Elayne's friend Brittany wanted to try out The Warrior Dash (TWD), but didn't want to do it alone, so she begged/convinced Elayne to do it with her. Elayne informed me that I was going to do it as well. We signed up back in February or some such, and I didn't think much of it after that until about June, when I realized that I was supposed to run a 5k in a few months. Which means that I didn't think about it again until about mid-July, when I realized that I had never actually run a 5k race before, and had only run 3+ miles at a stretch a few times in my life before (not counting stuff like soccer). So I started training haphazardly and was more or less able to run/jog/walk 3 miles at a stretch a few days before the race, at about 9.5-10 minutes per mile.
The night before the race, I remembered something about "carb loading" and ate a ton of spaghetti. The next day, I had a bit of a crampy stomach, which didn't really go away until an hour before the race. We got up early, had some cereal, ran some WD-related errands in Salem, stopped at Subway, and hit the road. Our race time was 1:30 and we had to be there 1.5 hours beforehand, according to the race people.
Our WD was held in a place called "Horning's Hideout," which is a pretty little rural spot West of Portland. It's got lots of hills, a stream, and a few ponds. Normally, it's an enormous in-woods frisbee golf and camping place, but TWD had turned it into a 5k obstacle course and Party/Merchandise Central. We showed up, paid $10 for parking, and then were directed (quite competently) through to our parking spot in a field. We put on the sunscreen and went to get our race packets. There weren't any sign-ups allowed on site, since they had run out. We needed our ID's to get our race packets, which included a tee shirt, a felt "warrior" hat, our race bibs with safety pins, a coupon for $5 off $25 merchandise purchase, a coupon for a discounted ski pass to a local skiing place, and a tracking chip that we had to tie onto our shoes. TWD people were smart about the chips: those things are expensive, and to ensure that you returned them, the chips could be redeemed for one beer of your choice (all beer made by the Pyramid brewing company). I had my ID checked, got a "over-21" wrist band, dropped my stuff off at the Gear Check, and waited around in the shade and stretched.
Did I mention it was hot? The high for the day was about 96. It was alright in the trees, so long as you weren't moving. While we waited, we stretched, walked around to locate stuff, laughed at some of the weird costumes (a group of Where's Waldos, some Luchadores, multiple superheroes, a bunch of guys in drag, loads of pirates, etc.) and stretched some more. Eventually we joined the massive crowd for our heat, waited for the fireball to signal our start, and began...The Warrior Shuffle!!! Yeup, with 450 people trying to go on a two-person-wide trail, things started off pretty damn slow. We went downhill for a ways, splashed through a rivulet, and then started the hills. Steep, steep hills.
Anyway, from there it was a blur of elevation changes and occasional obstacles (I think there were 12). The map wasn't laid out correctly; some of them are pretty close together, others were very spread apart. I will say that just as I was getting seriously overheated, we hit the first obstacle, which involved getting into a shoulder-high pool of murky water and trying to get over a series of floating logs. I got a bicep/back workout pulling a couple of people struggling to get over the logs (not Elayne or Brittany - they did really well with the obstacles). Seriously, I think this one lady I yarded over the logs must have been in the 250+ range. My arms hurt today. Anyway, the submersion and subsequent drippiness really helped with the heat. I heard some people say that the year before it had been rainy and freezing and generally miserable. Not sure which was worse. What also helped with the heat were the two water stations that had been set up. I took two cups each time, drinking half of one and dumping the rest over my head before continuing on.
Sooooo eventually we got to the end, where there was some fire to jump over (the only obstacle that actually made me a little skeptical) and then the mud pit. Yuck. I got mud in places nobody should ever have mud. Made me feel sorry for the lads who were lacking in essential armor, if you know what I mean. Crawling under barbed wire wasn't so bad, although I hit a low patch and got all kinds of mud in my ears. They fixed the barbed wire afterwards. I found that the way to get through it was to slither on your belly using only the arms. Using the legs just lifts your ass up and gets it caught on wire or gets mud good and stuck. I didn't do either of these - just watched a guy in front of me get caught both ways. Oops. At the end is a mud slide, and I'm surprised nobody broke a leg or anything because people were picking up speed by the end and crashing into people who didn't get out of the way fast enough. From there, it was ten yards to the finish line, where you got a little "I survived" medallion, a banana, and some water.
When I went with Elayne and Brittany, we finished in about an hour and a half even. So we went over to the "Warrior Wash," which was just a big pond that everyone got the worst of the mud off in, then went back to the starting line. Why? Because I wanted to run it again. I felt that 1) while I was a little tired, I wasn't in pain or fatigued, which was what I came for, 2) I wanted to see how quickly I could finish it, 3) so I could get my money's worth, and 4) cuz I'm stupid. So after getting the really big rocks out of my shoes and socks, off I went with the 3:30 heat.
The second time around was fun in a different way, mainly because I totally smoked most of the people on the first set of hills. Also, the race people were like "hey, weren't you here before?" and were looking at me like I was a loon for doing it twice. I hit a serious wall at about the third mile. Everything just started catching up to me - mainly a lack of energy, since all I'd had that day was a bowl of cereal, half a sandwich, and a banana. But I decided that even if I couldn't totally kick TWD's ass twice in a row, I could at least not stop moving. Don't get me wrong, I was walking pretty slow on the last set of hills, but I didn't actually stop moving, so I met my goal. Elayne and Brittany said they'd cheer me on at the finish line, but I didn't see them when I finished. I was pretty much a walking mud pie, so I had a banana and some water, looked around for them, went and washed off again, went and found a free bag of granola (CONSUMED), exchanged my race chip for a beer, and found them waiting for me to cross the finish line. Elayne didn't want her beer, so I chugged that and mine and we decided to go home, since the whole thing was going to shut down before too long, which was going to be a traffic nightmare.
The second time around, I finished in about 38-40 minutes. My second time meant that I finished in the top 1000 or so people out of about 20,000. Not bad for my first 5k, but I've got a notion to do better next time. Or to try for something like the Tough Mudder. Takers?
Review of Warrior Dash:
Overall, pretty expensive for what it is. I was okay with it until they charged us $10 to park, which was complete bullshit. What, $70 doesn't cover parking? Screw that. Also, no outside food or drink allowed.
Fun to do nonetheless. And once I remembered that a good chunk of the proceeds go to the Wounded Warriors nonprofit, I felt better about it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to lay down and do nothing for the rest of the day.
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