Last year the race was in April. When registration came around I signed up and didn’t pay attention to the fact it was in March. Half way through the rehearsal process of my show I realized I had the race the same day I had my closing night. That sucked. But I wasn’t about to cancel out of something I love so I sucked it up.
This year our crew was the ridiculously fit Tully, D and my friend Susan. Court was originally part of our crew but had to have a surgery that kept her out of the race but didn’t keep her from being there with us at the finish line cheering us on. She pretty much rules. Susan has been doing a crazy boot camp every day and has gotten into probably the best shape of her life so I knew she was going to kick ass.
Warrior Dash has grown. It's one of the largest races and they are all over the world. They had more people and more wave times this year. The waves were every hour from 9-5. (Last year was like 9-2). We had signed up for the 1st wave. I love being 1st. The course isn’t thrashed; you get it done and still have the day. We arrived in Lake Elsinore in plenty of time but lordy lordy was it cold!!!!!!!
We checked in, took some pre-race photos, I finished my coffee and power bar, we stripped to our running gear and headed to the starting line. The announcer was great - keeping everyone pumped and teaching them the "Warrior Sign". I tried to make sure I stretched as much as possibly could since it was cold and I knew this was going to affect my knee. I unfortunately had a bit of some injury issues this year. The Thursday before we had a situation at my grandparents that resulted in my lifting my Papa for almost half hour. I torqued the left side of my body and screwed up my already damaged wrist. I also have been having some weird thing going on with my hip do the point I can’t even do a butterfly stretch and I can’t get in to see my Chiropractor until April 9th. So I had my wrist brace on to protect my damaged wrist (He's going to kill me when he finds out I did Warrior Dash anyway...) and my usual knee brace to protect my failing knee.
The flames went and off we went. I always start out jogging even though I know I'm going to end up in my power walk. Tully and Susan took off since they are studs and runners and D and I stayed together. D realized my power walk is the perfect speed to her pace jog. Have I mentioned I have a really crazy fast power walk?
Unfortunately my knee went before I even hit the 1st mile. This is the earliest my knee has gone. I know the cold weather wasn’t helping, but I also know that I'm getting closer to the point I'm going to have to have surgery. So I didn’t run really at all the rest of the race. Just my famous power walk. Which honestly is fine - I end up passing half the runners anyway because so many people burn out so fast. I was laughing at some comments from people I was passing saying "How is her walk fast than our run!!!!" or "Come on don’t let the gimp beat us!". My limp was becoming worse.
We hit the 1st obstacle which was tires. I popped through them best I could but I kept getting stuck behind slow people. See, one of the things that drives me crazy is since I'm usually at the back half of the mob I'm with a lot of the more un athletic folk. Not to be rude, but I kill the obstacles. I just can’t run! I really want to power through the obstacles and challenge myself and see how fast I can do them but it's so hard when I'm held up by slow pokes. (Honestly my dream race would just be just obstacles. No running, just the next obstacle - I would win!!!!!!)
Anywhoo - after the tires we hit the hop over the wall/then crawl under barb wire like 5 or 6 times. I pissed off a couple of people because I went in front of them. I'd like to point out I didn’t cut them off but it's a fucking race and I was better than they were so I went around them. D had my back :)
From here on out the obstacles get fuzzy because I would have blogged the same day had I not had a show, but here we go in a nutshell: There was a wall you rock climbed up which D and I both smoked since we've been doing that indoor rock climbing. There were poles you slid down on the other side. There were a couple of rope things you climbed; there was a wall with a rope (that last year had knots! Not this year), You had to have good upper body strength for that one. I rocked. You went up and down a few hills. And you pretty much were always climbing over a wall of some sort or meandering over weird rope contraptions.
Near the end was the hardest and funnest obstacles. So last year you jogged down to the lake, into the lake and rolled over these logs. This year there was a ginormous slip & slide down to the lake!!! SO much fun! I noticed people seem to keep getting stuck halfway and would walk or scoot down the rest of the way so when I ran up and launched down the slide I didn’t expect to go flying down the thing. I started spinning and was completely out of control. I took out 2 people on my way down and crashed into the lake. I have no idea why my ass when flying down the thing and no one else's seem too. It must have looked hilarious because D was crying with laughter. When walked/swam up to the water obstacles I realized this wasn’t going to be easy. They looked like floating water coolers all tied together. There were 3 sets you had to get over. But there was nowhere to grab! I was too short to hop out of the water - it was up to my chest at this point. I tried jumping best I could but my arm wouldn’t reach the other side. There were volunteers helping people but I of course am stubborn and want to do it myself. I finally figured a way to grab the edge; flop I up out of the water like a seal and then flop onto the cooler things. I then reached over and grabbed the other side of them dragging my soaking wet freezing ass over them. The other challenge was it was so fucking cold I could barely catch my breath and by the time I got to the 3rd set I was blue and didn’t thing I was going to make it. I did, but damn.
I waited for D who was way behind me at this point but didn’t mind as I need to catch my breath.
We then headed off to the home stretch. We came up to the fire and leaped over. Then into the mud and under the barbed wire. Just like last year, my knee brace came off in the damn mud. I really need to get a better brace. It's so smooshy!!!!!! I love it!
One neat thing this year was the Travel Channel apparently has some show where they build these huge sand sculptures. Well they were there and filming and had made this huge Warrior Helmet and in front of it a pit with little monsters inside. Well after the mud you ran into the pit then over the helmet to the finish! It was so cool!
As we came up to the finish line I was limping worse than I have in a long time. D screamed my name and the announcer heard. It was so cool when over the loud speaker I hear "Come on Jami! Look at her! She's broken and still kicking ass!! Come on Jami! That's a true warrior!". I'm not gonna lie - I felt special. He only knew my name cuz her heard D scream it! :)
There at the finish line was Tully whom I adore and love nothing more than seeing his smiling face knowing he finished like ions ago.
We rinsed off, took some photos, I loved seeing Susan's beaming face - knowing I have got her hooked now too, and headed to the car where we changed into warmer/dryer clothes and joined the party to have our beers and food. (Well - they had beers - I watched)
All in all as usual I had a blast. I got much more banged up this year, and my knee is so unhappy as well as the wrist but dammit it was so worth it. I really do wish they would come up with something that is just the obstacles though.....
I'm looking forward to the Sport Photo pics - I hope I get some good ones, but below are a few Courtney took. It was so great having her there!
So on to the next!!!
1 comment:
YAAAAY! Congrats! Love the sand sculptures too!!!
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