Christmas came in late June this year. Okay, not exactly. For Christmas this past year my brother-in-law got a few of us entries to Warrior Dash! Given that Christmas is in December & we live in the Midwest, the next available Warrior Dash was mid-June in Illinois. Unfortunately, monsoon season came unexpectedly to the Midwest and they wound up raining out day two of the Illinois event. We were given an option to transfer our registration to Indiana or Wisconsin. We decided on Indiana and last week headed down to Crawfordsville to enjoy the Sunday Warrior Dash Indiana.
Based on the length of the post, it is safe to say that I enjoyed my Christmas present!
Quick Note: Warrior Dash Illinois has now announced that they have rescheduled to August 15, 2015.
Overall Event Organization
With about a 2-2.5 hour drive and a time change, we hit the road at the oh so early hour of 5:30. Loaded up on coffee we were ready to go by the time we got down to Crawfordsville. We had been fearing parking and waiting lines to get our packets and ran into absolutely no problems with it! They had everything so well spaced out that we had no issues getting a parking spot, picking up our packets and checking our bags.
I highly recommend bag check. We were able to run back and grab phones so we could take a few finish line pictures before showering and it was nice to be able to go in and out getting our stuff. You could leave your bags there all day but couldn’t actually leave the bag check area without matching your bag number up to your bib number. It was quick and easy, yet kept things dry and safe.
The Race
Oh my goodness, this race was SO MUCH FUN! First things first, I was WAY more muddy than I expected. I thought there were bits of mud throughout the course, but there was full on mud pits. It was awesome. I’m not one for mud and on more than one occasion have declared that I am never running a mud run, but I had a ton of fun with it.
When you sign up for Warrior Dash you pick a heat and it seems to go in waves of about 100 people at a time. The event goes all day, but I was thankful we had an early heat. Not only did it get warmer as the day went on, the course definitely got more muddy!
The way the Indiana Warrior Dash worked out, we did most of the running first, and then the obstacles at the end. I actually really liked how that did wind up working out because we never once had to wait to go on an obstacle. The running spread our heat out pretty well. As monsoon season in Indiana has far from come to an end, the course had A LOT of mud on it. We sort of ran up hill for about the first mile and a half and then did some more up hill and down hill. I must say, it was a GREAT hill workout. There were times I questioned whether my shoes would make it through the race.
There were 12 obstacles on our race and we did every single one of them. I may or may not have freaked out a little at the top of The Great Warrior Wall, just not completely sure how to get over. Luckily I had people to talk me through it!
As much as I am not a fan of mud the Goliath slide was one of my favorite obstacles. I liked the climb up to it and the challenge of walking across the beam (hi, former gymnast here). The Warrior Roast was also a lot of fun as we jumped over it holding hands. Unfortunately our jumping pictures didn’t come out as good as I had hoped. Oh well, there’s always next year!
There we some heights involved and you are not required to complete every obstacle. No one will force you through it! I wanted to complete them just because! We joked that it was girls vs. guys but in the end we all kind of finished together, as it should be!
Each race varies in length, but the Warrior Dash website gives you a heads up ahead of time about the length of your specific location. I did wear my Garmin (just to get my miles in for the week) and our race wound up being 3.03 miles and we did it in 1 hour and 1 minute. Not too bad all things considering! We definitely were not part of the competitive bunch, we were in it to have fun.
To the person who commented (about a quarter of a mile into the race) that there wasn’t enough mud… I hope you got your wish!
Post Race
After the race there were selfies, getting cleaned up & then we headed back to the car to change quick. You get a free beer with your entry fee and we stayed around to enjoy a little more of the Shocktop. I’m so not a beer person but I actually really enjoyed their Belgian Ale… Definitely something to remember for the future!
They had live music going all day & you were able to watch others as they went through the obstacles. There were some places to take group pictures, of course we caught those AFTER we had changed into clean clothes.
I highly recommend bringing a change of clothes & shoes. We really did enjoy just hanging out after the race and it was a nice way to wind down before our trip home.
Warrior Dash Indiana had a place to donate your shoes if you didn’t feel like taking your muddy mess home. I actually wore my original pair of Brookes Adrenelines GTS 14s that had virtually no support left in them. They are my favorite type of shoe but there was no reason to keep them anymore so they went to a good cause. I had no problem saying goodbye to the mud caked all over them!
6 days after the race we got an email with all of our free, downloadable photos. I LOVED THIS! I am a huge fan of race photos and not having to pay an arm and a leg for them makes it even more fun. They aren’t necessarily huge printing resolution but the chance of me printing them was slim to none anyways.
If you are considering a Warrior Dash, I would HIGHLY recommend it. I’ve heard things about the Spartan Races and have no desire to go through those. This was fun, lighthearted but really challenged you physically (and mentally) at points. On that note, it was SO MUCH FUN doing it with friends. I feel like had I done the race alone I wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much as I did with a group.
It truly felt like an accomplishment getting our medal (which is also a beer opener by the way). See you next summer!
