atcrawford

It’s been a little over a month since I completed the Warrior Dash, but life has been abnormally busy lately. As a result, I’ve fallen behind on some of the things that I like to share on my blog. Still, I guess it’s better late than never for me to write a recap of this race.

I was completely surprised at how many people had signed up for this race. When I signed up our 9AM start time was the earliest wave, but they’d evidently added earlier waves as we saw runners climbing obstacles when we arrived. I was impressed with how well things like registration and bag check were run, given the high volume of runners they were expecting. There were plenty of volunteers and they were very helpful.

The atmosphere of the race was very fun. From the flame-throwers at the beginning to all of the runners wearing costumes, it felt very different than most road races. There was a fire truck at the finish line to spray the mud off of folks and a concert area that was not really hopping that early in the morning. They also had lots of beer and warrior-type food, like huge turkey legs.

The race itself was much more difficult than I’d anticipated. The obstacles really weren’t that bad, though they did keep things interesting. Parts of the course wound through narrow wooded paths that went up and down very steep inclines. These sections of the course really did me in. The most notable obstacle was “overturned catamaran”, which was basically an obstacle in the middle of a small pond. It was very cold and left you covered in pond algae, but still was very fun.

All things considered, I’d definitely do this race again. It was a unique experience that also proved to be pretty challenging. The price was steep (especially when you throw in the $20 parking which they didn’t tell anyone about until the week of the race), but you can mitigate that by signing up with the early-bird pricing.