Warrior Dash Race Report

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to run the Warrior Dash as a guest of Reebok last weekend.  I have always wanted to run the Warrior Dash. If you have read my blog for a while, you know that I am a fan of mud and obstacle runs.* The big difference here was that I was going to run the Warrior Dash by myself. I have never run a race like this by myself. I have run every mud run with at least one other person. I was a little nervous about this one.

The race was a couple of hours from our house, so we decided to stay close. We found a campground close to Copper Mountain and experienced more of Colorado. I am glad the race was only three miles.  Between the high altitude (well over 9000 feet) and the hard, lumpy ground, I didn’t get a lot of sleep.

The plan was to have my family come up to the race and enjoy the festivities, but getting kids up and at ‘em early was a bit of a challenge.  I left my husband and kids with the bikes and drove to Copper Mountain.
I forgot all my nervousness once I got to the race festivities. I met Chris, from Reebok, and started getting excited. I was not only looking forward to the race, but doing a Crossfit WOD afterward with the Reebok folks (post to come soon).

I was ready to go!

With lots of cheers, we were off!

Since I was by myself, I decided to just chat with runners along the way and make friends. These kinds of races are great because everyone is there to have FUN.

The start of this race was at 9700 feet in elevation. When I started, I felt pretty good, but as we started to climb, I felt the affects of thinner air. We went up a steep hill early in the race and someone said, as we crested the hill, “that just wiped the city out of us!”  The altitude was being felt by everyone.
We literally run up a ski run. Running uphill is more like power hiking uphill when you are near 10,000 feet in elevation.

Running up the hill, trying to breathe…

If you have never done a Warrior Dash, what makes it fun is the various obstacles.
Luckily, the obstacles were pretty tame. I expected the worst, but I was able to do them all.
Most mud runs/obstacle races have tubes to crawl through.  However, few of them were as tight as the one in this race. The only way I could get through was to pull myself through with my forearms. I scraped my knee up a bit.  There was no duck walking through this obstacle.

In fact, I wondered if my brother would have been able to make it through at all. This picture is my brother during the Camp Pendleton Mud Run earlier this summer after squeezing through a full tube.

One of the obstacles made some runners nervous.  I wasn’t nervous. I have run/jumped over fire in other races.  Heck, I have done it in a muddy wedding dress!


Even though I have done run over fire before, I still let out a squeal.

Leaping over fire…

There were signs throughout the race to inspire and/or make us laugh.


That last sign really made me smile.  My husband runs the Accounting department at his company.  His screen name for his work Skype is “Kenny from Accounting.”  LOL.

The last obstacle was the mud. I am a bit of a mud connoisseur and this mud pit was one of the best.  It was like pea soup mud. It was liquid and coated everything.


I turned on the video camera as I got into the pit [it might make you a little dizzy]. At some point I decided that I needed both hands to make it through the pit. I put the camera in my mouth.  I thought about cutting that part out, but I like the comments made by others.  Just ignore my heavy breathing.

soupy mud at the Warrior Dash

My camera was covered in mud. I cleared off the lens a bit, but the rest was covered. I got another runner to take an “after” picture of me, but she couldn’t see if it clicked a picture and *sigh* it didn’t.
I usually skip the showers. The lines are long and the water is cold.  However, I have never been quite this muddy at the end of a race. Luckily, the lines weren’t super long and the water was actually warm!

After rinsing off, I headed back to the Reebok Crossfit Box, where I had left my bag, to put on some clothes.  I was excited to do a Crossfit WOD.

Stay tuned for my report on my very first Crossfit experience!

Happy Running…

*see my posts on Gladiator Run, Camp Pendleton Mud Run etc.