Warrior Dash Ohio 2: Carrollton

"The craziest freaking day of my life" turned into one of the most painful as well. Yesterday, I completed my second Warrior Dash in 4 months, and let me just tell you....This one was tough! I have done a lot of things in my life, but this was one of the hardest. Don't get me wrong, running 5k isn't that hard to do. Quite honestly, it is not hard at all. But running 5k, in all mud, up many many hills, over obstacles, more hills, more mud, more muddy hills, and a masses of muddy falling people, and you get the idea. Let me be clear, I didn't really train for this by doing anything other than bike and drink, but still this one kicked my ass much more than the last one. As a matter of fact, the overall fastest time was 9 full minutes slower than the last one I ran. Personally, my time was 17 minutes slower than the last. Mostly because of the mud and hills, but also because of start time. Instead of running with the faster runners, I was lumped with the masses and I spent half the time maneuvering around people who were struggling miserably in the mud and on the obstacles. I guess I should have seen that coming, since I also spent almost two hours in traffic just to go 2 miles. Note to self....if I run again, it will be back in early heat again! The course itself was similar to the last one, but it definitely had more hills! The start was on a downhill, followed by a half lap around the lake. A short chest high wade across the lake with floating logs (caught a couple logs to the chin) and out the other side for another uphill, muddy run. After a painful uphill, a sloppy muddy run through the woods, back up more hills, then started hitting the obstacles. A series of wooden hurdles followed by crawl under barbed wire, then off to another hill! More mud, and then a few more obstacles to complete. A cargo net climb, a wooden wall climb, balance beam, run through the tires , dumpster obstacle (medics were working on some woman here), horizontal rope crossing (too many people at one time on this), another wooden wall climb (especially hard for short people), a steep steep hill climb leading to fire crossing, then the mud crawl for the finish. All of this done while running through more freaking mud! Good Times! Click here for results