Warrior Dash Midwest (June 18, 2011)

The Story:
It had been about a year since I ran my first obstacle course race… the 2010 Midwest Warrior Dash, to be exact. The 2010 Warrior Dash was an exhilarating experience that I still carried with me coming up to the starting line for round 2. This time though, I had an extra year of training under my belt and a speedy friend to run with. Stephen and I hopped in the car with over two hours until race time (it was a 45 minute drive), stocked up on G-series Prime, a change of clothes, and a celebratory case of Miller Lite…

First off, the parking situation was a breeze compared to the year prior. Previously, participants were required to park across town to wait for a shuttle to take them on a 20-30 minute ride to the starting line. This year, parking was close and plentiful (at least for those of us who arrived early). We strolled over to the entrance of the event, only to be stopped dead in our tracks by a security guard; NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR BEVERAGES ARE ALLOWED INTO THE EVENT. We managed to stuff the G-prime into our pockets (it’s slim enough to go unnoticed), but we were ordered to finish or discard of our water bottles. I understand that Red Frog is trying to make some money off of sales, but they need to remember that this is a RUNNING event, and forcing people to pay for water is absolutely ridiculous. We were not off to a good start, but a conveniently located FRS stand saved us from certain on-course dehydration.Lets get on to the course: Stephen and I took one final look at the course map, strategizing where we could make up the most ground with the least amount of energy. For us, this race was not just about finishing, but finishing as fast as possible. Warrior Dash touts the race as a “hellish” 3.28 miles, with wall-type obstacles, cargo nets, fire jumps and the standard mud-crawl-under-barbed-wire finish. People started pouring into the starting gates as the first wave drew near, and we decided to hang back a wave to avoid getting stuck behind all the new people skipping their waves to start up front. Stephen and I lined up at the front of wave two–probably a little too far forward for this kind of race–and chatted with some fellow racers. The countdown started as the DJ blasts Beastie Boys… it’s definitely a hype start.

The gun goes off and we got an early jump on the competition. Stephen went out strong and I let him gain some ground, knowing I’d catch up down the road. The problem I keep finding in races like this is that new racers start off MUCH too fast, and ends up fading a mile into the race. Unfortunately, unless you start out faster than your comfortable with, you get bottlenecked in the first few turns. We knew there were no obstacles for the first mile, so we pushed hard and Stephen dropped back, grimacing. That omelette he ate before we left didn’t exactly agree with him for such a quick start (which brings up another point: train with what you’ll be eating on race days), so he motioned for me to go on.

The main observation I had during the race is that the organizers used the terrain completely differently on this course than the one a year ago. The hills on this course were brutal. A majority of the first two miles were spent running steeply uphill, downhill, or on a pretty scary side-slope… the kind you have to take at a slow jog to avoid twisting an ankle. Towards the last half mile, the course actually veered into a stream, forcing racers to jump over fallen trees, feel out drops underneath the clay-fogged water, and climb up a steep embankment on the way out. However, the manmade obstacles truly disappointed me. The 2010 Midwest WD had run-down paintball-esque towns to run through, tires to climb over, and barriers to hurdle; The obstacles generally fit the scenery well. It felt like the 2011 obstacles were unloaded from a truck and set up in the middle of a field. There was no flow or logic to them, and some routes (i.e.- the stair platforms) were already broken by the time we reached them. There were too many wall-type obstacles, and not enough variety in between to break up the monotony. These were obstacles that could be completed if you were in mild shape, but could be done extremely quickly in good shape.

The race concluded with a nice, cooling crawl through the mud and I washed off underneath a fire hose and waited for Stephen to come through the finish line. We high-fived, ran out to the car to pound a few beers and headed back inside to redeem our free one. Before heading out for the day, we mingled with some other racers and egged people on to do bellyflops in the final mud pit. All-in-all a productive afternoon, as we finished one last Coors and set off to the next adventure… happy to have both finished in the top 2%, but ultimately unimpressed.