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"The Craziest Frickin’ Day of Your Life"

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If you’re gonna go down, go down in a blaze of glory, that’s what I always say.

Though I’m not sure I ever meant blaze literally…but now I’m getting a head of myself.
Thursday night, Rich and I left Myrtle Beach and headed up and over to Clayton Georgia for the South-East Warrior Dash. 8 hours later, including 2 one hour long detours (thanks map quest, for missing huge stretches of closed interstate) we arrived. And proceeded to eat Mexican food. (That’s Rich’s “I’m not sure I want to be eating Mexican food the night before my very first race, but Heather really wanted some so I caved in” look. haha)

If you are going to run like a warrior, you must eat like one. And that means tossing fear of gastro-intestinal distress aside. Bring on the enchiladas and margaritas! Needless to say, we had a much deserved, kid free, good night. Fortunately our race wasn’t until 2:30 pm the next day, as those margarita’s probably wouldn’t have felt so hot for a 5:30 am wake up call, haha.

The next day, I paced around like I always do before a race, while Rich kept telling me to chill out. He was busy painting his face to his best representation of “the Ultimate Warrior“, which really had nothing to do with this race, but instead a 1990’s pro wrestler. Much to my surprise, later hat day many people (mostly old men) actually recognized his “costume”. Clearly I missed out on the whole WWF scene. huh.

Anyway we were lucky enough to score a hotel room a half a mile from the parking/transportation to the race, so we walked over to the shuttles. Saved us $10 in parking and reduced our ecological footprint by about a minute. Plus, the looks from passer’s by were priceless. An older couple actually pulled up and asked what was going on (there were signs up and down the road about warrior dash parking). The lady said “are the warriors the local softball team?” hahaha. It was cute.

We jumped on a bus with Sponge Bob Square Pants, a cop from Reno 911 (short shorts and all) and a bunch of other crazy dressed runners ready to get muddy.

We arrived at the Blue Ridge Campground, and walked up a loooong hill.

There were a few hidden, old trailers (i.e. smaller than mobile homes) off of the side of the road…one complete with a big sign that said “Keep running…I hear banjo music”. I didn’t realize the significance of this message until a little later when the announcer said that the movie “Deliverance” was filmed just a few miles away. At least the locals have a sense of humor (hopefully it was a joke?)

After handing in our waivers (which had to be initialed like 15 separate times, then you sign your life away, promising not to sue over loss of limb or life) we picked up our packets which included an “are you a warrior?” t-shirt,race bib, a warrior dash souvenir timing chip (probably in their best interest to not worry about collecting those suckers at the finish line), and a fuzzy viking hat. We got ourselves settled in, chipped, bibed, and then checked our bags.
And then we waited.
Not being sure how long the bus ride, check in, bag check in, etc, would be, we got there waaaay early. We killed time for a few hours, but I was an anxious mess. Not nervous for the race, but just EXCITED. I just wanted to get out there on the course. It didn’t help that the only “free” beverage was Monster energy drink. (no, not even water was free…so those of you running warrior dash later this year…BRING CASH!) So add a ton of caffeine to my already anxious state, and I couldn’t be contained.

After we watched the 1:30 wave leave, I noticed that there was NO ONE regulating who hopped into the corral. It as pretty much a free-for-all, so I told Rich we were going to “sneak” into the 2:00 wave (we were signed up for the 2:30 wave). I couldn’t wait any longer. And technically, there was no sneaking, because like I said, I really don’t think anyone cared. We hung out with the 2:00 runners for what seemed like FOREVER. 30 minutes is a loooong time when you are ready to run!
FINALLY, it was go time. Instead of a start gun, there was fire. Of course, fire. I was shocked at how HOT those blow torches were when we ran underneath them!


I had no goal other than to HAVE FUN and stick by Rich’s side and get him through this race (though he didn’t really need me! He did great!) Clearly I didn’t wear a garmin, but the first, oh, felt like a mile was just straight running (no obstacles). Mostly on a paved trail (up and down that first hill we walked up to get to the start). I did , however, run with one of those water-proof disposable cameras to document the chaos up close, haha. So, most pictures are of Rich, since I had the camera. And it was his first EVER race (of any kind) so I figured it was only appropriate to capture it on film!

We ran a few corners , around a few bends, and came to obstacle number one: walking on some wooden planks through a puddle. I spent a good deal of my childhood pretending I was a figure skater, complete with my interpretation of triple axles and such in my socks on the kitchen floor, so walking across a wooden plank was not a problem for me.
Obstacle #2….trekking through a pond. It was at this point that I realized “Oh crap, this race is going to be a lot harder than I ever imagined”. Trying to “walk” through chest deep water while trying to pull your legs out of knee deep water is a serious cardio workout. Not to mention I couldn’t stop giggling because I kept falling sideways, and I swore I lost my shoe about 4 separate times.

