Warrior Dash II - Ohio

Apparently we couldn't get enough of Warrior Dash with only one race this year so we decided on two.  We ran Warrior Dash in Georgia back in April - you can read about that race here - and decided to run it again in Ohio with Ben's sister and brother in law, and a couple friends.  Well unfortunately work schedules didn't work out for a few of the people, so Ben, me, and some friends from Virginia headed over to Columbus for the race.

We met at our hotel, the downtown Hyatt Regency, and headed out to get "an amazing burger better that Litton's" at a place called The Thurman Cafe.  While the burgers were delicious and GIANT, they were no Litton's.

From there we headed back to the hotel, we had some race prep to attend to.  So I busted out my sewing machine. Bet you didn't see that coming, I mean who pack a sewing machine to take to an obstacle run?  I get to work on the ridiculous costume we are wearing the next day.  Doug who came in town to run with us is a band director and had some old uniforms laying around.  After pulling some strings he was able to get us some to wear on the race.  Well these fit high schoolers...we are SEVERAL years removed from high school, so some seams had to be let out, some sleeves cut off.  And of course after finishing 1.5 of the jackets my needle broke.  I may have brought a sewing machine, but I sure didn't bring extra needles!  Thankfully the nice people at the Hyatt Regency didn't ask too many questions when we called down to ask for 3 sewing kits.

Doug Ben and Jenn trying on our overlays

Me and Susan began feverishly hand sewing these overlays as we played Cards Against Humanity.  If you haven't played this game you need to, it's hysterical!  Now don't play this with grandma at Christmas...one of you will be very embarrassed.  For the 4 of us in that hotel room, it was absolutely hilarious.

Ben's Flat Warrior Ready to Go!

We finally finished up for the night and laid out our flat warriors and passed out.  The next morning, we got up early and started making the hour drive to the race site in Millfield, OH.  We parked the car - note it's our brand new (to us) Honda Element - on this giant hill stacked in with all these other cars.

Susan all set up to watch our bags while we run!

This is where Warrior Dash dropped the ball...MAJORLY!  We got in line to get our bibs/hats/shirt, it took almost 45 minutes, we couldn't believe it.  Usually there's NO ONE there that early, then we finally made it to the front of the line and were told all 3 of us were on the "master list" and we had to check with information.  We walked over to the information tent, where we found a line 2 times as long, and only 2 people working it.  After waiting there for another 45 minutes we finally had our gear to go run.  We got all suited up and headed off.

Conquering the Mud Mounds!

Conquering the Mud Mounds

The first basically mile had 1 Warrior Dash obstacle, and the rest was God's obstacle.  I'm not kidding when I say it was hilly.  They have it listed as "slightly hilly", I don't ever want to know what anything about slightly is.  There were parts where no one would have blamed you for getting on all fours it was that steep.

The Great Warrior Roast!

We had Stormin Normandy, the only obstacle where Ben uses his knee pads.  I didn't wear any, and now have cut up knees. The Mud Mounds, which absolutely destroyed me.  After running/walking those hills at the beginning I was already getting exhausted.  We had the trenches, which I've never done before, so that was awesome.  Apparently I was the only one to crawl through them, Ben and Doug just walked then ducked under the slats. Dead Man's Drop, where I was able to complete it this time (with a little help from Ben).  It wasn't slanted back like it was in Georgia so it was much more manageable.  Then we had the Warrior Wall, which I chickened out on, we were so muddy from the trenches and mounds that I didn't think I was strong enough to hold me on the slick ropes.  I did however conquer the Warrior Peak (A-frame) and I didn't use the wussy 2x4s they had nailed into one side!  We had the shock top obstacle, the barn, , and those horrible cargo tubes to climb through.  Those, as Ben said, are deceivingly difficult!  Goliath - which didn't have the GIGANTIC line like in Georgia so I completed it all, the Warrior Roast, and the Muddy Mayhem.

Goliath!

 I'm not sure exactly what happened at the end, Ben started playing and rolling all over me, I couldn't get my balance, somehow I twisted the holy crap out of my ankle.  Again!  I did the same thing in 2012.  So I limped probably the last .01 miles to the finish line.

At the Finish Line!

Warriors!

It was a great race course, if they could figure out the new system for registration it would have been perfect!

