Warrior On!

Yes, I am a Warrior!  At least, according to the Warrior Dash I am.  That's about as far as I'll take it though...true Warriors are another blog post saved for Memorial Day.  But this was a different kind of Warrior.  Check out the link above if you haven't heard of this.  It's certainly not like any other race I've run...and I can't wait to do it again.  Below, you'll read about my perspective of the race.  I'm sure everyone you ask would have a different view and certainly each Warrior Dash race is different.  Either way, I hope the description provides half as much entertainment as the race provided for me.

So my wave was at 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday.  The race was running waves every half hour with about 350 people per wave...in other words, a lot of people.  Arriving at Copper Mountain we quickly realized how serious some people were taking this event.  And by serious, I mean dressing in costume and playing the warrior part...or just ready to party.  I was lame and wore normal running clothes with worn out shoes.

I was running with several friends I work with and went to the designated location only to discover they were already at the start area.  I quickly put on my timing chip and race number and jogged to the start area.  Once there, I was informed that the plan was to wait for the 2:00 wave to go and then file into the starting gate.  This was necessary to avoid clogging up at the start, which was fenced at about 6 feet wide.  The downside to all of this is we were essentially stuck and couldn't get a proper warmup.

After 30 minutes of trash talking (all friendly of course), we were ready to go.  The starting gun for this race is replaced by large shooting flames above your head...the heat is pretty intense.  So the race has begun!  After running on a road for a short distance, we came across the first of the obstacles...two rows of vehicles to jump over.  The first row consisted two smaller cars and I easily leaped onto the hood of one and jumped off.  The second row was an old truck and a Scout...slightly more challenging than the cars.  To top it off, you could really only go on the hood of the Scout, or the hood and bed of the truck and human traffic was backing up.  I was able to follow one of my friends over the hood of the Scout since most were headed to the truck.

After clearing the cars, there was more running; through several ditches and up the hill a little towards the hay bales.  These were stacked neatly, about 10 feet high.  The quads were already starting to burn a little and this just added that much more fire to the legs.

For the next several minutes, the course climbed, climbed and climbed some more.  I heard an estimate of 300 feet elevation gain over this short half mile or so.  Legs were at inferno levels at this point.  Reaching the top, we quickly descended back down towards the resort. Most of the descent was on a pretty good service road, which was good for me as I'm not a very good trail runner.

Planning on the run...and quickly.

At the bottom of the hill, they had placed the one water station...unfortunately it was misplaced.  Right after the aid station, they placed the mud pit (would've been handy, but not Warrior-esque, to have water after the mud to wash out the mouth).  Oh, not just any mud pit, one covered with barbed wire to force you in the mud.  We had heard from others that diving in mud was a bad idea...it was loaded with sharp gravel and would shred your hands, knees or anything else.  I took that advice, and even a race volunteer was standing there yelling "don't dive."  Of course the cheering fans were yelling dive and quickly booed if you didn't.  No worries for me, I'm not that sensitive.

No diving for me!

Climbing out of the mud pit was a challenge.  First, you started heading uphill.  Second, shoes and clothes gained ridiculous amounts of weight...or so it seemed.  This was tough and many walked for a bit...including me.  Ahead, were the tunnels to crawl through.  Honestly, I thought this would be a very easy obstacle.  Wrong...and it wouldn't be Warrior-like if it was.  The tunnels were placed on a hill, so you had to crawl through and up.  Not too bad normally, but after being caked with mud all day, all you do is slide back down.  The trick for me was to grab for the joints in the tunnels and pull myself up.  This worked out quite well, but wasn't too kind to the knees.

After the tunnels, there was a short run to the cargo net...about 10 feet tall.  Again, ropes covered with mud = slippery.  This was a tough obstacle too.  After climbing down the net, there was about a 4 foot jump down...and downhill on rough surface.  I took this slow so I wouldn't trash already delicate ankles.

The flames sure seemed higher than that.

We were almost done now.  There were some planks to cross a ditch and a creek crossing, which only seemed to add more weight to the shoes after I started getting used to the mud weight.  And then, the end was near.  We ran for a short time and then you could start to see the smoke...Warrior sign for Finish.  Coming around the corner, I saw the two rows of fire (Duraflame logs) and thought it looked quite a bit higher than what it looked like online.  Nevertheless, you have to jump it to finish.  Of course there's very little concern for burns...mud on the legs provides quite a bit of insulation from the heat (besides the fact that my legs are shaved so there wasn't any hair to burn).  The finish was shortly after the fire and I was ready to cross the line.  I was tired.

The Warrior Crew

In the end, everyone I was with survived, mostly uninjured and with smiles on our faces.  We were officially Warriors now...with hats to match.  As a post race note, my hips were pretty sore for a couple of days...much more so than any other training/races I've done, including marathons.  No matter, I plan to go back next year if it's around and would recommend it to anyone with a Warrior spirit...or with a lack of common sense.

My son looks much better in the Warrior hat than I do.

Thanks for reading.

- Brian