The only goal I had going into this race was to torment my friend Tom. If you don’t know, Warrior Dash is a 5k race with 11 obstacles thrown in for good measure with a bunch of folks dressed in silly costumes. I didn’t wear a costume but I DID take off my shirt which some would say IS a costume.

Anyways, three minutes into the run going up Windham Mountain, I would say about 90% of the field started walking. WALKING! In a race! I was steadily climbing, passing several walkers, turned back and couldn’t find Tom. So I waited like any gentleman would do.

We climbed over walls, got on all fours (it’s not as kinky as it sounds) and crawled through a tube, and ran through a field of tires military style. Then, as we approached the “Slithering Swamp” or also known as 3-4 foot deep muddy ice cold water — I threw Tom in. SCORE #1!

The ice cold water was actually a welcomed treat after climbing up several feet of hills. Mind you, it was 55 degrees when we started but I was dripping in sweat.

Apparently, running through single track with trees surrounding you is another obstacle which I forgot to mention.

Then, we walked the plank. I jumped up and down to knock Tom off but it didn’t work.

My next opportunity to torment him more was on the giant slip n slide leading up to the mud where you had to crawl under barb wire. My plan was to jump on top of Tom and slide down with his as my surfboard but I completely missed. I however, made up for my lack of aim by throwing mud into his shorts through the mud crawl. It was so blatant, volunteers decided to call me out “LEAVE HIM ALONE!” which is another way of telling me “You’re doing a fabulous job!”

We jumped over some silly fire and crossed the line where I happily pulled down his pants. Of course, this wasn’t caught on video.

Overall, it was a fun silly race. We ran it in approx 45 mins (14 min/miles) which shows you how seriously we took the race. The winning time was around 23 mins, and had I taken it seriously I think I would’ve ran it in around 29-30 mins.

The after party was “interesting” – just watching the people in costumes was worth attending the event.

Was it as hard as they made it out to be? No…

But as always, it’s the experience that counts. Do the race with all your friends, wear silly costumes, get drunk afterwards = great race.