Weight: 239 (-2, -13 total)
Well, I did it. A lot of you have asked what it was like and how it went so I'll do my best to sum up here.
The day started at about 7AM. While this may seem like I had a chance to sleep in, the opposite is true. Before I had signed up for Warrior Dash I had gotten tickets to see Marillion in Philly on the Friday before. I won't get into details about the show here other than to say I didn't get home until about 1AM, and didn't fall asleep until closer to 2AM. I woke up pretty tired, but was confident my adrenaline would get me through.
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| Chris and Steve before the race |
We packed up our things, including a cooler of water, some snacks, and a change of clothes, and loaded everything into Steve's truck. The six of us (me, Kathy, Ryan, Steve, and his family) headed up to Pocono Raceway together, leaving at about 9:00 and arriving about 10:45 AM. Upon our arrival we got to the registration area, attached our bibs and then kind of wondered what we were going to do until our 1:00 start time. It didn't take long for us to decide to bail on the 1:00 and just get into the starting area and go. We ran in the 11:30 heat.
We made our way to the start which was very similar to any other race, with the exception of the level of enthusiasm. People were jumping up and down, literally pumping themselves up for the race. With the sound of horns, and an explosion of flames we were off. The race went around the perimeter of the speedway, and it wasn't until we ran about 0.75 miles that we encountered our first obstacle. This was not much of a challenge - it was kind of like a balance beam. There was a slight incline, then about 30 feet of beam, then a decline off of the beam. No big deal. Shortly after that obstacle we came to the next which was an area of swinging tires. This also was pretty simple to go through as it was just running through the tire swings. Granted, you could whacked on the head by a tire (there seemed to be about 50 of them), but it was pretty easy to navigate.
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| Approaching the fire obstacle. |
At this point I was thinking that I was worried about this dash for nothing, but more interesting obstacles remained. Next up was something more along the lines of what I was expecting. This was a military crawl under barbed wire, through some mud, and over some rocks and brush. The barbed wire was real, and you definitely had to stay low. It only took about 30 seconds to get through, but this was definitely a little more challenging as there's nothing you can really do to train for something like that. We continued on through some more challenges. There were several walls that you need to scale. There would be a rope hanging from the top and you had to pull yourself up over the wall, shift your weight, and then climb down the other side. There were three of these, each increasing in difficulty. There was also a mud section to run through (not THE mud obstacle). The only thing to come out of that was soaking wet and muddy shoes. And a rock in my shoe. No big deal.
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I'm in the green shirt coming over the top. This was the
easy part of this obstacle. |
The more challenging obstacles included a series of walls that required you to put your feet on one wall, your hands on the other wall, and move through the obstacle suspending yourself. This was a tough obstacle. Imagine your hands on one inside of the letter V, and your feet on the other inside of the V, then get yourself through 50 feet of that. I felt like Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible. There was also a rock wall obstacle. This was a tall wall with about a 2 inch beam running along the bottom to support your feet. You had to balance yourself and reach for the hand supports to work your way through. This was a fun challenge. Finally, we reached the last 3 obstacles. The first, being the hardest challenge on the course. This was the cargo nets. Going up and down a cargo net was easy enough. However, climbing across 50 feet of cargo nets is exhausting and a little painful. It hurt too much to go on my knees, so I tried to just use my arms and legs to "spider" my way across from the beginning to the actual cargo net wall. This probably took me a good minute or two to navigate. This was followed by the leap over the fire pits. This was really just for show. Nothing to it. Finally, we reached the end and the last obstacle which was the giant mud pool. I eased in to the cool mud and much like a current in the ocean, just kind of used my arms to float to the other side, climbed out, and crossed the finish line in a time of 52:55, placing me 3,988 out of 7,549 runners.
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| Chris and Steve after the race.
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Once we crossed the line we were awarded our medals, and proceeded over to the fire truck to get a little cleaned up. This was pretty futile, but the water felt great. Once we got most of the mud off we took our free beer chips, got ourselves a beer (this is my only real complaint about the Warrior Dash - to do this whole race for a Miller Lite kind of sucks. Warriors don't drink Miller Late. I'm begging you Warrior Dash, please get some better beer for next year!) We also got some giant turkey legs, talked to some other warriors, and spent an hour or so just hanging out and soaking it all in.
I also decided to donate my shoes to their giant shoe pile. Not sure if they are to be recycled or washed up and reused, but I didn't need them anymore. It was a pretty impressive pile of shoes, that's for sure.
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| A mountain of shoes. |
As you know, thanks to all your kindness and support I was able to raise $275 and be a St. Jude's Warrior, which allowed me access to a special tent, showers, etc... This was great, but I didn't take advantage of it. The lines were just too long. When to came time to leave we just kind of cleaned up/wiped off, changed back at the truck and headed home - feeling inspired and proud of our accomplishment.
So that's it in a nutshell. I feel really good about what I accomplished over the last few months. I didn't lose as much weight as I had hoped, but I did lose 13 pounds, and am feeling better and stronger than I've felt in the last 10 years. I feel like I've turned a corner in my life. I'm finally making more sensible food choices, I'm exercising regularly, and I'm looking forward to continuing my 10K app and working to improve my 5K running. I don't anticipate updating this blog too much any more, but I really appreciate all of the comments and emails and support I've gotten over the last few months. Thanks for allowing me to indulge myself here. I had some fun writing it, and I hope I didn't bore you all too much. I plan on running this race next year. Kathy will be running with me, and if anyone else is interested it would be a lot of fun to get a huge team to enter the race. It really was a blast.
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| Finished. |
Lastly, I just want to say thanks to Kathy and Ryan, who both supported me through this whole thing. Kathy inspired me with her training and her half marathon preparations, and Ryan was always ready to greet me with a hug when I came back from a run or the gym, and who drew me pictures and cards to cheer me on. Ryan and I are running a mud run together in October. Info for it is here. Come out and join us.
http://www.filthyfunevents.com/camp-kweebec.htm
My goals going forward are these: keep working to drop some weight and keep exercising. I made it under 240, but I have a long way to go. I would like to eventually get myself to around 210 lbs. I don't know if I can, but I need to try. To assist me with this I want to run one 5K per month. Since I am doing the couch to 10K app I think I may contemplate a 5 miler, but not any time soon. Most importantly though, I want to be around for Kathy and Ryan, and to be here I need to be healthy. I want to be ready for a Warrior Dash when I'm 50 - which is how old I'll be when Ryan can run his first Warrior Dash. I can't wait to do it with him.
