Warrior Dash 2012

Yesterday was a marathon kind of day. We hired a babysitter to come to the house at 10am and we jetted over to pick up our friends Jeff and Angie. Dawn, Mike, Jeff, Angie, and I all drove another 30 minutes to North Bend--a sort of rural area east of where we live. There: The site of Washington's Warrior Dash, described as "a mud-crawling, fire-leaping, extreme 5k run from hell. Warriors conquer extreme obstacles, push their limits and celebrate with music, beer and warrior helmets." 

On our way to the race, I'm showing off my "temporary tatt" in honor
of my Raleigh workout buddies, who are with me in spirit today! 

We were supposed to race at noon, but the lines to park, get on the shuttle, and register were long so we actually ran in the 1:30 heat (a heat left every 30 minutes). We finished the race about 45 minutes later. Dawn was waiting at the finish line, where she snapped photos of us on the last three obstacles: A rope climb, a fire leap, and a mud-pit slog. Here's the funniest picture ever of me, jumping over the firepit.

Dawn bursts into fits and peals of laughter every single
time she looks at this picture. I can't figure out why.
Just kidding: It's hysterical and makes me laugh too. 

We got medals as we crossed the finish line. Cool.

L to R: Mike, Angie, me, and Jeff. Jeff looks like he's wearing
mud overalls. :)

Just before we went to get hosed off.

After our hose-down, we weren't exactly CLEAN, but
whatever. We grabbed some beers and turkey legs
and got ready to party.

Mike digs into a turkey leg. Honestly, we all thought that
it was ham. The legs were so huge and the color and taste
was not turkey-like at all. Mystery meat? Eww. I could only
eat about 10 bites of mine.

The first bite. Before I realized it wasn't real turkey.

Dawn's the only clean one in the bunch. 

We danced for a few hours and had a ball. There was
definitely a festival atmosphere: A great DJ, a beer garden,
people in crazy costumes, shared experience. It was totally fun.

We got home at about 6pm. Paid the babysitters, who went home and ate dinner and then came back just two hours later to stay with the kids while Dawn, Mike, and I--freshly showered of course--went to see Dark Knight, the new Batman movie. The movie was great, but it was a seriously long and fun day. One for the record books for sure.