearing shorts beneath their kilts.  I also liked the group wearing shirts that said, "I'd love to chat but I" ...then it had a picture of a mustache. And they all had mustaches painted on- even the girls.

Here is our group.  Me, my dad, my brother in law, Dan, and his friend.  We decided it would be more fun to stick together than to run it alone, and it was MUCH more fun together! 

We started out in a huge group, struggling to stay upright on a narrow, poorly cleared path while dodging other runners, rocks, mud, branches and other hazards. The first obstacle wasn't till we were nearly halfway done. I'm glad we got a mile and a half of running in before tackling the tough stuff.

 Well, unless they counted this super steep and muddy hill as the first obstacle.

 They did have some awesome, motivational signs on the route. This 2 parter was my favorite.  This was on the left side...... (It says "Making up for the other 364 days of the year.")

And this was on the right.  Awesome!

 Then we hit the obstacles.  One after the other.  I had thought I'd get a breather with the stops, but nope!  They made me more tired and out of breath!  So, here is number one- 8 feet up and you have to walk a balance beam.  Unfortunately, my brain was still on run mode and I'm a little afraid of heights!

 Dan went flying up like the Superman he was dressed as, with Dad right behind.

 I know, not a horribly narrow beam, till you look down, see a ditch of water 10 feet below and realize your eyes can't focus.  Never fear, I did not fall. But I did fear!

 Crawling in the mud.  There were 2 of this kind. Tough on the knees.

Walk up the narrow wood beam, down the narrow wood beam. Cross the balance beam. Climb over the wall while water dumps on you, cross the balance beam, over the second wall, up the beam and then down the beam.  Like all the obstacles, it wasn't horrible, but it was challenging, since it was wet and slippery. The guy on the beam next to me biffed it pretty good on the way down. Thankfully, I had some muscular partners to help me down the super-slippery beam.

Here's Dad, slogging through the series of mud hills.  You slopped your way up a hill of mud, then down into the mud pit, sloshed your way across the muddy water, then up the next mud hill.  There were about 5 hills and 3 muddy water pits to try to stay upright on.  You could tell who managed to stay on their feet and who slid down on their bums, from the muddy rear ends.

 Climb up, climb down.  Repeat. Dan made us look bad.

 Go Dad, Go!

After this was the water hole.  Wading through chest deep water, hauling yourself up onto the floating deck (that was well above your head and really tough to get up on!), and doing it all over again.  This is where I lost the camera.  I nearly lost my britches, as well, and I had a devil of a time getting out of that stupid water!  Apparently I need to lose some weight, since I had my Dad and a stranger trying to pull me up from the top and it took me 4 tries to get out onto the floating platform.  I admit I might have gotten out faster if I hadn't been holding the camera and trying to keep my pants on.  I bashed my leg pretty good on that one and have a spectacular bruise on my thigh from it.  But I digress.  The point was, I had to put the camera in my pocket, which was well under water and it got wet and kicked the bucket.  So no more course photos.  

It was brutal though.  The last hill about did me in.  It was hot.  It was muggy.  The course had too many hills and rough terrain. And I had rocks in my soggy shoes.  On the plus side, kudos to Warrior Dash.  They had 4 water stations (yes, in a 5K race!) to keep you hydrated.

 Leaping the fire at the end.  Way cool!

 Here we are, the last, glorious sprint to the end!  The finish is in sight, we see the cheering crowd, we're ready to high five our screaming children, and loving the chants.

Then we realize, there is one more thing to go.  Ug.  A mud crawl under barb wire. Yep, you have to get chin deep in mud.  Note that my shirt is white and my pants are hideous green.

 Yeah, I don't have photo editing software on my laptop.  But here I am after the mud swim, a uniform mud brown.

 Whoo-hoo for my dad!  He was a rock star! He sure looks pooped.  I know I was!

See the water behind us?  That was where we got to rinse off the mud.  I know, no shower, just a muddy pond.  Best part?  The cow pies on the shore.  Still, we were clean-er.  And it was muddy enough that Dan could wriggle out of his hot, gross Superman onesie and put his shorts back on without embarrassing himself. Anyway, here are the 4 of us- Race done, finished with the rinse off, and ready to show off our medals.

And a group shot under the Warrior Dash banner.  Yeah, we pretty much rock!

My takeaway:  It was a fun race.  It was really hard and challenging for me.  The hills were a killer and even though I have no problem running a 10K, doing a 5K with huge hills and tough obstacles was HARD.  The humidity and heat didn't help.  I'm glad I did it.  I would do it again.  It was a lot of fun to run with my dad and brother in law. Definitely more fun to run with friends.