Climb | Life on Planetmarsz

What can I say about the Warrior Dash but … AWESOME! It was a blast! I had so much fun just hanging out with the group of people who were with me, feeling accomplished and proud of myself after every single obstacle. The sense of accomplishment you get after you pull yourself up and over a solid wooden wall, or swim through a (smelly) pond, or jumping over the fire.

Early Saturday morning, June 23, we met up at the YMCA that I used to be a member of and the group of us donned our “team uniforms” of fake tattoos by Ed Hardy. My co-worker Tom wanted us all to wear the fake tattoos because he felt we were “badasses” for running the Warrior Dash. It was a lot of fun watching the others, who all ranged in age from 40-67, figuring out how to apply the tattoos to various parts of our bodies–shoulders, calves, forearms. Then we piled into Tom’s van and made the 1 hour 20 minute trek to Lebanon.

I was disappointed with the price for parking–$20! Then we waited in a long line (though our wait wasn’t as long as others, from what I’ve read on the Facebook page) for the shuttle busses to the site. The site ended up being six miles away, which was surprising. Because of the wait, we missed our 10:30 wave (the organizers did send us an email saying we should arrive at least 1.5 hours early, which we did). Once the shuttle dropped us off, and we made the additional 1/4 mile trek up a gravel drive, we arrived at the site to heart pumping music and an electric vibe that just got up revved and ready to go–PERFECT!

“The Gang” before tackling the Dash–note how clean we are.

We were able to sign our waivers, get our packets, check in our gear, and put on our numbers and timing chips in time for the final call for the 11:00 wave, so off we sprinted to the start line just as the flames shot up ad the crowd started cheering. The race started out with a 1.5 mile run through a farmer’s field, which proved to be a little difficult because of the rough, uneven terrain. Beth, Tom, and I decided we wanted to stay together as a team through the whole event. We ended up losing Billy and John because they went to the bathrooms before we started.

The first obstacle was the tire obstacle in which we ran through swinging tires and then ran, football-camp-style, over a bunch. This was followed by a swim through a (smelly) pond–they gave you the option to go around it, but Beth and I figured we didn’t come to just avoid the pond, we’d go through it. You had to actually swim, and I’m not the best swimmer, but I tried my best to keep my head up (there was no wanting to stick your face in this water) and paddle through. It was the hardest obstacle of the entire race because your tennis shoes got weighed down by the water and you had to propel yourself up and over a log. But once we got out, you felt accomplished! (However, you had to be careful running for the next mile because of your wet shoes and the possible slick conditions.)

Other obstacles included:

Chaotic Crossover: crawling over cargo netting parallel with the ground (I did the “bear crawl” over the netting)
Deadman’s Drop: climbing up and over a wooden wall (a little nervous, but it wasn’t anything too difficult)
Teetering Traverse: it’s almost like a human-sized dog walk! Walk up an incline, run over a “bridge” and then run down the incline.
Storming Normandy: military crawl under barbed wire — the rocks hurt my knees!
Great Warrior Wall: climbing up and over a wall using rope (I was worried about anything involving using my upper body strength, namely the ropes, but this was pretty doable thanks to using my legs against the wall)
Giant Cliffhanger: another incline, this one using a rope and at a much steeper level. The lady at the bottom suggested I lean forward as I get higher, but for some reason I didn’t listen, which made getting over the apex a little harder…oops!
Treacherous Trenches: more crawling under barbed wire, only down into a trench. This time I did a “plank crawl” so my bum stayed down, but my knees/arms were saved from the rocks.
Vertical Limit: almost like rock climbing–fun!!
Cargo Climb: climbing up cargo nets hanging vertically, then we slid down a fireman’s pole. Whee!!!
Warrior Roast: what’s more fun than running and jumping over lines of fire with two friends? So much fun! It really got the heart pumping.
Muddy Mayhem: the grand finale for the dash–diving right into a muddy pit, being sure to stay lower than the barbed wire, making sure you had to get muddy from the neck down.