Pure Appiness: Are You a Warrior?

Warrior Dash 2011 has come and gone in the Carolinas. Hurricane Irene was a threat earlier in the week but Charlotte didn't even get a drop of rain and we ended up having GREAT weather to conquer the obstacles waiting for us.

P.S. Jeremy likes to pop in with comments on my blogs so be prepared to see what he has to say in the blue text. I am in purple :D

For those of you who don't know what Warrior Dash is, let me explain. It's what they call "the craziest frickin' day of your life". A 5K filled with 12 challenging obstacles with turkey legs and beer waiting for you at the finish line. Anyone watch The Challenge on MTV? It's one of my favorite shows and I've always dreamed about being a cast member. Warrior Dash is the closest I'll ever get to the reality so I look forward to it every year.

Anywho....let's get to the awesomeness. This year we decided to plan out our costumes. Jeremy had the bright idea that we should become the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We are children of the 90's so we grew up watching the cartoon and movies. It was awesome coming into character. I must say we did it well. Everyone loved our look and at one point we actually felt like celebrities posing for pictures and having our names shouted out by everyone. (We didn't feel like celebrities... we WERE celebrities! We literally posed for 2-3 minutes while groups of people came and took pictures of and with us. Who needs the red carpet when you've got an awesome 5K course?!) We definitely had the best costumes there. Unfortunately we missed the costume contest which we TOTALLY would have won! We got shafted.

TURTLE POWER!!

Once we got checked in, it was time to race! We had no idea what to expect since the course was completely different than last year. I will say that the obstacles were MUCH more challenging this year. If you thought about them too much, they would psych you out. A lot of them towered above the ground with nothing underneath to comfort your fall. Luckily we had Turtle Power and each other to get us through :D Last year it took us 31 minutes to complete the course. This year it took us an hour. Either we're getting old or the course was MUCH harder. (both)

The obstacles are what make this race so much fun. The ones that stick out in my mind the most were the Great Warrior Wall, Blackout, Chaotic Crossover, Horizontal Hike, and the Muddy Mayhem.

The Great Warrior Wall was a tough one. It was definitely the most intimidating. We were faced with a giant wall that had a rope (no knots!) attached. We had to climb up and over using our strength. I was just worried how we would get down once we reached the top. Luckily we all made it.

Great Warrior Wall

Blackout was a surprisingly difficult and rugged obstacle. From the outside all you saw was a very low shelter covered in black tarp that you had to crawl under. The shelter was divided by many sections that seemed to get darker and darker as you passed through each one. I was literally blind, starting out in the middle and ending up all the way over to the right side. This little contraption was also so low to the ground that you were forced to crawl on your hands and knees. A big ol' turtle shell on your back didn't help either, haha. I have some cuts on my knees from this one. The picture below wasn't taken at our course. We didn't snap a picture of this but I think a visual is always nice. Thank goodness for google.

Blackout

Chaotic Crossover was an obstacle where you had to maneuver across tangled nets high above the ground. I found a way to scurry across pretty quickly but Sairy aka Donatello (purrple TMNT) pretty much ate it, falling right into the net and rolling onto her back. It was pretty comical. We all got a pretty good laugh at it :) Again, the picture below isn't from us. We were too busy falling on this obstacle to take a picture.

Chaotic Crossover

Horizontal Hike was Warrior Dash's newest obstacle. They decided to break it in at the Carolina's site. This one was the most daunting for me as far as heights go. It was basically made up of narrow planks of wood but the scary part was that it was up so high! Without question, I took my sweet time to make sure I didn't fall.

Horizontal Hike

Muddy Mayhem. The last and filthiest obstacle of them all. Trying to move fast in mud is just so stinkin' hard. Especially after you've run 3 miles. That mud was THICK. And you had to stay low because you had barbwire above your head. Once again, a littler trickier with a shell on your back. I think I managed to get the most mud on me out of our group.

Playing in the mud has never been this much fun!

Oh yeah. I made a Rookie mistake during this Warrior Dash. This may be TMI (too much information) but I shall share anyway because it's funny. I made the mistake of wearing white underwear. Baaaaad decision. They are now permanently brown from the mud. I insist on keeping them because they are super comfortable! That's why I wore them for the race, duh!

Warrior Dash, we look forward to seeing you in 2012. I wonder what our costumes will be next year... :D

I leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the day.