WARRIOR DASH RACE REPORT, 2013

The day didn't go as planned, but we still had a great experience at Warrior Dash this year!

By 11:30am on Friday, daycare had emailed me twice about concerns over James being lethargic and refusing to eat (we had sent him back to school for the first time since Tuesday morning because we honestly thought he was all better, or at least 80% and ok to be around other kids again). He went down for nap at 11:15am even with all the other kids playing and eating and carrying on around him. At 11:35am I got a text that he had woken up with diahrrea and could we please come get him. We called to get him an appointment with his pediatrician ASAP, went home to let him rest (because we had to wait for an appointment), then spent 3 hours at the doctor getting him checked out and waiting on bloodwork results. Turned out that his potassium levels were on the lowest side of normal (hence the reason he's been complaining of sore/tired legs) and he was also on the side of dehydration (despite our efforts to keep fluids in him), but otherwise his electrolytes were ok. There was nothing the doc could do for him other than recommend Gatorade/Pedialyte/soda and the BRAT diet. He wasn't sick enough to be hospitalized (thank goodness), but was still considered contagious until his stools fully hardened. Which meant we couldn't take him to our planned babysitter on race day (since she's 13 and has 4 brothers aged 5-14, and the doc said he shouldn't be around kids). So Plan B was to take the kids with us and just run separate waves, keeping him as quarantined as possible, since we really didn't want to miss a race that we'd registered for an entire year ago and spent such huge effort for in planning and fundraising. We had a lot of people waiting to hear how our race went!

At the doc Friday afternoon...

Then Cora woke on race day at 4:30am with fever, and we almost scrapped it all together. But since James woke up seemingly a lot better, we decided to give it a go. We gave her ibuprofen and basically kept her confined to her Beco. She didn't eat anything all day long, but we kept her hydrated with Gatorade and water, and put her in a pull-up just in case (which ended up be unnecessary, since she was awesome about telling us when she needed to go potty and didn't have any bowel issues). It wasn't until this morning that the tummy bug really hit her (though her fever is all gone already, and she has tons of energy, and even ate a big breakfast - though nothing really since). Oh well, we didn't have plans to do anything today, so the couch is welcome. We're both too sore to be productive anyway (upper arms, shoulders, and back are especially sore from all the wall climbing at the race yesterday). I suppose it will be another week of sickness in our house. We're just hoping she gets through it faster than the four days it took James, and that neither Jay or I get it!

OK, enough about poop - onto the race report!

Sandy, Cari, and Christina met at our house at 7:30am and we carpooled to the stadium, where we met Team Munger (that would be the Sanchez crew), Matt, and Dave. We grabbed a shuttle (which was super fast - transportation was very well organized this year) and headed to the event site. Check in was fast again this year, and we then went straight to the St. Jude tent to get situated.

Team Christopher with our Super C shirts, and my BACON socks in honor of Stephen

Once everyone had checked their bags at Gear Check and suited up, we took some group photos:

Me, Dave, Matt, Christina, Cari, Sandy, Jay, and Sophie

We all wore "Boston Bibs" on our back in a show of solidarity

Cora wore a Boston Bib AND a St. Jude buff

We're peppy and we know it, put your hands up in the air...

In another show of solidarity, Sophie sat out the wave with our group to run a later wave with Jay, and we are very thankful. This type of race is just so much more fun to run with a buddy, and honestly, there are a lot of obstacles where you literally need a helping hand to get through them

Kids + mud = a winning combination

Heading to the corral to await the start of our wave, just a little excited

Here we go!

Still waiting to actually start though...

And still waiting... We got in line around 10:20 for our 10:30 wave time. We were far enough back in line though that we missed 10:30, then 10:45. And once we got to that point, we realized they were going back and forth between right and left corrals, so we knew we were stuck until 11:15, and there was no way to let Jay and Sophie know. We definitely lost some of our pep, with frustrations over the long wait, me worrying about Jay and Sophie waiting on me for so long, and Christina badly needing to finish quickly to get home and feed Lauren!

Once we finally got out on the course we were pumped again though. The first mile or so was obstacle-free, just a lovely run through the woods. And a bunch of mud puddles. This photo shows the whole group on the move. (Dave brought a disposable waterproof camera so we could capture some of our antics out there.)

Sandy and Cari are on the far left of this shot

Our first obstacle was a VERY long crawl beneath barbed wire (called Storming Normandy), and there was a long line just to get into the obstacle. Many jokes were made among runners about being butt-to-nose...

Shortly after that we had a series of four or five 6 foot walls to scale, with very tiny foot holds. You can see Cari, Sandy, and Christina here from left to right.

We all took some falls while running the trail between obstacles. Well, actually, I didn't see Dave or Cari faceplant, but the rest of us did. At one point I was laughing at Matt as he went down, which resulted in me flying backward into the mud on my bottom. After Dave rescued me and I made it out of the puddle, I turned around to see Sandy fly sideways and nearly go under. I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. Sorry Sandy. Christina was laughing too, but Karma got her as well and she went down shortly after...

It didn't matter though, since the trenches were pretty mushy this year...

