Warrior Dash 2012

Warrior Dash Queensland 2012 has come and gone and we did it !!!  Not the greatest time but for us it was never about the time - it was about the challenge and the fun of the event !!

We left home on Friday after work and decided to go the back way to Kilcoy to miss the Friday afternoon traffic into and out of Brisbane along the Gateway/Bruce Highway.  Great idea - we just kept moving the whole time so while it may have been a bit longer (km wise) it was definitely quicker than the other route.

We had lots of rain on the way up and it was raining quite hard when we got there - not the best start to an obstacle event !!!  We had dinner at one of the two local hotels, Stanley Hotel.  It was a good meal and well within what we were allowed to eat.  We had a lazy start to the day as we were only in the 12 o'clock wave.  K and I were really organised with our food, having made smoothies before we left home which we took with us.  We had also packed some frozen fritattas, nuts, shredded coconut and some 70% chocolate in case we got hungry during the day plus plenty of water to drink.

On our way to the event it was spitting with rain but that didn't do anything to dampen our spirits - we were all there to have a great time !!!!

We managed to park in the second car park and walked across the hill to the start of the event.  We got our numbers and then dropped our bag off and went and joined into the next wave - we had no idea of what the time was or if it was our wave and they had no clocks around for us to check - nobody was checking people as they started so we figured we would start rather than standing around in the rain.

Well it was quite different to The Stampede.  The obstacles were more challenging and the walking in between was more up and down !!!!  Man some of those hills were killers !!!  Luckily A had his ventolin with him this time and used it half way up the first hill.  There were fewer mud obstacles (although more mud between obstacles) - at least the last obstacle helped to get the mud from the previous obstacle off !!!!

The rain meant that there was more mud than there should have been and so it was quite difficult going up and down some of the hills because of the mud and slipping and sliding.  At the bottom of one hill I landed up sliding down the last 6-8m of the hill on my butt as it was so muddy and I was worried about hurting my knee if I tried to run down and slipped.  Unfortunately I think that was the first injury to my back !!!!!

The second was when we climbed up one side of an obstacle and had a straight fall down the otherside - I hung down as far as I could but I couldn't move my hands to the lower rung and so dropped about 4-5' instead of 2-3' - that was when I knew I had done something that my back didn't like !!!!!!

I was a little indignant when a lady went passed and said "You can get them to come and pick you up if you don't want to finish" - Don't want to finish ?????????????  Not bloody likely - I was going to finish this event no matter how long it took.  A and K were amazing at keeping me going and encouraging me along the way.

The second to last obstacle was 3 mud pools - each having a longer slide to get into them.  Managed those all fine but got out of the last pool, took about 4 steps and both feet shot out from under me and I landed flat on my back.  It took me a while to get up from there and with help from A and K I managed to roll myself onto my hands and knees and get up from there.  Of course all I wanted to do was get out of there but the good thing was that I wasn't the only one that it happened to.  I was clearly luckier than the lady who broke her ankle at the same obstacle !!!!

The last obstacle was a mud pool that you had to swim across and make sure to stay under the barbed wire that was strung over it !!!!!!  I battled to get out of there but in the end we made it !!!!!!!!  I certainly felt like I had accomplished something when I finished !!

We went and collected our bag and then had a 'shower' - well we actually just stood in front of a water truck along with I don't know how many other people and tried to rinse as much of the mud off as we could. We decided to try to save our clothes and shoes this time as it is going to get rather expensive if we have to buy clothes and shoes for each of these events !!!!!

By this stage my back was absolutely killing me so as we walked back to the car A went ahead to see if he could move the car closer and save me some walking but there was such a traffic jam that he couldn't even move so by the time we got to the car we all dried off as best we could in the rain, took our wet pants off and sat in towels on plastic packets in the car !!!!  It took us over 1/2 hr to get out the car park and we were all so pleased to get back to the unit and be able to shower !

When we were waiting in the car park K said "So, are we doing this again next year ?" and we all said a resounding YES !!!!!  I have bruises all over the place, put my back out rather badly and have sore arms and legs but I can't wait for the next event to come around - it was so good !

Joining in with Jess from Essentially Jess for #IBOT !

Have the best week !

TFTD : In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become who we are capable of being, by remaining exactly where we are.