Warrior Dash 2013

I did WD 2012 in Louisiana, all I can say is REGISTER EARLY and get an EARLY wave! I had the last wave of the day, and the course was SLICK by the time afternoon rolled around. I ran the first half mile or so, and after that it was like ice-skating for the majority of the rest of the course (in Louisiana though, we went through LOTS of swamp and mud).

All of the winners and placers were from early-morning waves!

I've done four Warrior Dashes - all for fun. They're a blast. I'm signed up for two more this year and have decided to do one of them for time because I think I can compete very well in my division. 6 minute miles might be kind of tough though - the courses are generally really muddy and you can get held up by slower people on the obstacles. I have a friend who does half marathons at a 6:45 pace but was slowed to an 8+ minute pace during the Warrior Dash (it was also an extremely hilly course.)

Good luck!!

OK...hoping these pictures don't come out HUGE. I resized and all...well let's see...





I just finished one this past Saturday and it was a blast! I was not going for a fastest time or anything and was just happy that I ended up in the top half for my age group. Since you are trying for a top 3, I have some suggestions...

1. Be sure you are running in the first wave of the day. There were two obstacles that had long waits when I got to them and I was in the first wave, but in the back of that pack. There were people from the wave behind me who caught up on the second one with the long line and I really felt bad for them since they were trying to get fast times and ended up standing around for 5+ minutes.
2. Tie your shoes REALLY REALLY tight. Our first obstacle was knee deep mud to walk through. I lost my shoe and had to waste time digging it out and trying to put it back on (it was the shoe with my timing chip to turn in for the free beer...I wasn't leaving that behind!).
3. Wear gloves to help you get a grip on ropes and such.
4. I wore surf shorts. I think this was helpful in that they didn't cling to my legs and dried very quickly. My race was in FL, yes, but it was February. It was 53 degrees when I started and the water (especially the part we had to swim in) was very cold. The less clothes sticking to you, the better.

My course wasn't hilly (again...it's Florida...we don't have hills), but a lot of the running sections were sand which is very hard to run in.

And have fun. I am bruised and have scrapes all over my legs. It was one of my best days. I am already signing up for next year.

Good luck!

I did one last year. My suggestion would be to be in the first heat of the day so that you are in the front of the line, otherwise as the day goes on there tends to be a number of people that can hold up a line. You can do it! The biggest thing is that there are usually hills and rough terrain so trail running with hills will help a lot. Good Luck!

I am doing something similar to this this July. It is called the tough mountain challenge. I am psyched!

http://www.toughmountain.com/

I did OR's Warrior Dash for the first time last year which prompted my journey to lose weight. I don't know what city you are doing it in but what killed me was all the constant HILLS, the obstacles weren't even bad! The one thing I wished I had trained more was my endurance/stamina by running hills WAY more leading up to the event.

I'm totally doing it again this year, hoping to shave off a good amount of time!

This was the "extremely hilly course" I was talking about in my post

the only hold-ups with obstacels are waiting for ppl to move through, they are not difficult at all. Work on Hill Runs. I did one last June in Ohio and the first 1.25 miles were straight uphill. of course the middle mile was a down hill mudslide, which can't really be trained for the top finisher of that weekend finished 3.5 miles in 17minutes.