Even before getting heavily involved in the OCR world I remember hearing about the Warrior Dash. A race that promised fun, obstacles and BEER!
Waiting at the start line I was ready to tackle this course. It was held at Amelia Earhart Park down in Miami, FL. I had been to a couple events prior to this and was still fairly new to the OCR game. I got to the event early to get a good parking spot and just stretch and warm up a bit before the race. When my heat was called, I walked up to the start line ready to go. When I was getting focused, kind of just staring off into the distance, I heard someone call out my name. It happened to be one of my friends Anthony Calvi; I knew him back from middle school and we even went to the FIU Engineering School together as well. He introduced me to a couple a of his friends that were there as well. They were dressed up as the Power Rangers! I kind of stuck out seeing as how I was in my piggy costume, so they just adopted me as their mascot.
As soon as I knew it, boom! A blast went off to signal the start of the race. My new found team and I were running together and had a great time. I remembered encountering quite a few obstacles that were different. For instance, one as two beat up junk cars you had to climb over that was followed by tires you had to run through right after. I mean, it was cool we got to jump on top of cars, but you figure after the first couple waves and that could be quite dangerous with the damaged metal. Anyways, there wasn’t anything that was super crazy and/or hard about this event. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun and DIRTY event, but looking back at it, it was nothing super challenging as some other runs I have done. It’s a fun 5k, with plenty of obstacles and mud for anyone who wants to get their toes dirty for their first OCR.
The Pros:
-Fun obstacles, lots of mud.
-Sweet fuzzy viking hats.
-BEER!
-A great into into OCR
The Cons:
-Way too short.
-Potentially dangerous obstacle (the cars) in someone can get hurt or mangled quickly if no one is paying attention. And the worst part, I don’t remember seeing any volunteers at that obstacle.
Tips:
-Get the stamina to run 3 miles and you’ll be A-Okay for this course.
-Some upper body strength helps for some of the obstacles.
-There is a swim portion, so get ready for that. Within that swim portion is an obstacle you have to climb over as well, so be careful! When there is bottle necking at especially this obstacle it can cause serious problems.
-Gear Wise: Costumes! or your normal running clothes are fine. You will get dirty so make sure to bring extra clothes after the race when you wash off in the lake. And I can’t stress having the right shoes enough. Or if your shoes are about to fall apart after the race and/or are too muddy for you to care about anymore, donate them! There are always shoe donations at these events.
Samurai Piggy 