Warrior (Princess) Dash.

Red Frog Events, Be still my heart. I am a fan of your events. The Warrior Dash was amazing as an event. Who doesn't want a Viking hat and a chance to call yourself a warrior (princess, in my case)? I love that it has a wave start and it can easily be made into an all day fun event, even for your friends who don't run. It had a great outdoor festival vibe. There is food, beer, music and running. What's not to love? With that being said, let's move on to the actual race recap, shall we?

YO. Who's idea was it to sign up for this thing?! Can I state for the record, I would rather run a full marathon untrained before I rocked one of these again. Ok. Maybe not. But that's kind of what it felt like (I'm assuming). I have never worked so hard in a race- that includes my first half marathon- as I did for this 5K. Muscles I didn't even know existed are making it difficult to move. My outer thigh is so bruised it's brown and I have no idea if I got it from the obstacles, my foam roller or the much needed message I got. It's safe to say, you will never read about another mud run on this blog, so take it all in now.

Silly me, thinking it was pretty awesome we were in the mountains of upstate New York. Little did I know, we would be running up and down them- and by running, I mean crawling. This? Yea. Not my idea of a good time. 

On our way in we got some advice from a few people in an early wave: Conserve your energy on the first hill.

First hill= a side of a MOUNTAIN for the entire first half of the race. 

When we were lining up, we accidentally went with the wave earlier than ours and ended up last to cross the starting line. Not long after, we started passing people as we were walking. That was kind of cool. What wasn't cool? About half way, having the faster runners of the wave behind us, pass us.

Nice touch.

Barricade Breakdown

The obstacle proved to me (incase I was under some delusion otherwise) that I have no upper body strength. But I do have long legs, which got me over the walls.

Road Rage

I was convinced I was going to cut myself on the rusty cars. After this, I didn't care how long it took me to finish the obstacles. As long as I did them, I'd be happy.

Teetering Traverse

Not going to lie, I crawled across it.

Deadweight Drifter

I believe my face says it all. And that was the end of being clean and dry.

What goes up. . . 

The next half of the race was all downhill. Or running sideways across the mountain.

Rubber Riochet

I don't know what the point of this was, but whatever?

Cargo Climb

I thought I was going to have to skip this one. I am desperately afraid of heights. 

The rest of the obstacles I did not get a chance to take a picture of:

Chaotic Crossover

Someone was singing Spiderman, which entertained me and I finished.

Petrifying plunge

I heard the volunteers screaming something about taking a running start into this one. It was a really big slip-n-slide. I was not amused.

Warrior Roast

I was extremely concerned about catching on fire.

Muddy Mayhem

Just in case you managed to stay clean. 

The much needed beer.

People were paying to jump onto this thing. I thought it was quite comical that it happens to be right next to the first aid area.

In Summary:

Before.

After.

Never have I ever felt like I earned a medal more.