Obstacle #3…immediately upon leaving the water you had to hop through a ton of tires, total “high knees military boot camp” style. I remember focusing so hard, I wanted to get through there fast but not bust my butt. The holes of the tires were mostly full of mud, making the landings that much more brutal
Obstacle #4…as soon as you finished the tires, there were three walls to heave yourself over. Watching this obstacle BEFORE my heat, Rich and I were wondering why people looked so sluggish going over the walls. Don’t’ they know they could get over so much faster if they would just hop instead of crawl? HAHAHAHAHA. Now, on the other side of the fence, those chest high walls looked like 3-story buildings.
After the walls there was a good bit of running, some pavement, some trail, all dirty.

Obstacle #5-this wall. Not hard to scale at all.

A little more running around in the woods, then we came up to Obstacle #6: cargo net climb. This one took a little more effort. Climbing the net isn’t hard…it’s the standing at the top and figuring out how you are going to turn yourself around and climb back down the other side that takes a little thought

Obstacle #6 Junkyard Jam! A series of about 6 junk cars just thrown in your path. And when i say junk, I mean it. Some cars As I approached this pile of metal, I said out loud “Hope your tetanus shots are up to date!” I think I went over one car’s hood, another car’s trunk, and through the back of a pickup truck bed.


Then we were off into the woods. I have an all new respect for you trail runners. That stuff is HARD. I lost footing and turned each ankle at least once…followed by an “I’m good!” as soon as I regained my balance. Hills, mud, rocks, roots, ducking below trees…you can’t just “zone out” and run like you can doing mindless hamster -wheel laps around my suburban cul-de-sacs. This took concentration , focus, and balance, and it was FUN! I need to move back to the forest…

Obstacle #7 , long drainage tunnels. Pretty self explanatory

More running through the woods. At one point, the trail was so narrow that it was single file only. You couldn’t pass someone if you wanted to, the woods were so thick. And someone, about 25 people ahead, as walking. Thus, everyone else was forced to walk. I won’t lie…I sort of welcomed the walk, especially since this was all uphill, haha.
Finally we came out of the woods, around a corner, to a giant mudslide right into the mud pit. There was a volunteer standing at the top of the hill with a water hose to assure that the slide stayed nice and slippery. I thought about going down headfirst, until I realized the shorts I had on might not be reliable to stay in place on a head first slide. Didn’t matter anyways, because as soon as I stood at the top of the hill my feet flew out in front of me and I landed on my butt. Down the hill I went! I stood up at the bottom and jumped right into the mud pit. this is the highlight of any mud run. Complete with barbed wire above the pit so you were forced to army-crawl. I really was not expecting the actual consistency of the mud. I don’t know what I was expecting, muddy water maybe? No, this was like thick mud pudding. It was actually really hard to go through! Do you swim? Crawl? I think I did a combination of both, and probably looked ridiculous (who didn’t!). Of course, I laughed the whole way. I searched high and low for pictures of Rich or I in the mud pit, but I can’t find any. So this picture, of complete strangers, will have to do.
I ran ahead of Rich to the next pond and quickly cleaned off the disposable camera to get a shot of him covered in mud. I swear his head isn’t this long, he claims he looks like “Beavis” (or is it “Butthead”?) and would freak if he knew I put this on my blog for the whole world to see.

After the mud pit, we ran just a few hundred feet to pond # 2 for obstacle # 8. Not just floating logs, but floating logs that will roll you backwards if you or one of the other people fighting to get over this thing don’t get enough forward momentum. I managed to do both,haha. But it was a good place to scrub (some) of the mud off, so I just dove headfirst over the top of the logs.
A mini wall climb out of the pond and we were on to the most epic (looking) and final obstacle of the course. The “warrior roast”. Two fire pits with no way around but over. And they were no joke….by the time I got to them the flames were hovering about thigh high, but earlier they seemed waist high. Fortunately coming straight out of a pond and being soaking wet will get you over those suckers without even feeling the heat.
But you know what the pond won’t help you out with?
The stray dura-flame log that rolled out of the fire pit, just waiting for me to land on.

