Warrior Dash 2011

This.....

 Is the Warrior Dash.

Athletes...drunks....hot women....not so hot women....everyday Joes.....and everything in between. It's an excuse to be a kid again on an adult playground. Complete with grown up Koolaid in the form of free beer for your efforts.This is the kind of thing that boys dreamed of while playing GI Joe in the backyard but all we had was a jungle gym. The scene is pretty awesome as the fun never really ends. You get there, a wave takes off and you watch as some suffer and then admire as some effortlessly jump everything in their path.

I will say that this year the course was longer - it had to be about 2.5 miles last year and they stretched it to a full 3 miles this time....I think they added the 1/2 mile in the form of up hill trail climbs this year but it was fun. Toughest thing for me? Coming straight out of COLD lake water and into a series of chest high walls that you jump/lumber over and then get on your knees to crawl under a board about two feet off the ground. Of course it's muddy so you do this about 6 times and I was wiped....EARLY. Then go climb a 20ft. wall and see how you feel....

Over that and up a tire climb, over a cargo net wall and down, trail run for a while, crawl on your knees in total darkness...not hard but more a test on my knees, then STOP!!!!!!!!!! Somebody got hurt going through a rope course called arachnophobia.....We stopped for about 5 to 8 minutes on the course while they cut the ropes down. It killed our times but safety first....And I needed the break. I think I forgot some cargo net thingy in there but then we slid down a watery slip and slide type thing into a muddy mucky mess. Crawl through mud with barbed wires urging you lower only to get clean in another lake, jump some logs in the water, leap a fire line and move on to the finish line.

Kim and I finished together and it was quite an accomplishment for us. We've been pushing each other so hard with running - even though it didn't help here - so to cross with Kim was cool. I would have liked to have back the 5 minutes or more that we missed because I KNOW we would have been under 40 minutes and that's pretty damn sporty for a 5K with obstacles.

You get to see some skin.....

You get to see some crowds.....

You get a fire filled starting line every thirty minutes....

And finally, you get to hang with friends.

I'm so proud of Kim because she drank a beer in celebration, she ran like a champ in less than desirable conditions, and had a great time in the process. Did I mention that she drank a beer?


I'd share the details of getting clean in a yard with an ice cold water hose but we've got to keep this PG for the kiddos. We were all sharing more than we should have been but you do what you do to get clean after something like this.

It was a great time. Shoot...we're thinking of doing the Tennessee Warrior Dash in September. It's actually close to get to Manchester, TN than it is Mountain City, GA so we're contemplating it. We're just a bunch of grown ups acting like kids again.