Etude no. 14: A Warrior, I Am Not

... well maybe a little bit.

On June 18th, I ran the Warrior Dash with a group of crazy friends who insisted on testing our warrior guts against 5 kilometers of mud, streams, hills, and 12 obstacles (including climbing walls, nets, a junkyard, a pit of fire, and a swamp of mud).

We drove 1.5 hours south to the Dollinger Farm in Channahon, IL.  Upon arrival and signing a waiver with a trillion "I will not sue you, I swear"-type stipulations, we received a race # bib, a t-shirt, horned helmet-hat, and a timing chip.  The chip was redeemable for a free beer at the end - definitely not your usual 5K race!

 

The start line - instead of a gun going off, we were sent off with two pillars bursting out fire! While the race course seemed pretty daunting, we ran at a leisurely pace, pushed each other into mud pits, and took it easy :)  The live music, turkey legs, and health food freebies called out to me beyond the finish line (did I ever mention, I love FREE STUFF?):

... and then you have me eating a turkey leg in my helmet like a proper warrior.

Aftermath: scraped knees, 3 bruises on my left leg, 5 on my right, and sore muscles all over.  While this race physically humbled me, I am DEFINITELY running this again next year!