Wish I could have seen that from the other side of the pit, before I jumped. All I knew at the time was that the second my foot hit the ground (or really, he log), my whole body followed it to the ground. I went down without even knowing what happened. I stood back up, and that’s when the pain hit and I fell back down again. My ankle wouldn’t bear any weight. I heard the announcer yell something like “get off the ground, battle axe!” Being just yards from the finish line, I hopped up and , well, hopped to the finish line. It hurt, so I crossed the finish line, and I sat down. Somehow, I still finished the 3.22 mile obstacle course in 31:xx. It wasn’t until I saw the pictures (which, fyi, brightroom will be getting money out of me for sure, this shot needs to be like 8×10″ and hung on the wall, haha) that I realized what actually happened. I’m positive one of those many boxes I initialed warned me of possible stray logs causing injury. Ah well.
Then I started laughing. This is totally my luck, to fall practically at the finish line.
A volunteer came up to me and asked if I was ok. I told her I didn’t know, and that maybe I should just sit for a second. She pulled her radio off of her belt and called medical. I looked down and noticed my knee had started gushing blood. A girl standing at the finish handed me a cup of water and her boyfriend asked if he could carry me somewhere. Don’t you just love runners? Such a friendly bunch! The volunteer lady was sort of hovering and told me to stay still. It was at that point I noticed my ankle was quickly swelling to a size I’ve never seen before.
So they shipped me off to the medical tent by way of golf cart. When I got there, the first lady proceeded to pick gravel out of my knee cap with a tounge depresser and a ton of hydrogen peroxide. It was pretty gross, but I kept telling myself “oh come on, Heahter, you’ve birthed two babies, picking some stones out of your skin is really not that big of a deal” in a classic suck-it-up-buttercup moment. Next, they pulled off my shoe and began feeling around. I was super proud of myself for remembering the anterior drawer test from my injury management class, but I wasn’t so thrilled that I failed the test. The medic told me I tore my anterior talofibular ligament, and wrapped my ankle with a huge bag of ice.
I sat. I waited. I watched others come and go. sprained ankles, heat stroke, dehydration,lots of cuts. And through it all, I sat. Eventually, they told me they were going to golf-cart me down that big hill to the shuttle so I could make my way back home. By this point, my ankle was looking pretty sweet…
Rich and I hobbled back to our hotel, where I proceeded to dump about a half gallon of dirt all over the bathroom floor when I took my clothes off, haha.
It wasn’t until after the 6 hour drive home that I realized the possible severity of my injury….because I couldn’t get out of the car! Rich and his mom had to carry me into my bedroom. A follow up with a local doctor confirmed nothing was broken (I figured that). I was given an air cast, crutches, and told to stay off of my foot for a while.
Which means….NO Vermont City Marathon (relay) this weekend. NO first week (or second, maybe even third week) of Chicago marathon training.
The good news is, now I can walk around, normally, without the brace. The bad news is, it’s still kinda sore.
It’s going to be a long road from here on out, but darn it, I’m running Chicago (besides, they have a no refund, no defferment policy. I’m running.)
And while I sit here, almost a week later, totally bummed about being a cheerleader this weekend instead of a runner, my knee STILL oozing (gross, I know), and with a bum ankle….I still can’t help but think that was TOTALLY worth it. It may not have been he craziest frickin DAY of my life (like the website claims) but it was without a doubt the craziest frickin’ race of my life.
And I can’t wait to do it again. See you next year Warrior Dash…

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  4. Oh my gosh! That is nuts! My sister and I did the Great Urban race and talked about how fun the Warrior Dash would be… I am not sure fun is the word but I think I still want to try it at some point.

    Reply

  5. That is an ugly looking ankle there! I hope it heals up quickly. FYI–if you have a massage therapist, as soon as you can stand to have it handled, a massage is really good for helping the healing along. I speak from experience!

    Other than that–the race looks like a blast! My husband is actually planning to do one here in Md. this fall.

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  6. That was the best race recap ever! Seriously, I thought the picture of you and the fire was something off of a movie! You’re a brave, brave woman! Sorry about the HUGE ankle and the knee…but you did it and have some awesome pictures!

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  9. I was in the 1:30 wave- love,love,love the warrior dash! Your fire picture is awesome! I can’t believe your ankle, I am so sorry to hear it… At least it was at the very end. I am with you on that trail running – I think that was the hardest part for me with the uphill single file formation. Hope your ankle heals quickly.

    Reply

  11. Great pictures and great recap. Your fire jumping picture is awesome!! What a crazy fun event.

    I have never seen such a swollen ankle, looks pretty rough. Hope you heal quickly enough to not miss too much of your marathon training.

    Reply

  13. Heather…holy cow. Great idea with the camera…you captured all of it.

    And, that shot with the log would be totally worth your money.

    I hope your ankle heals up quickly.

    Reply

  16. I thought that pic in the beginning was fake! That is the coolest thing ever!
    I have to admit, I got a little light headed when I saw your ankle! OMG! Thank god nothing broke! Heal quickly girly!

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  18. This is amazing! I saw a couple of photos from this on facebook and had no idea what it was! I may very well have to look into this next year! Sorry about your ankle though :/

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  19. So sorry about your ankle, but what an awesome experience. And you’re right, you definitely need at least an 8 by 10 of that picture! It looks like something from a movie. 🙂

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  21. My hubs did the Warrior Dash a few weeks ago too and LOVED IT! He too did something to his ankle! His was all black and blue and nasty looking but not quite as swollen as yours (YOWCH!!)!! Hope it heals quickly and you can get back out there – looks like you had a blast, bloody knee and all 😉

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  25. That looks and sounds like a awesome fun race. The pics are fab, although I saw something that scared me in one of them… Hope the ankle gets better soon!

