Race Recap: Warrior Dash Washington

On Saturday me and a bunch of my closest friends ran the Warrior Dash out in North Bend, Washington.  It was a typical Seattle summer day, about 60 and raining...I guess you could say it was perfect for getting muddy.  Meadowbrook farm was turned into the race course and we quickly discovered that the little piles of dirt everywhere were manure (note to self - try to avoid these at all costs).  I outfitted myself only in items I wouldn't mind throwing in the garbage after.

Pre-race - does this look like something you should be wearing to a race in the SUMMER?  Okay, I'll stop complaining about our summer now.

My friends Stace and Kath thought it would be hilarious to wear an old half marathon shirt to Warrior Dash which is in direct violation of my number one rule of racing - "You shall not wear a race t-shirt from a race of a longer distance than the one you are running"...it's just bragging :)

What snobs!

We were off at 8:30 am running on farm fields and muddy filled streams the entire 3.55 miles.  I was pretty paranoid about twisting my ankle and ruining marathon training so I took it really slow.  For the most part all of our friends stuck together which made it more fun.  We even stopped to have a dance party after one of the obstacles.  The obstacles weren't too hard and included hopping over barriers, climbing under barb wire, towering over a large wall, walking on a balance beam, crawling through a dark tent, leaping over fire and finally crawling through a mud pool. 

I don't believe in paying obscene amounts of money for race photos, so you'll have to deal with the millions of watermarks.

I might have been a tad dramatic during the fire leap.

Coming out of the mud right before the finish.

We all finished in around 54 minutes, clearly not a fast race but we just focused on having fun together!

Overall, I had a great time with my friends, but I'm not sure I would do this race again unless the weather was perfect.  After we got hosed off I was wet and freezing so it didn't make post race activities very fun.  I enjoyed the BEST shower of my life when I got home and threw away everything I wore that day. 

Yumm...muddy turkey leg!  Brittany is the smallest girl ever and she attacked that leg!

Question: Have any of you done a Warrior Dash, Hell Run, Muddy Buddy or any of the other seemingly more popular obstacle races?  I think I'll stick to road races :)