The day before Warrior Dash I didn't know if I'd be doing it at all. I woke up at 4am feeling light headed with nausea. I spent the rest of the day napping with two wakeful moments to do my check-in meetings. I think I slept almost 24 hours that day and doubted I'd be doing any dashing the following day. I figured it was just fallout from Rev3 Portland and if I ignored it I wouldn't be effected by it.
Warrior Dash morning I woke feeling born again! I was no longer completely exhausted, no longer felt like barfing, and looked forward to some warrioring! I fixed the baby and I waffles with happy thoughts. A little after consuming them I felt less than awesome. Time passed and the more I stayed stationary the better I felt. My wife came downstairs and asked why I hadn't left and rather than making an excuse I picked up my sorry butt and decided to go to war!
The first thing I noticed about the North Bend Warrior Dash is that North Bend isn't made to hold that many people! Cars backed up on to the highway so far that even though I was an hour early I missed my wave time by 30 minutes.
Parking was sane and the shuttles were working as well as can be expected. Stepping on to the battleground I could tell it was going to be an interesting run. Rain all night and showers in the morning had turned the trails into either 1) slippery trampled grass, or 2) mud bogs of varying depth which had a hunger for shoes and bodies.
Up to the starting line I felt the heat from the flames shooting above the starting gate. It reminded me of Portland and I got excited! I positioned myself near the front directly behind some healthy looking guys. The countdown started, finished, and the heat from the flames was felt once again! WARRIORS!!! I immediately underestimated how crappy the slippery trampled grass field would be to run on. It was uneven so every step could potentially trip you or twist your ankle if you weren't paying attention. Every step slipped and forward momentum or any kind of rhythm was nearly impossible.
I ran and ran and ran and kept expecting an obstacle to break up the monotony. We all rounded a corner and entered a mud bug which I thought was a planned obstacle. Then it kept going and going. Then back out to more wet trampled grass. Then some obstacles! Last year I remember seeing some of them and being intimidated. Not this year. A wall to jump over then barbed wire rigged so far up I barely had to duck?! Lame! I won't go into the other obstacles but they seemed vastly watered down from the previous year.
The final trail to the finish was probably at least a half mile of mud. People were losing shoes, girls were falling face first while trying to skirt past it, and everyone was sliding into each other. Nearing the finish line the final signature obstacles loomed. The Super Mario-esque jumps over fire were still mildly exciting. However, the crawl through mud under barbed wire had the same problem of having the option of not crawling! I was committed to being dirty so I slogged through and ran across the line. All that got me a finishing time of 33:46.10 @ 9:39/M. In my age group that was 71/926. Back at the car I celebrated our achievement with some other warriors (brother-in-law and his friends). I don't think I'll be back next year and probably should have just stayed home this year but being with others made it all tolerable.
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