What Can You Expect at Warrior Dash?

To get very very dirty.

We parked at a local's house, who provide a trailer ride to the event. Music playing, beer tents and turkey leg stations under a beautiful blue sky awaited us. It was easy to check in and we promptly received our goody bag--number and viking headpiece included. But we refused to don the horns since we had not yet earned the warrior title and went off to watch the festivities. The only spectator stand was at the last leg of the race where warriors were leaping over fire and crawling through mud under barbed wire. Someone's wig had gotten caught in the wire and was hanging there limp and defeated.

As competitors neared the muddy finale, the crowd would chant, "Dive, Dive, Dive..."

Mind you that the hog-heaven mud pit only had about six inches of water covering about 10 inches of mud. Most of the girls we watched would slide down on their tushes into the mud before crawling forward. Do wha??? My girl, Michela, and I just look at each with confused expressions. We did not come here to act like prisses. But the hillarious part came when these same girls are crawling through the mud, under the wire, in shorts. Let's just say it was a view most of us would not want to broadcast, although mud really is an excellent cellulite concealer.

Tip #1 Don't wear high shorts unless you can bounce a quarter off your perfectly toned, a$#.

We lined up amid 500 other nuts amid loud dance music and heckling from the dj. With a large fire blast we were off. Michela's ankel started hurting within the first 1/2 mile, but she soldiered on. Serious rock star.

I ran beside a skinny guy dressed as a beer can for a while only to find out this was his second time that day and we were about to get muddier than we could even imagine. After the 3rd mud hole, I found out he was right. This was the only time that day that my girly-girl side of me came out, because while the mud in my pants didn't bug me, my dirty hands did and because my whole body was covered, I couldn't wipe them off.

Probably the most treacherous parts were the 50 yards after a mud obstacle, because the combination of hard ground and slimy sneakers made it very slippery. Believe me, there is absolutely no gracefulness in trying not to bust your ass.

My favorite and most challenging part was the 'swamp'. On the website, it mentioned you had to go thru a swamp and under floating logs. (Yuuuh-uucckk) Well, they lied. You had to go over the floating logs. The water came up to my collarbone and I had go under water and push off the murky bottom to get enough momentum to roll over the log. And this had to be timed just right so the log would already be rolling in the right direction from one of the guys going over at the same time. There were four logs followed by a swim (it was a swim for yours truly since I am SHORT-not for most everyone else) in water logged tennies.

Tip #2 Tighten your shoe laces extra tight.

Running 3-point-something miles takes on a whole new flavor when your shoes weigh ten lbs.

The cargo net was easy-breezy, especiallly when you have been given the wonderful advice of grabbing on to the vertical ropes and not the horizontal.

Tip # 3 Bring a waterproof camera and take pix if you are not one of the weirdos actually trying to win this silly thing. (Oh and don't lose it if you do...more on that later.)

So we complete 12 out of the 14 obstacles and head around the last curve to the waiting fire, crowd and pit of muddy despair.

We are the only two runners around. We leap victoriously over the fire and the chanting starts. Very loud, very drunk chanting--clearly meant for us.

We speed up, look at each other and both dive head first into the muck. And the crowd goes wiiiiilllllldd. Or maybe that was my ringing ears and vibrating skull. Mud in my mouth, ears, eyes (I could barely see well enough not to get scalped), cleavage, crevices. Everywhere.

Mic stands up and, although my vision is blurry at best, I see about 5 pounds of mud drop out of her shirt. "I just had a mud baby!" she laughs.

We collect our much-deserved medals and decide to wear the mud proudly for a while as we go grab a beer. Besides, the lines for the water pumps were suspiciously long at this point.

Tip # 4 Do not attempt to hydrate with alcohol. Drink H2O FIRST.

After much picture taking and congratulations from strangers on our dirtiness, we head for the hoses...and they are not working.

We both manage to use the trickle of water to rinse our faces and hands.

Tip # 5 Bring eye wash to rinse out mud. (Yes, diving in the mud really was worth it!)

We wander around and have a few more beers before heading home. But seeing as I was not the one driving...and I was thirsty... I maaay have had a few more than Mic...without eating dinner...or drinking water. Thank God we left when we did. Aaannndd that's all I got to say about that.

We changed out of our muddy clothes at the car and while doing so I must have put the camera with all of our race footage on the ground and didnt' pick it up again. So pissed about that, but as Michela said, it's just another great reason to have to come back next year.

Tip # 6 Don't forget a change of clothes and maybe towels.

Tip # 7 Don't let the tipsy girl carry the camera.

Put aside my headache the next day, absolutely fantastic experience. Nothing better than feeling like a kid on a beautiful day with a great friend.

Warrior on!