Warrior Dash 2

Last weekend I ran the Warrior Dash for the second time.  J and I always do outfits.  This year's plan...80's WWF wrestlers.

I woke up, got costumed up, and made some Rowdy Roddy Pancakes

Renfield always wants our food

My wife and I headed out to the county park where it was, and paid the outrageous $20 to park.  Then we spent about an hour trying to find my friend, which really shouldn't have been so hard, considering his outfit.

I finally found him scoping out the people, including some of his friends in earlier waves, at the finish line.  

Can you tell who he is supposed to be?

We headed on into the corral.

If you didn't know before, you should know now that he's Randy "Macho Man" Savage
(circa Wrestlemania III vs. Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat)

We waited in the corral, while looking tough

We started off pretty close to each other, and stayed close through the first obstacle over barricades and under barbed wire, but that changed at the second one.  Capsized Catamaran required you to swim to some blocks that had nothing to grip to, climb over them into another pool with ropes leading to another set of blocks, and then over to more water and to shore.  My friend is not good with water or swimming, and after wading in and thinking about it, turned to a race official in his best Macho voice saying, "The Macho Man don't do swimming."  I had a hell of a time pulling myself out of the water onto the blocks.  With the herd of people, having shoes on, and sucking at swimming myself, it made me a little nervous too.  Eventually, I got to the front blocks and was able to pull my fat ass up out of the water, over the two blocks, and back into the second pool, where the rest was a piece of cake.  That part wiped me out pretty good though.  It felt like I had been treading water for an eternity (likely 45 seconds).

Everything after was pretty much standard to last year:  crawl across ropes and nets, crawl under stuff, mud hills, and climb walls.  The only thing this year, was the 12 foot wall climb was in the middle this time, and being tired and hating heights made it a lot tougher this year.  I actually had to climb it and didn't basically run up it.

I kept checking behind me for my friend, but never did see him after that second obstacle.  I was hoping he didn't quit.

With a little under a mile to go, I got stuck in a mud pit.  I couldn't get my shoes free, and they were getting sucked in pretty deep.  Not thinking about the fact my timing chip was strapped into my shoes, and knowing they were going into the donate pile at the end anyway, I said "f*** it" and yanked my feet out.  I ran in my socks for a bit, and after figuring they were screwed too, wadded them up and whipped them at one of the Warrior signs.  For the rest of the race, I was a barefoot runner (does this mean I'm in the club?...i mean it was almost a mile with obstacles).

Climbed the cargo net

Jumped the fire
(love this photo, and it only exists thanks to my wife)

Crawled through the mud

...and finished, then taking a smug looking picture with an expression I'd imagine Piper would have

Nailed It

Shortly after, I was happy to see J finishing the race

I still liked the Warrior this year while I was doing it, but the excitement and anticipation of it was kind of missing this year.  The price and the rip-off parking kind of soured it a little bit for me.  I love having an extra excuse to wear a costume other than Halloween, but I'm not sure I'll be doing it again, especially not next year.  I don't know, I'm just not feeling it anymore, despite the fact if gives us plenty of wonderful photo ops.