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  26. oh WOW!!!! i so want to do this next year!!!!!
    loved reading your re-cap! i hate to hear about your injuries though!!!!
    hopefully with some R&R,ice and advil you will be good to go for chicago!!!
    sending warm get better soon vibes your way!!!

    Reply

  28. ^^I thought the image was fake too! LOL Go Heather! That looks awesome. So sorry about your ankle. Speedy recovery vibes coming your way. 🙂

    Reply

  31. OMG, that looks like such a fun race! My sister and I are doing a similar race called Muddy Buddy in Nov, and it should be interesting!

    I’m sorry about your ankle, that just sucks! I hope it heals sooner rather than later!

    Reply

  32. Wow…that looks so amazing (and brutal and scary)! I saw a video of something like that in the UK. I would love to find something like that to do someday!

    Good luck on the healing. Those wounds and injury were so well-earned!

    Reply

  34. OMG! I am totally freaked out and psyched all at the same time. I am signed up to run the Warrior Dash in Chicago June 19th. I was nervous before but your recap is darn right scary! I will proceed with caution at the fire pit!!!

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  35. Heather!
    That picture is awesome! I would but it poster size and look at it everyday! That is a picture for you to look at when you are 80. What a great story for the grand kids. Sorry about the ankle but what memories!

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  44. Oh my swollen ankle – that is crazy! And, the picture near the fire is awesome. Dad Wonder runs Warrior Runs – I am the sideline cheerleader. He loves them.

    Congrats! Hope you heal quickly.

    Reply

  45. Well, you just convinced me I HAVE to do this race! I’ll be doing the NE one in September with a couple of friends from the firehouse, thanks! However, I will watch for the stray logs, LOL!

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  46. That photo of you meeting your dura-flame log ankle sprain is killer! Well of course except for the part that you did indeed end up with a bum ankle. Heal up and hope you get back to running in no time. Great photos of the race as I’ve always wondered what a Warrior Dash is like.

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  49. Agh! I’m so sorry you’re injured, but I’m sure you’ll have a speedy recovery. I saw this race on your “future events” and my best friend and I have been obsessing ever since. She lives in New York so we’re planning on doing the one up there in September! I love the face paint idea…we just might have to steal that one.

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  51. that picture is SOOOO BAD ASSS!!!!! I think you need it poster size. Sorry about the ankle…wow its huge! I hope it doesn’t take too long to heal but seriously I think that picture is totally worth it!

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  53. Krystyn sent me over here. My husband and I ran too. We had a great time. He’s now signing up for Muddy Buddy or something like that. It’s a 7 mi run with about 13 obstacles I think. Bummer about your ankle…hope it heels up fast.

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  56. OMG!!! wow, you are pretty much awesome. i would never even attempt something like that 🙂 hope your ankle is healing up!

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  57. That is so cool! My husband and I, along with some other people from our CrossFit gym are participating in the Mid Atlantic one in October. I can’t wait!!!

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  58. THe picture is sweet. I agree you will definitely need a copy of that one. It looks unbelievable with the fire . . . but so explains your fall. . . so sorry about your ankle. Glad you can now move around. Hoping that it heals quickly. 😉

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  59. WOW! That is all I have to say…. That picture of you jumping over the fire is AMAZING and that duraflame log right below your foot (sadly) makes the picture a thousand times better.

    Recover well, I know it has to suck right now, but make sure you get 100% healed before you start acting like a warrior again. Great recap (and photos).

    Reply

  60. Holy crap! I live in Georgia, and now I know what they do up in the Blue Ridge are for entertainmnet! 🙂 That is just insane enough to look like great fun! I’m glad you didn’t break anything!

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  67. Heather!

    We are part of a triathlon group in the Columbus, Ohio area. Your play by play was awesome. I think a bunch of us crazies are going to do the race in Ohio in 2011. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  71. AWESOME POST!!! Your blog of the Warrior Dash you ran was incredibly exciting and absolutely inspiring! I’m set to run the Pennsylvania Warrior Dash in June and I am so psyched about it. And now after reading your experience, you have just boosted my motivation to a whole other level. Thanks for your Warrior story! Your blogs rock!

    Reply

  74. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I signed up for the local dash months ago and have started to worry. Your awesome attitude and phenomenal recap has made me so excited for my upcoming race. Can’t wait to see what you do next!

    Reply

  76. I was looking for your follow button but didn’t see it. I wanted to do the Warior Dash but was only 3 mo out from a C-Section so I didn’t think I was a good idea. Already signed up for Savannah. Looking forward to it. Loved the recap.

    Reply

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