WARRIORS Are We!!

The Warrior Dash slogan is pretty accurate!  Saturday was one of "the craziest frickin' days of our lives!" 

Saturday morning Brett and I suited up in our thrift-store warrior duds and headed out to Florence, AZ (home of the AZ State Prison) to participate in the Warrior Dash, a 3.4 mile obstacle run. 

From their website: "Warrior Dash is a mud-crawling, fire-leaping, extreme run from hell.  Warriors conquer extreme obstacles, push their limits, and celebrate with kick-a** music, beer, and warrior helmets." 
Although we chose not to celebrate with beer, we did conquer extreme obstacles, enjoy some great music, sport some sweet warrior helmets, and devour a delicious turkey leg.

Some great "before and after" pics!  A preview of what's to come. :)

...And we're off!  About .2 miles into the race looking excited, energetic, and CLEAN!

Let the warrior obstacles begin!
Barricade Breakdown - Hurdle over the barricades and under the barbed wire.  Don't get caught on the barbed wire!

 Hell's Hills - Race up and down a series of 7 foot dirt mounds.  They were much steeper than they look!

Knee-high Hell and Junkyard Jump - Speed step through hundreds of tires and up and over the junk cars

Cliffhanger - Rappel down the steep drop-off

Slithering Swamp - Trudge through the knee-high sludge, then attempt to run the rest of the race with mud-filled (and now extremely heavy!) shoes.

Hay Fever - Hustle (or LEAP, if you are Brett) up and over giant straw bales

 Cargo Climb - Scale the giant cargo nets.  One of our favs!

 Teetering Traverse - Balance across the raised track

Great Warrior Wall - Scale the massive wooden wall

Arachnophobia - Maneuver through the tangled ropes

Chaotic Crossover - Crawl across (and don't fall through) the elevated ropes.  Much harder than it looks.

Warrior Roast - Leap over the rows of Warrior fires.  Brett's shorts were already flaming, so we weren't too worried about them igniting further. :)

And finally, Muddy Mayhem, a great way to end any race - Scramble beneath barbed wire through a deep pit of mud.  Brett decided to make his entrance into the mud by way of cannonball!

It was more of a swim than a crawl.

 We made it!! We can now call ourselves WARRIORS!

Real Warriors...

...eat meat off the bone...

...donate their shoes...

...and forgo the spray-down to drive home dirty.

 

Although we are still finding mud in odd places, we had an absolute BLAST and are already contemplating our outfits and strategies for next year.  CAN'T WAIT!!