!Warrior Dash!

The Battle has come and gone. And first of all I want my little blog reading world to rest assured that I did physically live through it. I currently feel like one giant bruise, and I haven't moved this slow in a long time. Now, hopefully on to the fun stuff. For starters, in case you are reading this and thinking to yourself "What the heck is she talking about? Warrior What". No, it was not another name for or apart of the Trask Mountain assault that I guess took place the same day here in yamhill county and reports from friends are that the pictures look similar. If you are new to the words Warrior Dash, let me introduce you. "Warrior Dash is a Fire Leaping, Mud Crawling, Extreme Run from Hell". Their words not mine, but I don't disagree. Get there early, check in, get your timing chip laced to your shoes, bib number on, run into friends who have already gone and get a couple muddy hugs (there goes the idea of a nice clean "before" picture. Here are muddy friends Chayo and Christy...

Thanks to them my before picture looked like...

Grab someone you don't know to take a before picture of you and your friend...

Check your bag, and go find the starting line. Now things get a little fun. Warrior Dash doesn't do a gun start like other races, they start with flames. So the Flames shoot up and off the pack goes. Straight into the woods. across a little creek...yes seriously shoes are wet in the first 100 yards of the race. And then comes the hill. Hill is such a nice word for what it was, it was a mile long climb, not quite to the point of using you hands on the ground, but only about 5 degrees off of that probably. And did I mention it was a mile long? As many medics as they had along the course, I am surprised they didn't have any in that mile. And no I did not sprint up that mountain. I walked. Sometimes very slowly. But thankfully, after a mile of climbing you crest and see the sign "Caution: Obstacle Ahead". Pond, 5 floating logs tethered in place. Goal, SIMPLY get over them. Got over one, around the middle three, and the last one I decided to try to get over. I made, not without some shoulder pain though as I hit the water (have no idea what I did, it bothered me the whole rest of the day and Sunday but was fine today). I must admit that the next obstacle I walked around (totally allowed). It came really soon after the first one and my shoulder was still hurting. There were actually a couple that I skipped, one I climbed the ladder up to the top but couldn't get over (and the medic on the ground was not helping). But I really want to tell you about the two I wanted to chicken out on but didn't.Just bear with me a little it is hard to describe some of these obstacles. So the first one I conquered that I didn't think I would was the "tilting tables" which actually really doesn't need much explanation. Tabletops, that tilt depending on where the weight is on them, you have to jump from one to the next and they are all different heights. Problem is once you get on top of the first table you can actually see the gaps in between tables. And well with all the mud your shoes are slick. But with the encouragement of one of the volunteers there I made it!!! And sometime after that came the fire pole. Let me just start by saying I have discovered I have no problem with the actual height of something. It's the getting down from the height that trips me up. So you climb this scaffold thing and line up with a pole, which sway. It was probably a perfect step off for someone who is say...any height taller than me. But when you have short legs it is a longer step to get your legs around the pole. Thankfully this is where we started to get passed by the fast people from the wave after us. And this is where I would like to thank the the very nice (handsome, in shape, shirtless man) who came over and said " You can do this, just stand on my hands" and he stretched his hands up so I had a "step" to stand on instead of just a sheer drop-off jump. And then came more hill. I am not sure how we did, But I don't really recall any down hill in this entire race. I mean as much uphill as we did it shouldn't have ended up being a perfect loop. Loop, which means close to the beginning, so the last two obstacles. First up is the Fire! All you gotta do is jump over the fire line, the flames really aren't all that high, just enough that it actually is a jump not a step. And then comes the best mud yet. Slide in to a mud pool, belly crawl under the barbed wire...

and then find a way to pull yourself out of the mud and down the slide...

(those last 2 are not me, they are random people when I went to get some extra shots). Once you manage to get back up, muddy smile for the muddy camera and try to run across the finish line time. Mind you it was try to stand up in the first place because it is so slick despite the hay that had been laid down at various times. I suppose if you went early it would not have been as bad, but when you are crossing the finish line at 445 in the afternoon it's slick.

those pants were a lot shorter when the day started, they just became so mud heavy that they stretched.

So now it's time to try to clean up. Which means climb in the lake with everyone else and try to get as much mud as possible off of you and out of your clothes. Which just know that won't be very good at. There are way more pictures on facebook. But I gotta share one more thing with you. Last monday I went for a 3.25 mile walk and finished it in 57 minutes. Warrior Dash was 3.18 miles plus obstacles and that mountain and trails, 1 hr 15 min and 57 seconds. So Honestly not all that bad. Now it is off for a couple of days to let me body heal and then on to Boot Camp class at the gym starting next week. That's right,I finally committed to and paid for the 5 am boot camp class.