I don't get it. Every time we've traveled outside of when I've gone places on business, I'm always at a hotel where there's some church group or team staying with a lot of kids and too few adults. This time it was a soccer team. For the Tough Mudder it was a church group. The chaperones for these kids don't do jack, and they run up and down the corridors really late into the night. I swear someone knocked on the door at 6am too, so needless to say, none of us slept well.
The drive to the venue from Allentown was something like another 40 miles, but 20 something miles of it was on these two lane roads through the mountains. And just before we got to the huge long line for parking, Logan started to throw up his breakfast. I asked Brian if we should turn around and he said to keep going. I guess he had a point, more driving would have only made it worse.
Warrior Dash did not handle parking all that well. We were to park in a lot that was just ground, then take buses to the venue to keep the roads clear for emergency personnel. This was smart in theory, but the "parking lot" ended up really really muddy due to all the rain and cars were getting stuck, plus in spite of the many emails about it, people were surprised that we had to pay for parking. So we spent a half hour in traffic just waiting to get into the parking lot. At that point, I had to get out of the car and run to the bus because it was 10:45 and my wave was at 11:30 (there were waves of 500 people every half hour). I registered and they said I could delay and go into a later wave, so I waited...and waited...and waited...for Brian. I ended up having to borrow someone's phone (I left mine because I was supposed to be getting wet, remember) to call him and he had JUST parked due to the traffic and people getting stuck. So I had to wait for them to get there by bus, and as soon as Logan got off the bus, he threw up all over Brian and himself again. Thankfully, I had a bunch of extra clothes for myself and I brought three towels. So we put one of my shirts on Logan, another of my extras for Brian, and then Logan wrapped himself up in a towel and went to sleep on the other.
At this point, I had about 10 minutes before it was time to get into my wave, and honestly, I wasn't ready. I wasn't mentally prepared and everything kept going wrong. I wanted to go home, but Brian pushed me to get into the wave. Thank god it's only 3 miles, because if it were a Tough Mudder, I would have just quit at that point. I had Brian take a couple of pictures of me, so he walked about 10 feet away from Logan to take the pictures. Well, there are people driving around on four wheelers for medical and stuff. The dumb bitch wasn't paying attention and came within INCHES of running over Logan on the ground. These people all started screaming at her and she didn't even stop to apologize. At this point, it was too much for me and I ended up bursting into tears because of the adrenaline. At that point, I wanted to quit more than anything, but Brian told me to go. So I got in line and within 3 minutes we were off.
The course was entirely trail, most of which was highly technical rocky single track trail, but the beginning and end were packed ground. Our first obstacle was a couple of castles that we had to run through. Now that I have done a Tough Mudder, there are huge differences between the types of races and, most notably, the crowds. The tough mudder crowd, while serious, is playful and there's a sense of camaraderie. This was true here, but the types of athletes were much much much different. People were already whining on the packed ground that it was hard in this "I'm joking to defray my nervousness, but I'm really not" type of way. I usually stay to the back of my wave because I'm not a fast runner and I realize that there are some people who want to finish with a good time. After the castles, we came upon these teeter-totter boards. You go up a board, down another, up, down, then across a tiny 2x4 as a balance beam, then up down another set of boards. They were about 4' off the ground too, so it was slightly more scary than it seems. My balance is horrible too, but I made it across no problem. Right after this one were the walls. The walls were 4' off the ground, so you had to grab them, hoist yourself up with your upper body, then jump over. People were complaining that it was too hard and skipping them. So there was a wall, then under barbed wire, and repeat 3x. This is where my "ninja-ness" kicked in. I'm bottom heavy due to my legs being over half my height and well...being pear shaped. My upper body has to be REALLY strong in order to do anything that is body weight related. But I was hoisting and leaping over those walls like a ninja. It was amazing.
After that was a bunch of mud that was that sticky, tar-like mud that was to our knees. I had a bunch of people asking me about my shoes (my Vibram Five Finger toe-glove shoes) as if they'd never seen them before. I was honestly surprised that they weren't everywhere, but then again, this was the type of race for a weekend athlete so I guess it's not that surprising. It was during this time, where this woman was saying that it was my shoes that were allowing me to be so nimble (?? what??). Not even 30 seconds later that woman lost her shoe in the mud. And THAT is why I wear Vibrams.
