Warrior Dash Georgia 2014

Here I am, finally posting my Warrior Dash recap :)

Saturday I drove up to Mountain City, Georgia - about 3 hours of driving through the country for me. The little mountain town has kind of an outdoorsy vibe. It's a cool little place! Great venue.

One thing, if you ever do a Warrior Dash, sign up for an EARLY heat!! I did 10am which was the best I could do with the 3 hour drive I had to make. But it made a HUGE difference in terms of check in time and waiting in lines. I got there around 8:30 and it was not crowded (see picture above) but by the time I was getting ready to run the place was packed and there were long lines everywhere.



I jumped into the 9:45am heat. WD no longer times races in their open heats so I figured it wouldn't matter. The race started, the flames went up at the start line, and we were off! Straight up a hill. I regretted not getting closer to the start line (I always get in the middle at races, I don't overestimate myself) because everyone was walking up this hill. I am no great hill runner but I at least wanted to try and jog it. But I had to walk because of the people in front of me. This slowed me down a bit, but after a series of 3 hills it started to flatten out a bit. I started to pass people. And the crowds got thinner.

The bar is vacant at 9am..

The first obstacle was probably one of the more difficult ones. It's a wall that is inverted at the very top. But I was able to swing my left leg up to the top and clear the wall without difficulty. There was a man to my right who was really unsure of what to do when he got to the top, so I talked him through it until he made it down safely. Back into the woods briefly, hit the mile 1 aid station for some water, then it was out to the cars obstacle. Knee highs through a field of tires and then I had to climb across a bunch of junk cars. After the cars there were some over/under walls. Then we came to the lake... a very cold lake! The goal was to swim out to the middle of the lake and pull your body over some floating rolling logs. The water was so cold that I couldn't swim right away. At first I kind of hopped along the bottom, too much in shock to really do much else. As I got closer to the logs I started to swim. Got over the logs, you pretty much just roll over them on your stomach. Kept swimming to the other side, got out, and immediately faced a barb wire crawl. My first thought was - Calf Cramp City. My right calf has issues sometimes, and it cramped up on me in the barb wire pit at Spartan Race. But I made it through cramp free!

Mud pit!

At this point I was starting to get faster while everyone else seemed to be slowing down. Speed was my goal for this race! The next obstacle in my path was the mud pit. It had some barb wire to crawl under, with some very thick soupy mud which sucked you down with every movement. The second part of the mud pit was more watery and you had to kind of trudge through it. But I knew a secret - you see, I had watched people pass through it before my race started, so I knew - there was a giant drop off in the middle of the pool. I was stepping slowly and feeling around for it. And there it was - a giant step down and the ground suddenly disappeared. It caught me by surprise and I knew it was there! People all around me were splashing face deep into the water as they were caught off guard too.

Grape Nuts Mountain

Past the mud pit was a climbing obstacle. It was easy for me, but for those with a fear of heights it can be a game changer. Alot of people around me just froze and had no idea what to do. A girl was saying "I can't do this, I gotta come down!" I told her to put her butt down on the board she was standing on, then slide her foot to the next board and scoot across. Use every body part as a point of contact. Her friend eventually took her hand and helped her cross. After the wall was another lake! I was kind of happy about this, I had never really done any water obstacles until now. This water seemed warmer - because I was more warmed up, or because I was already shocked from the first lake? Who knows. I had to cross this giant floating cargo net. Very splashy obstacle. After exiting the lake it was a bunch of running. I was running fast still. Not much farther until the finish line now. I approached Grape Nuts Mountain - angled wall with a rope. My foot almost slipped at the top but I saved it and got over with no problems. Once I was over Grape Nuts Mountain the fire jump greeted me next. I tried to strike a pose - we'll see how well that turned out. Must have been nice cause the volunteer appreciated it. Fire jump conquered. Rounded a corner, and came up to this.

This is an obstacle they call Goliath. And it's kind of a mess.

You climb up a cargo net, on top of a shipping container, then cross a balance beam 10 feet in the air over a pit of water, streams of water shoot up at you, then you climb another cargo net and go down a giant slide.

I ran up to it and joined a crowd of about 30 people waiting in line. Obstacle was backed up to hell. It was because people at the balance beams were taking a long time to cross. At this point my watch said 38 minutes. WD is not timed, and after my experience I'm glad it's not!!!

I waited in line for 40 minutes.

Yep. This thing was a mess. Not sure what the hell they were thinking here. And this was in the morning, I'd hate to see it at 2pm! Spent the time chatting with 2 guys about OCR's which was pretty cool. Then after awhile the volunteer says "If anyone wants to WALK across the balance beam you can come up!" I thought ok, I'll walk it, why the hell not. I get up there and instantly rethink that decision. Those beams were wobbly as hell!!! And I saw why it was so backed up - almost everybody was straddling the beams and scooting across on their butts. I am NOT a good balancer. Unfortunately my fear got the better of me that day. I was a scooter. After a long wait, it was finally my turn to scoot, climb, then slide down the slide and cross the finish line.

I have some regrets about the balance beam. I really should have attempted it at the very least. But I guess my fear of failure got the best of me. Later on I was rinsing off in the lake right next to it and noticed the obstacle was no longer backed up. They had freaking carpenters up there reinforcing the balance beams!!! Lol! I guess it must have really been unstable if they had to break out the emergency carpenters! And as I was leaving I saw they had added ropes to the sides! Wow. But hey, hats off to Warrior Dash for fixing their obstacle on the spot to avoid further delays!

I hung out for awhile, relaxed at the little mobile bar and drank my beer. They had some good live music and it was a beautiful day to chill.

Sasquatch needs his beer

My thoughts on the Georgia Warrior Dash 2014 - I had fun! Loved the venue, the festival and the energy there. Everyone was just having a good time. Much better than North Carolina 2013 - the course was interesting and had more mud. The obstacles - pretty easy, but fun! I am an intermediate level racer, and I am gonna say I finished this 5k obstacle race in about 40 minutes - I'm not counting the ridiculousness that was Goliath! About Goliath - it was kind of crazy to wait through that, but once again I give my props to WD for fixing it on the fly. I'm not sure if that obstacle was intended to be the way it was, but they must have thought something was wrong if they had to break out the carpenters to reinforce it. 

Warrior Dash is great for a first time obstacle race, but still fun for those who have been around the OCR block a few times like myself. I even saw some "elite" men and women out there - super fit, wearing Spartan, Tough Mudder, etc gear. Speaking of which, I ran across the Obstacle Racing Media booth and was challenged to do 30 burpees for a prize. Challenge accepted! I now have a GPS watch guard for my wrist :)

Finally, I shall leave you with this

This guy was great. Big purple dude who pretty much grinded up on everybody.

He's my hero!

Warrior Dash 2014, ladies and gentlemen!!!