Am I a warrior? Kinda maybe?

I ran my first Warrior Dash this last Saturday morning and strapped a GoPro camera to my head to document the event. I figured that I had to do something with the thing, since I haven’t really done much with it since I got it from my father in law. They are usually used for recording sweet action stuff like jumping out of airplanes or doing backflips on motorcycles, but since I throw my back out doing reasonable, non crazy jumps into the pool (you know just going from not water, to water, no flips or crazy stuff), I don’t have a lot of things that I can really use the thing for that make for anything worth watching so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to try it out. I covered the overnight shift the night before which I thought would be a great idea to save me the six hours worth of vacation that I was going to use to do the race, which it did partially… it definitely saved me the six hours of vacation but it wasn’t really a great idea because it sucks to work all night, get out at 5am and start driving the couple hour drive to where the race is, putter around until your wave starts, get your ass kicked and get muddy and wet, drive a couple hours back home, with just enough time to shower and eat and then go back to work to work the afternoon shift where you feel like butt from the lack of sleep. The bad thing is that I’m doing it again in a couple days to run another 5k on Saturday morning, but at least this one is right by the airport and I can go right home afterward and get some sleep before coming back in at two.

Luckily the forecast for rain most of the night and all during the race didn’t come true because the race is held out in the middle of nowhere in a field. I wasn’t worried about getting muddy, I was worried about getting in and out of the place with the thousands and thousands of people all driving their cars through the mud and turning the whole place into a giant slop fest with no possible escape when you wanted to leave. It was unseasonably cold when I got there, but actually a very nice running temperature once you get moving. I only saw one person there that I knew, my old friend Kevin who I haven’t seen in person for nearly twenty five years since we moved out of Columbus and moved to Genoa. I guess Kevin is really into these kinds of races and is in a group that does them all the time. I’m sure there were a few others who actually ran the race as well, because I knew some people who wanted to do it, but I just didn’t bump into them because of the many many race waves running throughout the day and we didn’t have the same start times.

Once the race got started it truly showed me how out of shape that I am. I was wiped out before I even got to the first real obstacle because of the steep hills kicking my butt and the fact that I just recently started training on a regular basis again. Luckily for me it wasn’t noticeable that I was slow and I passed lots of people anyway because all the amateur rookies come out of the woodwork for things like these because they want to drink beer and party with their friends. I like races like that because when I run in the ones that have the serious runners in them I finish so far in the rear that the winners of the race are already done by the time I get to the halfway point. It’s no fun to finish almost dead last (like my last race before this). I wish I could have raced in something like this twenty years ago or so, it reminded me of the obstacle course that I went through in basic training which I blew through and had a blast doing. I even asked my TI if I could run it again, but I think he told me to shut the f*** up. I think I will sign up for it again next year, and Jessica wants to try it too and enjoy the festivities afterward since they have beer and live music. Here’s the edited video of the race, it’s not mind blowing or anything. I cut the hour of footage that I got down to right at thirty minutes by speeding up some of the slow parts and cutting some stuff out so check it out if you want to see what it’s like.

As for my daily mile running streak, I’m still at it, I’ve gone out and run at least a mile for twenty three days in a row now. I think I can notice the difference already, when I’m feeling good and strong I go do three or four miles or so, when I’m not or I just don’t have a lot of time I just do the one and call it a day. I’m getting faster and it’s getting easier and I actually ran my fastest mile of all time the day before yesterday which I wasn’t expecting yet at this point. The depressing thing was that the time I got for my fastest mile of all time wasn’t all that fast in the grand scheme of things. I guess the only one I’m competing against is myself so just getting out there and pushing myself is its own victory.