From this point, we had a long swath of trail and a few obstacles that were like...army crawling under bungie cords, wading through water, etc. After wading through the lake, these women were talking about how zomg HOW HARD going over the walls were, and they dunno how they're going to do more walls and the CARGO NET. I'll go into this later on, but I cannot get over how much people complain about seemingly so easy of events.
However, they had a point when we got to that last wall. The last wall was about 20 feet tall. There was a rope, and ledges every 3 ft or so for you to put your feet as your climbed the rope. Almost every woman I saw skipped it and went around. I went to get in line and next to me was this guy who would charge up to it, grab the rope, and try to climb only to not make it anywhere and let go. I grabbed the rope and held my breath, assuming that I would not be able to pull my body weight up by my arms alone and.....I did it. My Vibrams, actually, did NOT grip the ledge, so I had to make it up the entire rope by my upper body strength alone with an occasional toe on a ledge that would allow me to put it there. Again, I was like a NINJA up that wall, up really fast, and the guy next to me was still struggling. His friends were like, "Dude, she just kicked your ass." Also, this group of women who were going around said, "Oh...maybe it's not that hard!" and turned around to climb (only to fail miserably).
Once you get over to the top, you have to go over and climb down without a rope, but there were bigger ledges to step on. All of these people were impressed with how quickly I got over, and I could hear my theme music in my head. Heh. Anyway, the last few obstacles were the cargo net, high-stepping through tires, and climbing over cars (why did they all have sunroofs?). then it was the classic, crawling under barbed wire through mud and leaping over fire and tada!
Unfortunately, because Logan was passed out, Brian got no pictures of me other than when I was standing near him. I hope I can find the professional pictures.
We had a snack, I was rinsed off by the firehoses, and then we got in line to go back to the car. The line was ridiculous because of the traffic and we went to the medical tent to ask if we could cut to the front due to how sick Logan was. We did, but it was still over an hour to get back to the car with the mud in the parking lot and the traffic backup of people getting in and out of the parking lot. I'm really pissed about the parking, though, seriously. If we have to pay to park, we shouldn't be stranded from our car for over an hour. Brian got into it with a few people who were being dicks in the parking lot saying, "If your kid is so sick, why aren't you calling an ambulance?"
Why are some childless people such assholes? You know, not all of us are using our children as excuses to fuck you over. And um...not every medical problem requires an ambulance. Your kid can be pretty freakin ill and not need an emergency room visit, but that doesn't make it a less urgent situation. Secondly, ambulance or not, jackass, we will still need our car.
Anyway, so we got on the road and Logan threw up twice more. :( He's fine today, but....blah. I dunno if it was what he ate or what because normally he does not get carsick. Honestly, though, having him lie down in the open air of that field for a couple of hours was the best thing for him. If the motion was what was making it worse, lying in the open air to sleep was the best thing for him. I figured he was going to get better though, but not until we were almost home.
So my thoughts? Warrior Dash has gone downhill since the last time we did it. The volunteers were morons. The costumes were boring this time. The parking was ridiculous. But the biggest problem is the type of athlete that does a warrior dash. It's become a "hey I'm going to do this and be a badass even though I smoke, cannot run a half mile, haven't trained, and am obese" type of event. I'm pretty encouraging, believing that with adequate training anyone can do one, but these people weren't trained at all. They wanted to wear costumes, splash around in the mud, and say they're badasses. And it showed with the number of injuries there were. The Tough Mudder crowd would have eaten these people alive.
On the other hand, I did amazing and was like a ninja. I don't know my official time, because I had to keep the chip in my pocket (and I don't think it was picked up by the readers), but I think it was around 1 hour 5-10 minutes, which isn't bad for 3.5 miles and a lot of climbing obstacles. My upper body has gotten ridiculously strong, though, with all the pullups and stuff that I'm doing. All I have to do is get my endurance up and do more trail running, and I should kick ass at the October Tough Mudder.
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