This
past weekend I ran in the Wild Warrior Challenge held in Morgantown’s Mylan
Park to help benefit Operation Welcome Home and Military Family Readiness Group. This is an annual 5k mud obstacle course
filled with tons of fun and made to test your limits of adventure. The course is also designed by WVU Army ROTC and
inspired by the National Guard training course.
Last year I did the Dirty Girl mud run and had so much fun that I
couldn’t turn this one down. Since it
was the day before Easter, I even planned a bunny costume to wear for the
occasion. So after my fee was paid, I was on the hunt for a bunny costume to wear. From my previous
mud run, I knew not to wear anything cotton or heavy. For the Dirty Girl I wore camo pink pants and
by the end of the run, I was like carrying 50 extra pounds on my legs and the water kept
the cold against my skin. So for this costume I wanted to wear my everyday
workout clothes that dries fast but also wanted to be in costume. My thoughts went to a cover-up and since it's spring, they stores were filled with them.
Next
was to come up with an idea for a cotton tail without using cotton.
If you didn’t know, cotton soaks up water and can become really heavy so
my goal was to find something else that would allow water to pass freely. I came up with the idea to use a mesh loofah
shower sponge and attached to the back of the cover up with safety pins.
The
only thing left was the bunny ears. I knew I would
be crawling under things so I didn’t want to wear the plastic head bands with
these long ears on them. I also didn’t
want to worry about them falling off so I used pin curl clips and pipe cleaners
to make my own. These worked out
great. They never got stuck on any of the obstacles nor did they moved
from the moment I put them on.
The Challenge!
Obstacle 1 - We
started off with a small run to the Log Roll.
There are three huge logs about face high that you have to jump
over. Waiting for everyone to cross
ate up a lot of time. I felt rude to
just jump in front of someone but after waiting for what seemed like forever, I
just jumped in and used the side of the pole to step up and over the log and
was on my way why the group I passed was still trying to get over.
Obstacle 2 - Next
was the 100 foot low mud crawl. I had to crawl
through the mud using my feet to push and hands to pull under a netting. I was doing great until a guy took a dive
under the net beside me and mud went everywhere. But we all had a great laugh because really that’s what we are all there for,
right?
Obstacle 3 & 4 - The
third obstacle was the tire climb. These were easy and I was up and over and on my way up the long uphill climb. At the top of the hill was the fourth
challenge, a 100 foot water slide. If I
could go back and tell myself NOT to do something then this would be it. It looks like all fun but believe me, was not. A saw a few people before me complaining at
the end but I didn’t think anything of it and took my turn. The ride down was fun but the ending…not so
much. Seems under the mud (hidden from
view) were these huge rocks. I landed
rather hard on the right side of my butt and there was a ton of pain. I couldn’t run after getting up because it
hurt so bad. There was a girl walking in
front of me in tears. It was a hard landing. 
Obstacle 5 - I
sucked it up, pulled my big girl panties higher and continued the steep climb
back up the mountain and to the fifth challenge, which was the tire run and then
another steep climb up another mountain.
I ran/walked this to give me time to figure out if I really hurt myself
or just a slight discomfort. I decided
the pain was something I could deal with for a while and kicked it up a
notch.
Obstacle 6 - The
sixth challenge was to short…use the paintball gun to hit one target. I would have liked to hit them all because I love paintball. One shot and then I was running downhill on a
wooden trail, jumping over large trees laying across the path and back up
the mountain doing the same thing.
Breaking through the trees, there was a huge field which gave you a nice
view of all the obstacles to come.
Obstacle 7 - The
seventh challenge was to climb a wooden ladder up one side and down the
other. Here is where I met up with
another runner and we stuck together for the rest of the race. I do have to say it was nice to run with someone
to push you to keep going rather than listening to your mind and body telling you to rest. 
Obstacle 8 - The
eighth challenge was a blast. There was
another tarp set up going downhill which made me nervous at first but this one
was just rolling your body down. Easy
right….try standing up at the end and climbing back uphill afterwards. I was a really drunk bunny and from all the laughter it must have been a site to see.
Obstacle 9 & 10 - At
the top of the hill was another wooden latter climb and
a long run down the mountain to the orange mud pit. Walking through tons
of mud and trying to keep your shoes from getting sucked in was a challenge. I did manage to make it through with my shoes
and without having face planted into the mess.