One thing I'm not sure if I mentioned in the other Warrior Dash post from Georgia in April, Warrior Dash has decided to offer FREE, yes FREE professional pictures of the race!  So far, we've had tremendous pictures, of course I keep an eye out for the photogs so I ham it up for them.  But this is another reason to run this race, most races set you up with marathonfoto.com which is NOT cheap!

We headed back to the hotel, cleaned up, and headed out to Schmitz for some German food with Ben's parents, sister and brother and law, and Doug and Susan.  After that, we were wiped out.  We've gotten to be so boring in our old age.........

Schmidt's!

Ben's Parents!

The whole crew for the sausage fest!

We headed back to Tennessee on Sunday morning, but not without stopping to fill up the car with various beers that aren't sold in Tennessee due to the ridiculous tax laws.  Hello Fat Head Bumbleberry!

The next day I begin the great task of cleaning out the warrior clothes.  Everyone has their own technique.  I prefer to let them stay in a garbage bag until I get home.  Keeping them wet if possible.  Some people prefer to dry them out then shake out the extra mud.  I bring all that sweet sweet mud home and lay everything out on the lawn chairs and spray it with the hose pipe.  Once I get as much as I can out, I wash it in the washing machine twice then dry it and usually that gets everything out. Most of the time the mud comes out of everything except whites.

It don't matter if you're black or white

Country Music Half Marathon!

For some reason I'm competitive with Ben. Entirely too competitive.  Regardless of what we're playing he gets called a cheater, whether he's cheating or not. (let's be honest thought, he had to cheat if he was beating me. right?)  I've broken Xbox controllers, thrown golf clubs, and signed up for races that I am no where near ready for.

Ben wanted to run the Country Music Half Marathon.  He asked if I wanted to.  The answer was a big fat no.  But then I realized that he'd have yet another medal than I would.  So, being the medal whore that I am, I said yes.

He registered us for it maybe 2 months ago, not enough time for me to complete the usual ~12-15 week training schedule of most half marathon training guides but enough time for me to be in decent shape...

It was official, I was running the Country Music Half Marathon with no training

Then March happened, where we had something going on every single weekend in March, then April...where we had a race every single weekend in April. And in the 2 months leading up to the Country Music Half Marathon I had run a grand total of 11 miles.  That's right...11.

Flat Runner is Ready!

So we get all our items ready for the race and set alarms at 4:00am to head downtown to get parked then to the starting line.  Race started at 7:00.  We were in corral 24 so we got to the starting line around 7:40ish where I proceeded to have a complete breakdown.  I'm talking tears and everything.  I was so nervous about this race as soon as we hit that starting line that I thought I was going to have to wait for the next corral.

Waiting for what seemed like forever for them to call on corral 24

They counted down and we started running, immediately I felt better, I guess that anxiety of it all just caught up to me. From then on I ran/walked for the next 13.1 miles.  Met some people along the way, talked to several people with runDisney shirts on about races.  Heard that our upcoming Wine and Dine Half Marathon is the best one at Disney.

I hope this is us in 40 years

I've lived in Nashville for 22 of my 31 years on this Earth...how is it possible that I still don't know where I am in the city?  We ran around the naked statues, Demonbreun, 12 South, Belmont area and I was lost the whole time.  I do know at some point people were giving out free tequila shots.  I definitely took part in their generosity.

Ben's goal was to finish this is 2:30, my goal was to finish this.......that same day.  Around the 2:30 mark I sent Ben a text saying that I thought he'd be finishing soon, but if he hadn't he's still awesome in my book.  He said he had bonked around the 10 mile mark.  It started off cool, in the low 40s, but it heated up quickly. Everyone back with me were starting to feel the effects of the hot air.

Photo: Jamie Richardson Hurt

I got back to Grumpy's and had one final bridge to traverse and I'd be finished.  I called Ben to let him know I had less than a mile left so he could take pictures of me and meet up at the finish line.  As soon as I crossed the finish line I got a text from him: "Sitting in a chair next to gate 5 at the finish line med tent. I'm fine but trying not to vom banana and Gatorade."

I grabbed all the post race stuff they handed me - Gatorades, water, cold towels, bananas, cookies and most importantly chocolate milk, my favorite post run drink - and headed to find Ben.

