Race Recap: Warrior Dash Kansas City

I want to preface this recap with one thing: I am a runner, I am a Kansas Citian.  I run local and support local.  Warrior Dash is not a local race and it supports nothing, so it kind of put a bad taste in my mouth as far as a capital-money-maker race, ahem $50 entry fee.

ANYWAY, Warrior Dash is kind of one those bucket list races.  You gotta do it, or one similar to it at least once.  Last night, it was my turn.  Along with Isaac and Bob, we tackled the 3.1 miles of trails and obstacles to become survivors or warriors, I guess.

Our wave was at 5PM, the whole day had been shaded by cloud cover and barely 80 degrees.  The morning waves were blessed with showers of rain.  Our heat, was literally a heat.  By 5PM, the sun was out in full fervor and the heat index over a 100 degrees.  Perfecto!  

My team arrived in the parking lot, begrudgingly paid the $10 to let our cars sit in a vacant lot of three hours and the lined up for the shuttle.  The school bus shuttles had been absolutely destroyed by previous dashers, the seats were filled with muddle butt prints, some fresh and some dried.  Unfortunate for our spectators, they too had to suffer the mud-butt.

I will give the dash this: Incredible organization.  It's not often that a race of this many entrants can do a same day packet pick up, gear check, etc so smoothly.  Everything was marked, organized and thoroughly coordinated.  

The corral for the start was an uphill battle, and by that I mean it was actually uphill and every seemed to be preparing for battle.  Everyone was so pumped, maybe it was my mood but I wasn't in to the hype.  We stood in the corral for like 20 minutes waiting for the fire/blow horn to go off.  While waiting I watched some girl make an absolute fool of herself attempting to dance to Usher.

By the time our wave was up, I was totally heat exhausted and kinda already feeling like it was vomit o'clock. We took off anyway. This is an appropriate time to mention that the last time I ran a race without any music was...never.  It's awkward as heck.  The first mile was silent, everyone heavily panting and trodding.  Weird.

In all honesty, I was slightly disappointed in the obstacles Kansas City was given:

1) Barricade Break Down: up and under some barricades

2) Teetering Traverse: Balance up and down narrow boards

3) A Balance Beam: Climb up a ladder, walk across a beam with monkey bars atop

4) Tire Field: Maneuver through a field of tires
5) Dead Man's Drop: Climb up a wall, flip over the other side and baseball slide down a wall

6) Tiny Wall with a rope: Climb out of a river and up a wall with a rope, obviously

7) Chaotic Cross Over: Go up a ladder, and cross laterally a bed of ropes

8) Hay Fever: Climb a 30 foot thing of hay

9) Cargo Climb: Climb a pyramid of cargo nets

10) Warrior Roast: Literally jump fire

11) Muddy Mayhem: crawl under barbed wire through thick soupy mud

So no huge wall to climb, or cars to jump.  Approaching the race, I was a little sad but during the race I changed my mind.  The trails were challenging enough to walk because of swamped out mud, but coupled with the head I was cooked.

We all finished in under an hour, an attempted to wash off in the same time.

All in all, I had a really good time with my friends. I am also really proud of what they were able to accomplish since December when we decided to do this.  It was an incredibly fun and challenging course.  If I can get over the fact that is it a money-making-monster, I may do it again.  

HAVE YOU EVER DONE THE WARRIOR DASH OR A MUD RUN SIMILAR?

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE?

WILL YOU EVER DO IT AGAIN, AND IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE ONE DO YOU WANT TO?