Warrior Dash w/photo's

4 miles on the schedule today.....done!  It was hot outside this morning.  Jeez!  In the 70's at 5am is not good.

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The race photos are not up yet but this is what I took plus some from the Warrior Dash facebook page.

I had a great time at the Warrior Dash on Sunday.  It was hot(about 90) and humid but still had loads of fun.  My friend, P, and I went together to the race and we stuck with each other throughout the race.  Because her ankle was sore, we walked the race.  It was very enjoyable.  When we got there, there must have been 500 cars already in the parking lot - it was packed!!!  I started to get nervous and so was she - you know - the thoughts of the unknown going through your mind.

We parked and then went to find packet pick up.  The race itself was very organized and everything was clearly marked.  We headed over to packet pick up and you picked up your packet by last name.  We got a T-shirt, a warrior horns hat and our bib and timing chip.  See below for pictures of everything:

Warrior Shirt Front

Warrior Shirt back

Warrior Shirt Front

Warrior Shirt Back

Warrior Horns

Bib

Timing Chip

As you can see, the timing chip was your chip plus you used it to get one free beer.  Obviously, I did not get my free beer since I still have my chip.  As we were taking our things back to the car, a four wheeler came screaming by with a girl in the back hurt which looked like a broken ankle.  Ouch!  It freaked out my friend pretty bad.  It was the unknown of the race.  Neither of us had ever done this before so we didn't know what to expect.

Before the race with our horns!

What a dork!

We then went back by the race to check out the runners finishing the race through the mud and watching them jump over the fire.  It was crazy!  They also had a huge big screen TV up showing everyone finish too.

Our time to start was 10:30am but since we were there early enough, we went with the 10am wave.  They were really not checking to see when everyone went so we just got in line and started.  They had a start line with huge balls of fire coming out each side of the start sign.  It was really cool looking.  This was not at our race(because I could not carry a camera in mud/water) but here's a picture of that flame from another race somewhere else:

sweet flames

The start at Michigan 2011 Warrior Dash!  This I took!

Then we basically went on a trail for about a mile until we came to the first obstacle.

Here's a map of the course we did:

Road Rage! - First obstacle
There were tires all over the place tied together and you jumped on them or in them to get through them and then jumped on junk cars.  There were more tires and more cars and more tires.  That was it.  It was really simple and it was nice to start with something simple to get things started.  Here's a picture from Warrior Dash that shows what it looked like:

Deadweight Drifter - Second obstacle
There was a pond and in it they had set up four logs that you had to climb over in waist deep water.  Really again not that hard although I would say that once thing it did was get your feet soaking wet and heavy going forward.

Barricade Breakdown - Third obstacle
In this obstacle, you hurdled over a barricade wall that was probably 4.5 feet high and then crawled under barbed wire.  I think there was four walls and four areas to crawl under.  Fairly simple overall.

Great Warrior Wall - Fourth obstacle
This obstacle you had to scale a wall with a rope that was probably 15 feet  and then climb down the other side.  You had to put a little more physical effort into this one.  P skipped this one due to the height.  You can skip any obstacle you wanted but would not be eligible for prizes but you still got your finishers medal.  Here's what it looked like:

Chaotic Crossover - Fifth obstacle
This one also required a little more physical effort and some skills.  You had to crawl across tangled nets.  I tried to stay towards the side to make things a little easier.  If you were in the middle of this, it was much more difficult to do.  Here's what it looked like:

Teetering Traverse - Sixth obstacle
You were basically on a plank about six inches wide and had to teeter up and down through it.  You were up about 5-6 feet from the ground.  Again, it was a pretty easy thing to do.  I helped P across because she does not like heights but she got through it great.  Here's a picture of what we went over:

Blackout - Seventh obstacle
This is the one I was really worried about because I did not want to be in pitch black darkness.  It was not pitch black and was not muddy at all and was a really easy crawl to the other side.

Arachnophopia - Eighth obstacle
This one was also very simple.  There was rubber ropes all tangled up throughout the path and you had to work your way through them.  If you were really short, you could get through near the bottom of them too.

Bog crossing - Ninth obstacle
This one was not on the Michigan map on their website so we were not expecting it but it was a bog crossing.  This was THE most disgusting things I have ever done in my life.  The bog was pitch black that looks like a really deep mud puddle.  One step and I fell in three feet deep.  It was so gross.  Once you got through that, you had to climb up a really thick muddy hill which was hard to get your footing.  I wish they had had a camera man there because this was the worst one you had to go through.  My shoes felt like they weighed 5 pounds each - yuck!

Here's a link to see it if you want.  Gross!!!!  This is actually what I walked through but the log was not there the day we did it so you had to walk through this!!!!

http://video-embed.mlive.com/services/player/bcpid619299298001?bctid=1087832264001

The mystery obstacle - Tenth obstacle
On this one,  you scaled your way over the first side on basically ends of two by fours(those red things) and climbed up to the top.  Then you used rope to scale down the other side.  My bib actually got caught on the rope and tore off and I fell a few feet off the rope but there was hay at the bottom for a soft landing.  P decided to skip this one due to height.  Here's a picture from warrior dash facebook page:

Cargo climb - Eleventh obstacle
This was about a thirty foot climb through cargo nets that were muddy from the bog.  This was not hard but you had to concentrate where your foot went.  Due to the height of this, P walked around instead of doing this one.  Here a picture from warrior dash for what it looked like:

Warrior Roast - Twelveth obstacle
This was the fire jump!  The flames must have been 2-2.5 feel tall and were going strong!  There was two jumps you made over these and was really fun.  They had photographers sitting at the end taking pictures of you when you jumped.  I can't wait to see those!

Muddy Mayhem - Last obstacle
This was the last one.  A crawl through a mud pit.  The mud was probably 1-2 feet deep at the start and then you had to crawl under barbed wire.  I actually got my shirt caught on the first barb but it didn't get me.  After you finished your crawl, you ran to the end at the finish where they were taking your picture again.

People were there ready to give out water and bananas and you also got your medal at that time.  Here's the medal:

After the race, we took off our shoes and threw them in the piles with hundreds of other shoes and went by the water truck to get cleaned off.

There was a truck with water shooting out of it that allowed you to get cleaned off.  Not really clean but at least clean enough to change and have clean clothes on for the drive home.  By the way, there was not changing area's which I think is really needed.  We basically had to use a towel to change in the parking lot like everyone else was doing too.

Already cleaned off somewhat but done!

So....would I do it again?  Probably not.  I thought it was fun but really it was more of a thing you do once and move on to something else.  From a physical standpoint, it was really not that difficult and you could probably get through it really quickly.  Perhaps if I had run the entire course, the obstacles would have seemed harder to do.  Overall I enjoyed it and my suggestion would be to bring friendsm - lots of them.  The more friends, the more fun you would have.  It would not be fun to go to this alone but then what race is?

Have a great day and.....Keep Running!!!!!!