Warrior Dash!

My cousin Becky and I ran the Warrior Dash this morning. It's a 3.1 mile all-terrain loop with obstacles built in... and lots of mud.

She had a stress fracture scare a few weeks ago and I have a bum IT band, so we said we'd take it easy. BUT turns out she's supremely dedicated. I needed her cheering towards the end when I just wanted to walk! We actually ran between all the obstacles except at the end when the hills started getting super muddy and my knee started hurting pretty bad.

We thankfully ran in the first wave at 9am and it was uncharacteristically 'cool' for July: 80 degrees and cloudy!

Crazy. Also not quite awake yet.

The course was out in north KC amidst a bunch of trees. And hills.

Some of the obstacles:

-alternately climbing over some 4 foot walls and the under bars with barbed wire on them
-wading through several knee or waist deep creeks
-climbing up and back down some triangled 2x4s with nothing to help but notches for your feet
-walking across some beams with monkey bars to hold onto
-climbing up a rope ladder and sliding down a wall on the other side
-stepping through tires a-la training camp
-climbing up and down a huge stack of hay bales
-crawling across rope netting

These don't include the continuous rolling hills, which were rocky and grassy when we started, but wet and slippery for the last mile.

The final two (classic) obstacles were leaping over fire and then army-crawling through a mud pit under the barbed wire.

Love Becky's expression

So. close. to. finishing.

Trying to channel my inner track star.

Wohoo!

 The mud pit was true to its name. You can't tell, but it was impossible to walk in (those who tried lost their shoes). And even when you crawled, you weren't moving much. You had to let your feet float and pull with your arms to get anywhere.

Submerging in water felt so good at this point.

Tough!

Trying not to fall (again).

I fell twice in the mud right at the end (glad no one got that on camera). It was so slippery! But the mud felt good as the sun started to come out and we were happy to have survived. We even started passing people toward the end! So much for the 'walking and taking it easy' philosophy. My knee won't be thanking me tomorrow, but it was good for my spirit to run again. My other two 5k runs this season haven't happened (one was veto-ed by the doctor due to asthma and the other was when we went to New Mexico last-minute in May). It was great to actually get my money's worth! And to hang out with my cool cousin and aunt and uncle.

Blondies.

Cara, Sarah, and me. Yay friends from Neuro ICU!

Muddy.

Fun.

 Afterwards, we celebrated with burnt ends and baked beans from Oklahoma Joe's.

And gluten-free lemon cake. Because I'm not that much of a warrior ;-)



Edited to Add: The results are up and I finished in 54 minutes and 59 seconds! I know this sounds SUPER slow, even for me. But when you factor in a very hilly, muddy course, obstacles, and waiting in line for obstacles, it's not too bad. In fact, this time earned me 2832nd place our of a total 6677 participants on Saturday and 217th out of 806 women between the ages of 25-29. Their times ranged from 35 minutes to 2+ hours! All in all, a fun race and I'm SO glad we ran at 9am before it got super hot and more muddy!