Warrior Dash

What's up fellow out-of-shape Internet users.

About a month ago, my brother Chris texted me and asked if I'd be willing to do Warrior Dash with him towards the end of July.  His wife, Nicole, had been doing it for years and got him into doing it the last two years since they've been together.  Well, needless to say, Warrior Dash isn't the sort of thing a pregnant woman - let alone a woman pregnant with two babies - would be cool with doing, so she was out.  So was the other guy Chris had offered Nicole's ticket to when she decided to up and get pregnant after they had bought their tickets.

So he asked me.

And if you folks know anything about me, know this:  I'm terribly out of shape.

I'm not fat or anything, but I rarely exercise.  I'm on my feet all day at work, so during the school year I rarely feel up for running after wrangling teenagers for eight hours a day.  Granted, I ran a 5K the last couple years for St. Patrick's Day, but that's about it.  I honestly didn't think I'd be able to do it.

It took no small degree of convincing on Chris' part before I finally relented and agreed to do with him.  For those of you unfamiliar with Warrior Dash, it's a 5K obstacle course through the woods, where you scale walls, crawl through tunnels, swim across ponds, navigate your way through trenches, climb through water-spraying death traps, jump over fire, and drag yourself through mud under barb wire.  Endurance is definitely more important than strength.

Nicole hung out at the Finish Line and snapped a few pics as we made our way through the final stages of the course.  We were covered in mud and had to discard our shoes at the end, but fortunately Chris had snagged a few used pairs for us from guys he works with.  After waiting in line for a half hour to showever off the caked-on layers of mud we had accrued, we drove home and I promptly took a two-hour nap, thoroughly exhausted.  I'm definitely doing it next year.

I also was able to download a few pics some event photographers took throughout the race, so I leave you now with some photographical evidence of my day pretending to be somewhat athletic.

Rock and roll.

Clean and dapper, pre-race.  Note the lack of mud, sweat and tears.

The firs half of the course was mostly running through sand, through the woods.  There were few obstacles for the first leg of the race, but running through sand was absolutely brutal on your ankles - my joints were pissed at me by the end of the day.  There weren't any photographers in the first six or seven obstacles, but they had one stationed at the Fisherman's Catch, shown here.

Chris charges over the Warrior Roast in the home stretch, near the finish line.

I am all that is Man.

After the Warrior Roast, you had to scale a wall and then slide down this water slide - who doesn't love water slides? - before splashing through a giant mud puddle.

Approaching the last obstacle of the course:  Muddy Mayhem.

This wasn't hard at all, but it was obviously pretty gross.

Warrior Dash.  Vanquished.

Until 2018. . .

- Brian