Warrior Dash (Central Texas)

Thanks to Gretchen Chaffin & Nancy Winchester for submitting this race review.

Nancy saw a Facebook ad asking if she was a warrior, and contrary to her customary aversion to all internet ads, made the fatal click.  “It’s the craziest frickin’ day of your life!” screamed the Warrior Dash website.  Intrigued, Nancy read on.  Fire leaping, mud crawling, and beer drinking were then displayed, with the promise of a Viking hat with horns as a finisher’s award.  She thought it would be a fun event, but only if she could recruit a friend to join her.  So she compared her “she-warrior” and athletic/runner friend sets, and the resulting Venn diagram produced the result Gretchen.  An off-the-cuff email exchange then ensued.  It went something like this:

Nancy: Interested? (With the www.warriordash.com site link)
Gretchen: H*ll yeah!

So the planning began.  Neither had ever made so many arrangements to run a 5K before.  In fact, in March of this year when Nancy was visiting Gretchen in Oklahoma, they decided on a whim to enter a local 5K.  They just showed up, signed up, ran, and took first and second place in the female division.  What could be so hard about a 3.51 mile trail run?

The answer – they had never run a race in costume that had two days of starting heats every half hour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with 500 runners per heat.  The Texas race sold out, so that was 14,000 runners, most who would need hotel rooms and parking at the start.  So the preparations began.

Jay, the team coordinator (and Gretchen’s husband), handled logistics like hotel and local transportation.

Gretchen, the creative one, made a kick-butt warrior costume for herself, and because she’s an awesome Mom too, a matching costume for

her 6-year old daughter.

Nancy, the traveler, ordered an expensive costume online as she was a little booked before the run: Boston, then Disney, then a business meeting, only returning to Houston in time to pack the car and drive to Dallas.

And then the long-awaited Warrior Dash day arrived.  Since they signed up early, they got what would have been great slots at 2 p.m. until more slots opened in the morning.  At least they had lots of time to get ready.  Running clothes – check!  Costumes – check!  Sunscreen – check! Wearing nothing that you wouldn’t mind being totally destroyed – check!  Off the foursome went,  piled into Jay’s truck to park at the high school, then onto some very nice tour buses to the race site.

They were greeted with a cross between an outdoor concert and mountain man festival.  Axe throwing, a huge inflatable warrior helmet, countless muddy people in crazy costumes, and a live band playing in front of a Jumbotron screen showing footage of warriors currently battling The Dash.  The excitement was mounting, and it was just a matter of time until their wave would start.  And then before they knew it, they were at the starting line, mixing with some serious runners, and others who apparently got the beer drinking and running order mixed up.

The start of the heat was signaled with two huge fire jets, and they were off!  Gretchen and Nancy got out quickly and managed the Texas tornado with little difficulty.  Then, they hit their first mud.  Nothing too bad, and the plank walk was a piece of cake.  When they hit the

mud river, Nancy started to fail.  Gretchen urged her on.  Then they hit the mud slide and mud climb.  Nancy continued to fail.  Gretchen urged her on.  The hay bale climb was pretty easy except the bales were starting to break down with all the traffic.  Then, the obstacle that they were both dreading – the Breathless Bog.  The activity was advertised as “Trudge through the waist-deep water and over the logs”, but the actual obstacle was in water over their heads, so they did all they could do – they swam.  Don’t try this at home ladies: it’s hard to swim in costume and running shoes. Really hard.

Then they were approaching the end.  Nancy, at the end of her energy, needed two attempts to scale the wooden spools.  Gretchen covered them like they weren’t even there.  The cargo net climb was cake, and then the best two obstacles awaited in view of the finish line: the wall of fire and the mud crawl.  Gretchen triumphantly leaped over the fire wall with Nancy following, as she had the entire race.  Then Gretchen chose wisely and Nancy chose poorly.  Gretchen crawled right up the center of the mud pit under the barbed wire, while Nancy crawled up the left edge.  They dashed to the finish, caked in mud, and triumphantly high fived each other.  Then Nancy saw the results of her poor choice – her legs were scratched and bleeding from cuts from the shells in the mud.  But who cared – the race was over!  And what’s a warrior without a little blood, anyway?

Little did they know that the real race had just begun.  The only facilities to clean up consisted of a guy with a fire hose.  Yes, a guy (singular) with a fire hose (singular).  They waited, and inched forward, and waited, and put their hands in the air with the hope that some overspray might trickle down their arms.  And then after what seemed like an eternity (and confirmed, since it took longer than actually running the race), they were in the front row, and soon as clean as they were going to be – with a fire hose.  It was instantly apparent to them why all of the hand wash stations at the Porta Potties were empty and caked in mud long before they stepped up to the starting line.

After that interminable wait, they had little patience to stand in yet another line, but did anyway to snag a free beer and turn in the rest of their tickets for potato chips. Then, off to the bus.  The bus driver had learned something since we arrived – all of the seats were covered with trash bags.  Good thinking!

So their Warrior adventure was over.  They showered, and showered and showered.  And the miracle of the weekend is that their costumes came clean – ready and waiting for next year’s Warrior Dash.

Gretchen Chaffin runs on a regular basis in order to stay sane in her roles as mom, wife, artist and student.  She enjoys running alone where she can immerse herself in the solitary meditation of putting one foot in front of the other at just the right speed and distance to obtain that golden endorphin rush that is her self-medication of choice.  She occasionally competes in 5Ks and 8Ks in her local area of Oklahoma, and has run one marathon.

Nancy Winchester began marathon running to celebrate her landmark 30^th birthday and hasn’t looked back.  A veteran of 29 marathons, including 13 consecutive Boston Marathons, as well as marathons  in Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, Toronto, and New York, she is hooked on the sport and hopes to keep hitting the road for many years to come.  Nancy is a proud Canadian who lives, works and sweats in Houston, TX.