When we reached the river view section of the course, we stopped for a photo op. By this point though, the camera was getting pretty wet and muddy. In fact, we have zero photos of some of the worst obstacles (Mud Mounds and Vicious Valleys) because the camera was so coated in thick mud that we couldn't even click the shutter. Those two obstacles in particular we only managed to get through the first section of. Vicious Valleys because we waited about 20 minutes just to get started and we were worried about getting back to Jay and Sophie so late. Mud Mounds was just a ridiculous mess. I would have been happy to skip it all together, but everyone else wanted to do it. So I jumped into the mud pit and immediately sunk to my waist. It felt like quicksand and I couldn't move my feet. I literally panicked. I finally got one foot free and the guys tried to help me up the first mound, but there was no way I was going to be able to get up since I couldn't get a grip in the mud and I was kinda freaking out. Cari and Christina bailed out the side, and they thankfully were able to reach over (along with another random runner) and grab me by the arms and pull me out. We fished Sandy out the same way. The guys managed to get up and over the first mound by themselves though. There was a horizontal cargo net cross shortly afterward that was harder than it looked, but we all made it through. There's an obstacle just behind Christina and I here, and I honestly have no recollection what it was. Maybe it was an easier one?...

We were super happy when we reached Hard Rain so we could clean the thick mud off our hands and faces (we were seriously SO much more muddy this year than last year, and we hadn't even had the rain that we had pre-race last year - there were just a lot of very muddy obstacles this year), as well as the camera!

Even better was Deadweight Drifter, where we all got really clean before the final stretch of obstacles! That's Sandy and I about to jump back in the lake, camera blurred from being underwater.

The third to last obstacle (I think we had 12 total this year, and most were MUCH harder than last year!) was called Giant Cliffhanger and there was a huge line on each outer rope (the ones that were long enough to reach from a standing position). Our group opted to use the center ropes, which you had to get a running start and jump to reach. This is the obstacle that I blame my shoulder/back pain on, since it was a LOT of effort to get my feet under me once I grabbed that rope! That's me just after my jump in the center of the photo. I had managed to reach the bottom-most knot with one hand, so it took a lot of work to get off my tummy, dangling there by one arm, and pull myself up to a climbing position. Pretty sure Dave had the camera at the top of the wall at this point (we kept trading out who was carrying it).

Here are Cari and I just after Warrior Roast, past the cliffhanger, where Jay was cheering us on and had the regular camera

Matt, Cari, and I about to head into Muddy Mayhem. Apparently I need to work on my Warrior pose before  next year, since I look like I'm squatting over a potty in all these photos...

Here's Christina, and the rest of our butts, heading into the mud

We had trouble finding Jay and Sophie right after the race, so we used our last disposable camera picture on a muddy group shot in front of the Warrior Dash finisher sign.

James went right back into the mud after Sandy and I showered off and had some lunch, while Jay and Sophie were out on the course

He and Manu also covered each other in grass and threw Gatorade bottles at each other Angry Bird-style...

And they watched runners jump the flames, plumbers crack and all

Cora fell asleep in the Beco for a while, then snuggled with Aunt Sandy on the blanket while I watched for Jay and Sophie to arrive at the Giant Cliffhanger

Here are Jay and Sophie conquering the middle ropes of the cliffhanger (middle of the photo, red headbands, of course)

I love this photo of them in the Warrior Roast! Shooting Spiderman webs while flying through the air.

They were far too excited to hit the mud again after the flames...

Literally swimming through the goop with smiles on their faces

Almost to the finish line!

And getting their photo taken in the finishers area after receiving their bottle-opener medals. Apparently I snapped this shot just after Jay had smashed a clod of mud onto Sophie's head. We retreated quickly after that so that they couldn't throw any mud at us. Cora was not the least bit impressed with all the muddy people, especially after her muddy daddy tried to kiss her and muddy Sophie attempted to give her a hug...

A couple of mud monsters harassing my Baby Doll...

Once Jay was cleaned up and finally fed (he didn't eat lunch until 3:30pm due to the crazy long starting gate waits and delayed time on the course due to obstacle waits), we remembered to take a photo of just the two of us

After grabbing a shuttle back to the car, a quick stop for frozen yogurt, and dropping off the disposable camera at Walgreens and Jay at work, the kiddos passed out. By this point it was 6:30pm and I seriously contemplated transferring them to bed, dirt and all...

All in all, it was an excellent day. We were very lucky that the kids tolerated the crowds and sun and activity as well as they did, especially being sick. We had fun with our friends, the weather turned out to be awesome (unlike last year), and it felt great to be there as St. Jude fundraisers. When we registered for the race a year ago and signed up to help the charity, we had our little friend Maddy in mind, as well as the private tent and gear check with free food and hot showers (just being honest). When the fundraising got personal and we joined Team Christopher, the race had even more meaning to us. I'm so glad we went today to experience it all and to celebrate our hard work (we raised over $1500 as a team!), and we are very thankful to the many of you who donated to our fundraising efforts, whether directly or indirectly. And we are also blessed to have such a great group of running buddies - friends who were willing to help us with the kids and make it possible for us to both get our race completed! THANK YOU ALL!