Ben had committed the great mistake that Tim committed after the Disneyland Half Marathon including the blue banana vomit story.  Ben was one minute under pace when he got to the 10 mile mark, then bonked. The last 3.1 miles of his half took him 48 minutes and crossing the finish line he chugged anything they handed him.  Which included a 24 oz bottle of Gatorade, 2 bottles of water, and a banana.  Way too much right after running for 2 hours and 45ish minutes.

I found him and we headed to the car where he asked if I'd drive.  That's my key as to when he's not feeling good.  I never drive.  Ever.  So when he asks me to I know he's either really tired or really sick.

I got in and headed back to Murfreesboro.  I told him if he needed me to stop to let me know.  He did, as we barely got out of town.  Under the overpass of Harding, Ben unleashed hell, or at least 24 ounces of Gatorade, 2 bottles of water and a banana.  And felt like a new man.

Voiding

Somebody cue up: "Don't you forget about me"

We got home, took ice baths, ate something and rested for a little while and headed to Franklin for the Main Street Festival where we logged anther 4 miles looking at the booths.  We went to get supper where I almost fell asleep at the booth and I was in bed and passed out by 7:30.

ahhhhh!

It was a great race, live bands and entertainment throughout the race.  Friendly volunteers and great people to run with.  Highly recommend this race, if you are looking for a nice, hilly, potentially hot half marathon this is a great option.

Tap N' Run - Nashville

On the home stretch of our four races in four weeks for April!  We ran the Tap N' Run last Saturday.  It was nice to not be going out of town for the weekend!  We were able to hang around the house, work on projects and then head up to Nashville to run that afternoon.

 Obviously this race is in the afternoon.  Who wants to wake up to run and drink beer in the morning (other than my younger more "youthful exuberant" self as the academic probation adviser once called me in college).  The race was at 5:00, so we headed downtown around 3:00 to go to packet pickup at BB Kings.  We of course took the Jeep as it was a BEAUTIFUL day, but that also meant we forgot Ben's parking pass for his lot downtown.
No problem, I have this all figured out.  He can drop me off at BB Kings, I'll get the packets and he can go to the parking lot by Hooters and we'll meet there.  He drops me off, I go in get the packets, and head back out and realize due to the traffic he's not even a block from where he dropped me off.

I sprint...full speed to catch him before he turned on 3rd where I knew there wouldn't be any cars.  I was probably 5 feet from him, reaching for the door knob, out of breath so I couldn't holler, and he makes the turn and leaves me in the dust.....of course he got a huge kick of of this as I walked slowly to the car so we could grab lunch at SATCO. (yum!)

After we scarfed some tacos and cheese dip we headed back downtown to run.  The costumes.  Oh man everyone was in costume.  I wore a tie-dye shirt and a beer mug hat leftover from St. Patrick's day and I was under-dressed.  There was a man dressed as a baby, ninja turtles, Mario Kart, a couple of guys barefooted since they were hanging out in a bar downtown, heard about the race, signed up and ran it barefooted.

the starting corral

They were having issues with the sound, when I say issues, I mean ear-piercing feedback.  You'd think in Music City someone would be able to work a PA.

Starting Line Beer!

We got in the starting corral and were handed a beer - not a full beer, I think it's around 5 ounces.  They count us down and we chug and run, we ran down 2nd, up Broadway, turned on 3rd then headed towards the dreaded Pedestrian Bridge.  The degree of the arch of this bridge is insane, ESPECIALLY if you're trying to run it.  This is by no means a fast race, almost everyone jogs or walks it, roughly 99% of the people walk the bridge.  We got to the top of it, a Saturday evening in April means one thing to all high schoolers, Prom.  There was a group of people who obviously didn't check to see what was going on downtown as they headed to the bridge to take prom pictures.  A group of maybe 16 kids on one side of the bridge and their parents on the other side...and hundreds of runners between.  They tried to take advantage of a break in the runners for the obligatory "jumping picture" but they didn't account for Ben's ridiculous speed, as he ran, and jumped at the exact moment they did.  I'd love to see a copy of that picture.

Just a couple of Hulks

This Hulk knew the JT dance that was playing over the speaker so obviously she had to complete it.

Then at the bottom, another chug station.  We go around the stadium, back across the other bridge to Printer's Alley to another chug station, then back around to 2nd and are done.  It's only a 4K so it's certainly not that difficult.

