The Warrior Dash

Hard to find the exact words to describe a race where you have to sign a waiver that states "I will not dive head first into the mud pit."  Also a few items about the fire pit you jump over but nothing about the barbed wire you crawl under.  How did I get here:

It started, as all good quests do, with a warrior friend who emailed me the specifics of the "warrior dash."  3 miles of fun-filled activities including crawling under barbed wire, climbing a military-style wall, jumping over fire, and slogging through the mud.  She had me at jumping over fire.  Sadly, my warrior buddy had a family emergency and could not dash.  Then, there was some bold talk at a wine and cheese party and several other friends thought the whole thing sounded pretty good.  The wine wore off and so did the good intentions.  In the end, I dashed alone.

Last night, I could not get to sleep thinking about the soundness of my decision to dash with a recent back injury (good news there, mud gives way and so if you have a back injury, slogging through 3 miles of mud is possibly quite therapeutic...who knew?); the need for a stress test to make sure my patched up heart could handle the aerobic strain; and the realization that I would be running with a bunch of 20 somethings who might just be wearing bikinis (only one that I saw, mostly folks were in full viking garb).  Luckily, as good quests do, I had a mission to pick up some viking helmets and so I put my nerves to bed around 2:30am.

My family came with me.  I met new warrior buddies and I had a beautiful day.  My favorite part of the race was pulling lighter racers out of waist deep mud when they did not have enough bulk to free themselves.  We were one.  One of the photographers shouted out the following, "you are kicking ass and you are twice as old as the girls you are running with."  I will take it....but let me tell you, the ass I was kicking was my own.  The voice that kept me up the night before, the voice that tells me I have to start taking it easy.  The voice that tells me I shouldn't, not anymore.  That voice got left in the mud.  I hope it stays there.

Special shout out to my buddy who got me into this:  you have a helmet waiting for you.