Wow! Yesterday was the Warrior Dash and it was so much fun! The day started at 5am since I was meeting Cindy and Craig up in Silverthorne at 7:30. Cindy and I were in the first wave of the day, so we were ready to go by 9am. In essence, the race was ridiculous! It started out with a few easy obstacles–climbing over rusted cars, a tower of hay bales, and a rope ladder up a hillside–but then it led into about 1.5 miles of running up one of the ski runs at Copper. I’m a runner and in pretty decent shape, but let me tell you–running at elevation UP a ski run is not easy! Cindy and I saw one girl dressed as a Joker who totally tripped over a rock and sprawled going down the mountain. Carnage incident #1 of the day!
After we finally made it down for the mountain run, the obstacles began. The first, of course, was the mud pit! It had barbed wire above it, but it was high enough that you wouldn’t go anywhere near it if you actually submerged yourself in the mud. Some people were all serious and tried to run through the mud pit, almost like they were going for speed records. Big mistake! They either lost their shoes when they were sucked off in the mud or scraped their backs on the barbed wire! Oops! Cindy and I dove right in, but it meant that I spent the rest of the race with the scoop neck of my top FILLED with mud. Awesome!
After the mud pit, there was more running, a cargo net climb, a river crossing, and the final run to the warrior flames at the end. The hard part was actually trying to clean up afterwards! They had showers available but they were freezing cold with zero pressure so they weren’t super effective. I jumped in the nearby pond but even that wasn’t doing the trick. We finally borrowed the hotel room Tim had gotten and used a real shower–I was AMAZED at how much mud fell out of places!!! I’m still picking it out of my eyelashes today 🙂
The race was a lot of fun. My knees are pretty banged up today from the mud pit, but I imagine others are a lot worse! Some guys were all about putting on a show for the crowd so they were diving, head-first, into the mud pit. As the day went on, the mud pit was more dirt than anything, so these poor guys would come up with blood streaming down their foreheads! No wonder they have you sign a liability waiver at the beginning!!