Printer's Alley

This is the 2nd time we ran this.  We also did it in 2012.  Would we do it again?  Probably not.  Would we recommend it to people? Absolutely.

It's a great race, pretty well organized.  I wish they had more entertainment throughout the course, even if it's just speakers blasting music.  It was completely dead on the other side of the river so anything would have been nice.

We scooped up our awesome medals and headed to Bro's for ENTIRELY too much crawfish with the family.

Finish Line Medals and Beers!

Warrior Dash - Georiga - 2014

Finally Finally FINALLY, my favorite race and race weekend of the year.  Warrior Dash.  This is the 3rd year we've run as a group (hubs and John went in  2011).  You can read about last year's here!  If you are looking into running an obstacle race or mud run, hands down this is the one to do.  They are by far the most organized race we've done.  (I'm not including Spartan in this since our experience with that race was less than the "norm" as far as races go.  Read about it here)  Last year they had some...snafus to be nice.  Parking was a nightmare, buses to get to parking was a nightmare.  They owned up to it in a big way.  They apologized and offered all runners from that race I think at least a 50% off discount for this years race if not more.  And this race was DEFINITELY above par.  Minus a back-up at Goliath (their big and new obstacle this year) there we had zero issues.

2014 Warrior Dash - Mountain City, GA

We've had everything planned out for AT LEAST a month, probably 2 months.  Of course, the curse of the new runner hits.  I've probably talked about this before, we have a theory that if someone comes and runs with us who has never run with us before, something bad happens.  See my post on the Spartan Race where we had several new people running with us and it almost killed us!  The Tuesday before the race, so 3 days before we were heading to Mountain City, GA our cabin rental place called Ben.  They had a pipe burst 2 weeks before and "thought it would be fixed by now" so we had to cancel our reservations there and find somewhere new.  Back to the Murder Cabin!  We stayed here in 2012, it is seriously a set of a scary movie.  You know how I know it's the set of a scary movie?  It has a book case...no real hotels have book cases, if you still question it, the copy of Deliverance that we left in 2012 was still on the bookcase.

We arrived Friday evening and proceeded to get ready to properly fuel our bodies for a race, with a shrimp boil and beer. It was delicious.  After we devoured it, we chilled for a little while and went to bed.

Pre Race Crew

The next morning we got up early and headed to the race site.  It was awesome.  Completely different than the previous year as the course was basically completely reversed.  It was uphill both ways, seriously you began and ended the race going uphill.  Jerks. We had to swim through a lake that was absolutely freezing, climb over cars, jump fire, (successfully) traverse A frame walls.  It was a great race.

Warrior Roast

Goliath

Goliath

After Ben almost killed a photographer on Goliath we headed to the post race party.  Beer and Turkey Legs.  You really can't ask for a better combination.  We hung out there then decided to head back to the cabin and drink the beer we had already purchased.  Apparently we thought we were in college still because 5 of us drank nearly 40 beers...excluding the ones we threw like grenades when someone didn't describe something well enough during our game of Charades (phone app....where you put the phone to your head and you have to guess what the word is based on the other person's description).  We grilled out entirely too much steak, then of course at it all, complete with baked potatoes, watched Boondock Saints at senior citizen audio level and crashed.

Post Race!

Turkey Legs!

Post-Race Party!

2 years ago we followed up Warrior Dash with white water rafting on the Ocoee.  Why not do it again this year?  It was awesome last time.  What we didn't realize was that Warrior Dash was a month earlier this year as compared to 2012.  When I say the water was cold, that's a severe understatement, if I were to say it was freezing, also a severe understatement.  Was it awesome?  Of course.  There were only 2 boats of people, then they had about 4 or 5 boats of trainees.  It was crazy to see them in their training.  That's a tough job.  Hats off to anyone who does it.

It was an awesome weekend with amazing friends.  I get to run another Warrior Dash in Ohio this year, it's going to have some GIANT shoes to fill if it's even going to come close to the race weekend we just had.

Glow Run - Chattanooga, TN - 2014

I cannot believe we were in April before we did our first race this year.  Last year by this time we had already completed 5 races!

There are some races that I learn about on my various webpages that I simply MUST do.  Glow Run was one of them.  To my knowledge, they are the only glow run with medals, yes I'm a medal whore, and they are GIANT AND Glow in the Dark!

