Healthy in the City: Tunnels of Darkness, Fire Pits and How I Spent Last Weekend

Warrior Dash is a 5K with obstacles.  

Obstacles that include:  jumping over fire, a “junkyard” of old cars, a black tunnel, wading through mud pits with barbed wire overhead and more.  Sounds fun, right?  Well it took a little convincing to sign up initially but it ended up being the most fun I’ve had this year.  

And, like most things, it wasn’t the 5k that was so much fun, it was doing it with the 14 other people. All but 3 on the trip are Decatur-Avondale residents.  

It started last fall when “warrior fever” began to spread.  Every day more and more campers and instructors were signing up until we had 14 of us planning on staying in a cabin together.  I hadn’t piled that many people into one space since the Florida-Georgia games in college.  

Emails were flying around as the weekend got closer and uniforms were decided on and our ever-present battle cry “release the kraken!” was printed on special shirts.  After those important decisions were made we headed up to North Georgia for a weekend of warrior fun.

 We made a decision early on that we were completing the race together.  We gathered into the corral at the starting line and waited for the flames (yes, flames) to let us know it was time to roll.  

A few of the speedier among us lead off our pack and I thought to myself “I thought we were going to do this together” and began to wonder about our team; I should have had more faith.  The front runners slowed once they realized we’d left a few and thus began the teamwork I’ve seen over and over again at boot camp.  

We got a little spread out during the running intervals but no one left an obstacle before we all cleared it.  I think we either annoyed the other warriors or they found us incredibly helpful.  From months of running together, we have our own way of doing things.  We’re a little loud and more enthusiastic, I find,  than other runners.  

We yell back to each other to watch for an upcoming hole, or stay to the right or just the spirit lifting “release the kraken” that gets us all going.  This was especially handy when going through the spider web of elastic rope that you must step on, go under, or lift up for someone else.  

The final obstacle of the event was a fire jump.  There were two rows of duraflame logs set up and from there you could see the finish and hear the announcer encouraging us all in.  As we did at every challenge, we waited for the rest of us before finishing.  The announcer called “c’mon ladies!  what are you waiting for!?”  then as we gathered, and kept gathering “how many of you are there?”  

There are 14 of us, friends, and we’re finishing this together.  (want to see video of us crossing the finish line?  click here).

I encourage anyone to do Warrior Dash.  It felt like playing- getting that muddy- jumping in lakes and sliding down a huge slip and slide.  I found the biggest challenge to be the trail running;  when you’re used to pavement, the roots, rocks and slants of the ground can take some getting used to.  

To prepare for an event like this one, you’ll want to run and do some strength training.  One of the most important parts of any training program is variety.  It keeps you from getting bored but also keeps your body more well-rounded, strength and flexibility wise.  

If all you do is run, your body isn’t prepared or strengthened to move any way but forward.  Doing a variety of exercises, sports, and types of workouts keeps you ready for anything.  And at Warrior Dash, you’ll need to be ready for anything.