Hi everyone! Sunday I experienced my first Warrior Dash race! Oh my goodness, we had an absolute blast! I made the trip with two of the coolest people....my co-workers Stefanie and Laura. Stefanie and I work side by side every day at the medical center's women's imaging department. We both work as mammo technologists and perform breast imaging procedures. We have so much in common including fitness. I am a runner and Stefanie is a fitness competitor. One day at work I got an e-mail from the people at the Warrior Dash asking for possible competitors for the famous race. I said, "Hey Stef let's do this!" She looked at me like I was a little crazy and said, "I don't know Julie....I will think about it." I then said, "Alright, you have until tomorrow sista! But...you know you are so doing this with me!" The next day we ended up registering together and signed up to be in the 4pm wave on Sunday. Our co-worker Laura came with us to be our cheerleader and photographer:) Thank you Laura! We love you! Laura and I have known each other for years. She is my mentor and I first met her when I was a mammo student at the University of Minnesota Breast Center. Laura is the best supervisor ever....she gives me days off when I need them for very important things! Laura also reads my blog and has been following it from day one! I sort of look at her like the older sister I never had:) We all met up in our work parking lot and drove almost an hour to the Afton Alps Ski Resort in Hastings. 
I parked my van in a huge corn field and walked up to catch the bus that would drive us to the start line. 
I was all smiles and super excited! 
This is a picture of my personal photographer Laura:) 
Stefanie and I on the bus. LOL, this was the best out of about 8 windy pictures....no such thing as perfect! 
Many runners donated their race shoes after the race for a great charity....including Stefanie! 
We picked up our race packets, t-shirts and warrior horns! Yea! Warrior horns!
Pinning our race bibs on.
Putting our timing chips on our shoes. 
Two tough Chicas ready to rock and roll!
As I mentioned earlier, Laura reads my blog and knows I like to take random pictures of interesting people or things. Check out this guy!! 
I love it! Dudes racing in dresses! 
Stefanie and I checking out the runners from an earlier wave making their way down to the finisher's corral. 
Here are a few pictures of us hanging out waiting for our 4pm wave to start. 
Stefanie, Laura and me:)
Stefanie and I finally in line for the race. 
We may or may not of been discussing our strategy for the race:) Ha ha! We just wanted to finish in one piece, not cuts, no blood, no puking or broken bones! Our goal was to finish under an hour and have fun! We got this one! 
Right before the start. 
Stefanie and I placed ourselves in the middle of the pack. We started off at an easy steady pace. Everything was going great for a few short minutes. Our first real obstacle was this big ass hill! Holy cow it was brutal! So many people ended up walking up all of it or some of it. We walked up about half of it. There were so many obstacles to make our way through, under or over but the hardest in my opinion was the crazy monster hills! You have to remember that the course was set on a ski resort. After making it up that big daddy of a hill we continued on with a slow jog....nice and easy. Before we knew it we had a few obstacles to tackle. I think the first one was the treacherous typhoon. WOW!!!! This one shocked the hell out of us! I knew it was coming but didn't expect it to be as fierce! The wall of water and gale force winds was absolutely stunning! As in...I can't breathe! I was smacked in the face with the strong and stinging water mixed with powerful winds! I kept on thinking, when and the hell am I going to make it all of the way through this one! Once we made it through I couldn't stop laughing! We looked like drowned rats and I was still so shocked....laughing only seemed natural:) We had several more super fun obstacles to take on. There was a scrap yard course, a few walls to climb & get over, and planks to make our way across. There was one or two of the climbing walls where I was holding on for dear life. I do not like heights and was a little scared but kept on moving. Stefanie and I made our way through most of the obstacles like rock stars and had a ton of fun. The race was well organized and there were tons of volunteers greeting us with smiles! The course continued and we made our way at an easy and steady pace. We ran through a sand pit and a few very muddy running paths. There were several up and down hills with rough road, tree roots and rocks to watch out for. Finally we made our way up the last hill and saw the petrifying plunge water slide! Yay! The joy of knowing we were almost done! We continued our way down the slide and ran up to the fire pits...two of them:) Piece of cake! 
Me and Stefanie approaching the fire pits. 
After the second fire pit we had to get on our stomachs and crawl through mud while working our way under barbed wire! Good Lord! It was so gross and smelly! I got so much mud under my shirt and in my sports bra....so gross! We got out of the mud pit and ran together over the finish line!!! 
There you have it....Stefanie and Julie out of the pit but covered in mud! 
We were both laughing and excited because we were done! We were also both thinking we have got to do this again next year! 
Woo hoo! We are warriors! We did it! We finished our very first Warrior Dash! There was no cuts, blood, puking or broken bones! We came in well under an hour and had fun too...mission accomplished! 
After the race and eating a banana we headed to the hoses to get some of the mud off of us. We must of spent at least 10 minutes getting hosed off. The water felt amazing and I am pretty sure the two guys hosing people off were enjoying their jobs:) There were tons of Chicas taking off their shirts and getting showered off wearing their sport bras. I may or may not of lifted my shirt up to get some of the yuck out of there:) 
Here we are sort of clean.
Stefanie and I are still smiling! 
All I can say is that it was so refreshing to do a non-serious race! The Warrior Dash was so much fun! I am so very glad that I did it and we are planning on doing it again next year for sure! Happy running, biking, swimming, lifting and surfing! Cheers to you all! 