So I proceeded to start my campaign, emailing them multiple times to come to Nashville, citing that other races have multiple races in Nashville with a huge turnout.  Sadly, they didn't come to Nashville.  BUT they were 180 miles away in Chattanooga.  This had to happen.  Then I had to start my next campaign.  Convincing the hubs to let us drive to Chatt for a race.  We decided to drive down but only for the race.

The race started at 8:30, so we left Nashville at 3:30, met some friends for supper (word to the wise: running with a belly full of pimento cheese WILL come back to haunt you), and headed to the race.

It was awesome.  Very small.  Only 2000 runner/walkers.  They had pre-race zumba, free glow in the dark face painting, glow merch, and the brightest race shirts known to mankind.

The race was great, very well organized.  I HIGHLY recommend this race.  I'm glad too because I had been excited about it for quite a while!

Wine and Dine Half Marathon - First Obstacle Completed

Shoot runDisney races are so stressful just to register. They keep getting more and more expensive, and more and more popular.  I don't get it.

In the summer of 2012, I registered for the 2013 Princess Half Marathon. I registered for it early, but I don't remember doing it as soon as registration opened.  I do remember that it was after that that we learned about the Coast to Coast Challenge after that and many months later Ben registered.  I want to say that was around October but I'm not sure.

Our first runDisney and half marathon medal - Princess Half Marathon

We realized that if we were going to run one half marathon, we might as well go for our Coast to Coast.  We've never been to Disneyland so we figured now is a good time as any.

Disneyland Half Marathon Medal

Fast forward to January of 2013, Disneyland Half Marathon goes on sale.  runDisney had added 2 new events, the 10K and the Dumbo Dare Challenge.  Apparently these types of challenges make the races difficult to pass up.  The race sold out in 26 hours.  I remember fortunately being off that day from work, and calling Ben in a panic because we needed to register IMMEDIATELY!  We were calling our friends who we had planned on running with making sure they had registered.  Very stressful.

But nevertheless, we were able to get that coveted Coast to Coast Medal!

As it is with most people, as soon as you finish a race, you immediately start planning the next one.  Well the same things happens with me, for both running, and Disney trips. I immediately had my eye on the Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  Honestly, how could you pass up a party in the World Showcase until 4 in the morning for only the runners and their families?

I then started recruiting to get people to come with us.  We have a group of runners from college that I worked on selling it to, I tried to sell it to some friends who love Disney as much as we do.  We came up with 6 of us.  Should be an awesome time!

So I started doing my research, stalking blogs, and all that to find out exactly when the race would go on sale. I found out it was sometime in March, then sometime in early March, then March 4th.  Should be easy to remember, it was noon eastern time on Mardi Gras.  So 11:00 here in Nashville. I was working (dangit) So I told my boss that I would be out of commission at about 10:50 until...well until I got registered.  My husband called, we had a plan, both register for ourselves.  That way one of us isn't trying to register for the other. I stared at the clock for about 10 minutes, which takes FOREVER.  Like trying to watch a pot boil.

tick tick...tock tock...tick tock...go clock go!

I had roughly 10 tabs open in my Chrome. Facebook running groups, runDisney pages, active.com.  11:05...still nothing.  Then the facebook groups started blowing up "IT'S LIVE!".  HOLY CRAP I COULDN'T FIND THE LINK.  I am panicking.  I could feel my heartbeat in my throat as I think, am I seriously going to throw up because of registering for a runDisney race?

Finally, after some freaked out phone calls to the husband we found the link.  I got registered for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon and the Jingle Jungle 5K just as planned.  I call Ben back to make sure he had gotten registered.  He hadn't!  The page froze before he could get it submitted.  Cue another freak-out.  I take the reigns and get him registered.  WHEW!  We got in.  We check with our friends who are going with us.  Everyone got in!  HOORAY!

Now for the fun, and not so fun part.  The planning and waiting...oh and yes...the training.

So a heads up, if you are reading some of these posts and thinking, 'man runDisney sounds like ALOT of fun' you'd be right.  But do you research!  They are expensive!  They just announced a new Avengers Half Marathon in Disneyland where registration starts at $195!!!  Also know when it goes on sale.  Like your blood sugar check the runDisney website and check it often. They sell out fast, and seem to only be getting faster!