The Warrior Dash

The crew after the race

We did the Warrior Dash race this past weekend. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Warrior Dash it is one of the most popular mud runs. The race is a 5k with obstacles. So how does this tie in to my 400 meter training? It doesn't. A group of us did it last year and someone talked me into doing it again this year. As regular readers of the blog may know, I don't do well with long distances. I have chronic exertional compartment syndrome in both calves and any running over a couple of minutes is difficult. So running a course on a ski hill that is mostly uphill on rough terrain is not the best thing for me. Again, I got talked into it. At least I said no to the Tough Mudder.

So my main goal was to not get injured. I did fine there although I've been pretty sore for the past couple of days. I also got caught by the neck on a section of barbed wire at one point, but didn't have much more than a little scratch. My second goal was to try to make a good workout out of it. I accomplished that too. I pushed fairly hard except for some of the long uphill sections. I was able to move pretty quickly over many of the obstacles.

Overall for our race day I finished 293rd overall out of 8,610 people. That's men and women and all age groups. In my age group and just men I was 102nd out of 1,725 which puts me in the top 6%. Not too bad for someone who doesn't do well with long distances.

There's talk now of doing another one in September. At least I would be done with all of my track races and not as concerned with messing up my training. And if nothing else, it's a good workout.