I'm a Warrior

On a whim, I signed up to participate in the Warrior Dash. The Warrior Dash is a running competition with insane obstacles held in various cities all over the country. When I signed up it was 9:00am when my co-worker, Carly, asked me to join her for the Central Texas race. I was persuaded with the promise of free beer at the end of the race. It seemed like a good idea at the time and free beer (not including the $50 registration fee) was right up my alley. Later, I realized I was having LASIK two weeks earlier and doing an obstacle courses with possible mud and dirt run flying in my eyes seemed like less of a good idea.

Pre race War-Eeyores 

Not wanting to bail on my friend I purchased stylish motorcycle goggles to protect my eyes, decorated matching shirts with Carly, and made sure my other friends were too busy to watch me so as to limit me from any real embarrassment.

Originally the event was set to take place in Austin, but due to the popularity of the event it was moved out to Cedar Creek, which actually 30 minutes East of Austin. Never having participated in a Warrior Dash we really didn't know what to expect. Lets just say it was like a 5K meets boot camp meets the Renaissance festival.

We lined up and ran 3.2 miles with 10 obstacles; which quite obviously from the pictures included running through mud. We jumped over cars, ran through tires, climbed over haystacks and rope courses, leaped over fire, crawled through mud, among many other creative tests of strength and agility. Thirty or so minutes after we began we were fully drenched in mud and sweat. We were hosed down, given a fuzzy viking helmets and most importantly... a beer. We stuck around for a few more rounds and long enough to listen to some music and to climb the mountain of muddy tennis shoes!

The event lasted 2 days and races started every 30 minutes with hundreds of people in each heat. People were really quite creative with their attire; as the Warrior Dash is clearly not about winning but rather just to have a good time. The Warrior Dash takes place all over the US with ten locations in 2010 (two of which were in Texas because we obviously have numerous Warriors in Texas). Next year there are over 16 races, including one in Australia. I would do the Warrior Dash again, but it doesn't look like it will be near Austin in 2011. I'm not too worried though, other pointless and fun events coming through Austin all the time! :-)

http://www.warriordash.com/