Obstacle 11 - My
all time favorite was this challenge which was the roped pond
crossing. The water was a mix of swamp and pond and filled with black mud. Although the bad part was waiting in line for my turn and it ate up a lot of my time.
There was four lines, two for the people that wanted to tight rope walk
across the pond and two for the ones that wanted to pull themselves
across. After my TimberTrek Adventure, I
knew tight rope walking wasn’t for me so I picked to pull myself across. There were several people just jumping into the
water and swimming across, and I was tempted to do just that, but after seeing (and
smelling) them on the other side, I'm glad I politely waited my turn. The guys tie you up and then it’s up to you
to pull yourself across. I was cruising
most of the way but about 3 quarters, my arms started turning to jelly. I refused to stop and just kept pulling, hand
over hand all the while one of the guys was telling me he “might” help if I get
a little closer to reach his hand. We
went back and forth about how not nice that would be and before I knew it, I
was done. They unhooked me and I took a
water break as I waited for my new friend to cross. 
Obstacle 12, 13, 14, 15 - Then another climb uphill to
another tire climb. I liked these and
jumped up and over in recorded time. Right after that was a wooden wall
climb. There is only a small ledge to
use to reach the top of the wall and then you must pull yourself over. This was the only obstacle I couldn’t
do. I need to work on my pull-ups. I moved on to the Log Walk. This was a little tricky because the middle
one moved every time you took a step which caused you to always be
shifting. After this was another wooden
ladder but the steps on this was spread wide which made you had to jump and
pull to reach the next one.
Obstacle 16 - Back uphill we went and a winding
trail to the Tire Carry. We grabbed a tire
and climbed uphill and then took another trail making our way back to the
starting point. This was about a quarter
mile before the next obstacle.
Obstacle 17, 18, 19, 20 - The next four were back to back
but before we got there we ran across a guy that looked like he was done. He kept sticking his hand out trying to catch
a ride with the cars we past. As we got
closer, I encouraged him to join us and finish strong. He did and we were off again. We did a repeat of the tire run, wall climb
and then a tire push. This was picking a
large tire and flipping it from one side of the field to the other. The military guys were having a blast with my
bunny costume and telling the guy we had picked up that he REALLY needed to
step it up and beat the bunny. I finished
my last flip and ran to a repeat of the tire climb while telling them they
needed to be nice because I had connection to Santa’s and the naughty
list.
Obstacle 21 & 22 - Downhill we went and the finish
line was in sight! A repeat wall climb
greeted us at the bottom and we ran across gravel to the finish line…well we
thought. There was more obstacles past
the starting line so we sucked it up and kept going. That was a little confusing and I think it was to much for the guy we picked up cause he just walked along side the rocks but we didn't want to give up. The Bedrock Crossing reminded me
of being a kid again. Huge boulders were
spread in a line from one side of the field to the other. We had to climb, jump, walk across all of
them. I will admit that I face planted
right into one when my jump didn’t clear a rock but I just dusted off and
continued on my merry way with a huge
smile on my face because the end was near!
Obstacle 23 - Yuck, Yuck and more Yuck was what I would describe as the
500 foot Mud Bog. We get into water up
to our thighs and walk/run the bog all the while the military guy was standing
dry on shore with a huge grin on his face as he watched us struggle not to
leave a shoe behind or step in a hole...which I did. Did I mention this
was gross because you couldn’t see what was in the water but it was like a bath and cleaned all the mud and dirt off.
Obstacle 24 - This was a repeat of the tire
climb and then we were racing to the finish line!
After….
The race was timed by TriState
Racers with these neat little ankle trackers. As soon as we crossed the finish line our
names were announced over the loud speaker. I have to say that
was pretty cool and I loved it. It was
like a huge pat on the back for completing the challenge.
We cleaned ourselves off with the
water hoses the challenge provided and hung out until time to say our goodbye’s. I had a LONG drive home to make my kiddo's baseball game. It wasn’t until I went to the restroom to
change that I got a good look at the damage the water slide did. It is now over a week after and I’m still
having major pain and issues. I’ve been
unable to run and only do light workouts.
Even after this, I still look forward to doing it again next year,
although I may skip the slide.
***I found the pictures posted online and deleted the faces because I just wanted to show what the challenges looked like. None of these are me and I will add a picture of the "Bunny" costume as soon as I can.
