GatewayRedbirds.com

Had a blast today with a couple of my buddies in this thing called Warrior Dash. I did ok for an old man, 1,038th place out of 8,022 and 89th out of 599 in my age group(40-49 and I'm 49, so watch out 50's next year!). If you haven't done it, consider it. Difficult, a little dangerous, and hilarious. That's me on the far right, the guy in the middle you might recognize from the famous Dairy Queen baseball team picture, he's in there as well. Awesome having friends your whole life.




http://www.warriordash.com/

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"The solution to any problem - work, love, money, whatever - is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." ~ John Gierach.

My pals still like to play in the mud!!!

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Paying money to go running doesn't sound like a very "jim" thing to do.

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Try the Tough Mudder then. It's like Warrior Dash on cocaine.

http://www.toughmudder.com

This was enough, thanks. I'll be honest, I was a little nervous in a couple of spots. First off when we are pulling in there are two ambulances carting people off ... so Welcome! Mud is slippery - really slippery. There were many opportunities to slip and slam your head into a tree etc.. but the parts that made me the most nervous were the climbing obstacles. Some of them were pretty high - over 10 feet for sure - and you are putting your mud caked shoes on a tiny mud caked step to climb and at the top you have that transition where you have to let go of something to swing your leg over on the other side. That scared the piss out of me, and on the very last obstacle near the finish the 30 year old that tagged along and beat us all was saying he thought someone was going to have to come get me off the top. I sat there for a good 10 seconds before I had the courage to make the move to go to the other side, and I really did wonder if someone was going to have to come get me. Being scared of heights didn't help. But on those climbs, one slip and you were going to the hospital for sure.

But I've seen these extreme events where they electrocute you and what not. This was more than enough.

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"The solution to any problem - work, love, money, whatever - is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." ~ John Gierach.

Free beer after the race.

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"The solution to any problem - work, love, money, whatever - is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." ~ John Gierach.

I really want to do one of those.

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Silence is golden.

You would fly through it. The climbing obstacles really scared the crap out of me and slowed me up. You'd be over those in two seconds where I was being a chicken [expletive] and taking too much time. Mike can back me up on this - without question I think everyone of my friends would have put the guy in the middle winning, me getting second, and the guy on the left third. It was the exact opposite - the guy in the middle finished last because he's a very serious cyclist and has thighs like tree trunks that started cramping up on him after about 1/2 mile. The guy in the left kept gaining a little more and more on each obstacle, until I couldn't catch him on the running part. I'm the best runner of the bunch, but even though it sounds like alot of running (3.2 miles) it's really not, because it's basically running 1/4 mile and then dealing with some obstacle.

Agility and climbing etc.. is more important than running provided you have some decent level of fitness.

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"The solution to any problem - work, love, money, whatever - is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." ~ John Gierach.

I am not sure how I am going to get in that kind of shape again in the foreseeable future. I just don't have time to get to the gym regularly. It's mostly swimming and cycling for me now. If we move to a bigger house, I'll get the equipment I need to work out at home and regain that strength.

My other issue is running. I cannot run consistently to train. My knee won't allow it. But I guess it's not as demanding for that.

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Silence is golden.

You don't need to be a distance runner but to do well you need some basic fitness. The order that the three of us finished in that pic was exactly the amount of cross training we do. The guy that did the best does the most, I'm kind of in between but do more running/cardio, and the guy that finished last just cycles (but is by far in the best shape of the three of us).


If you can't find time now with your kid

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"The solution to any problem - work, love, money, whatever - is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." ~ John Gierach.