Well I'm super late on a lot of blogging, but here we go! Let's catch up! A few weeks ago I participated for the second time in the New England Warrior Dash. What an experience! This was totally different than last year, but still muddy fun.
My Sis with Beer and Turkey Legs!! Warrior Staples. Hope she'll do it with me sometime!
So the day started with RAIN. Lots and lots and LOTS of rain. So much rain (and hangovers) that most of my friends bailed on me lol. But I was not to be stopped. I love this stuff. So my posse turned into my boyfriend, my sister and her husband. We were all going home afterwards for my parents 35th wedding anniversary, but that's a different story. First problem with the rain - parking! It took us over 1.25 hours to get parked and settled. Ack! I missed my heat and we got over to the start line as soon as possible. Then, I found out that they had handed my packed out to someone else by accident! Crappers! I finally got my bib, used the DISGUSTING port-a-potty and made my way to the start line with about 1.5 min to spare!
Eww - Port-a-potty!
Our heat was insane. It pretty much had everyone in the 10, 1030 and 11pm heats because of all the parking problems. I was about 3/4 of the way back, which was very frustrating. Impossible to try to pass people when you're consistently running in a foot of mud - no joke. The place was a swamp! And areas were definitely cow infested at some points - they stunk!! Everyone was falling and slipping and sinking and loosing shoes! I managed to only fall twice and they were minor falls, thanks to my many years of mountaineering with my Garrisonites.
My wave...or waves?
So now onto the obstacles - we had running through the tress, through a mess of ropes, tire swings, plank walks, over walls and under barbed wire, over a 15'+ wall with a rope, vertical cargo nets, horizontal cargo nets, fire leaping, slip'n'slide and a mud pit. Overall I placed 2913 out of about 10300 men and women! I think that's even better than last year, which is awesome, but I don't think I tried nearly as hard. With all the mud through literally the whole course, you just couldn't run at all. You just had to keep trekking through and hope you don't fall. Luckily, I have a good strong, fast walk so that helps me out, especially on hills.
That's me running down the hill in orange!
One thing I love about races like this are the random friends you make doing it. For a while I tagged along with a group of girls dressed as the TMNT. I follow this guy in an orange shirt labeled "Coach" about 90% of the way. And then was my girl near the fire pit - she was a riot! We're both running near each other and she finally see's the camera and goes "Oh crap, they just got footage of my fixing my boobs"!!! hahaha. Been there too!
"Coach" finishing up :)
Afterwards, it was off to the warrior wash. I did pretty good overall in not getting too messy, but that doesn't mean you dont need to get clean. Instead of the lame showers from last year, we had this crazy ass fan blowing water from a high power hose at you! It was freezing and painful and AWESOME. I would duck down, wash a bit, jump up, get more wet, repeat. It's hysterically seeing everyone strip down to their underwear and just not care. <3 you Warrior Dash. I of course wore stuff I intended to trash, and definitely did so. $5 shorts from Big Lots and a freebie Tshirt. I wasn't thrilled about donating my shoes but I certainly wasn't going to try to clean them myself and the bunnies had already chewed through the shoelaces, so why not! It's a good cause and excuse to shop :)
Warrior Wash!
So yeah, overall it was fun. Not sure how many more times I'll do the Dash. Definitely ready for something a little harder, like Tough Mudder. The Dash you just don't even really need to train for and you can def finish. It's challenging but I wan't something tough. I still definitely recommend it! We'll see what my next race is!
Me a la finish line@!
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