Warrior Dash

Warrior Dash, Tough Mudder, MudZilla- they are all making a big scene on the "running" circuit.  I have heard of them many of times but the closest any of them got to Nebraska was Colorado and that meant spending a lot of money to go be ridiculous for a short amount of time.  Well Warrior Dash finally put one in the Omaha area.  The Dash filled up so fast that they added Sunday to accommodate those that wanted to participate.  Gina was doing it with Adam and a bunch of his friends so I tagged along for girl power.  I had an idea of what I was getting into but not fully.  I thought the obstacles would be tough and I would end up breaking a leg or twisting an ankle.  Everything I read said to mostly work on your running while training- well I had that down- or so I thought.
Saturday morning was hot and windy.  The race was help in a field pretty much.  It was so dusty out and had little shade.  See how nice and clean we look.

The run was tough and I now know what they mean when they said hellish.  You started out immediately going uphill in a pasture and then just continued to weave in and out of hill after hill.  Finally after a mile you came to an obstacle- This one here:

The next couple obstacles were pretty easy, a cargo net, crawling in the dirt, racing over tires, etc.  I was praying for that river to show up so I could cool down.  That river came but it was not really a river since it had no flow to it.  It was more of a irrigation, cow pond.  It was the best cool down ever.  I would have prayed for that during the Lincoln Marathon.  However the next obstacle was climbing up a rock wall and then sliding down on a tall fire pole.  That one was the toughest for me.  I could not make myself go down that pole all wet and you can't wipe off your hands because you are wet to your neck.  I did it finally (though later heard a girl broke her shin sliding down that pole)  and off we were to the last couple obstacles.  I believe there was 11 or 12 obstacles in total.  A lot of them were climbing 12-15 feet in the air by using a rope or a net and then scaling down the back. 

It was fun, unusual, and harder than I thought it was going to be.  I learned that swimming through mud is much easier that trying to crawl though it.  I am sure that piece of knowledge will come in handy at some point in my life.  I am not sure if I will do another one- maybe one more but it is hard to improve on your times on these since you don't really care what your time is.  I can at least check it off my list.  Check.