Regardless of how they looked when they started the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) run, though, every competitor crossed the finish line wearing the same thing: A thick layer of brown mud that quickly turned into second skin.
After completing my first Warrior Dash on Saturday, though, I realized I hadn’t seen what would have been the perfect image for this run through (and over, and under) hell. The only character missing was a whip-wielding dominatrix (presumably in black spandex rather than leather) holding a leash attached to the studded dog collar around the neck of a hapless runner trying to stay a step ahead of the pain.
Punishment is, after all, why 13,500 people turned out at Rural Hill over the two days, and why hundreds of thousands of gunk-friendly gluttons nationwide have made the Warrior Dash series (and dozens of other “mud run” franchises) the hottest new trend in participatory sports.
I’ve been a runner for more than 30 years, but I’ve never experienced anything like the Warrior Dash. This race had an entirely different flavor. And I mean that both in the metaphorical and literal sense, since I’m still trying to wash out the remnants of that mouthful of muck I took in when I went face-first under the barbed wire near the finish line.
We scaled walls, climbed ropes, crawled on all fours through a pitch-black tunnel, climbed in and out of a series of Dumpsters, waded chest deep through a bog coated with a film of green scum, bounded over flaming piles of Duraflame logs (the official fire starter of Warrior Dominatrixes everywhere) and, of course, did everything but swim through the slime to avoid the barbs that mocked us from inches above our heads.
And I, like just about every muddied participant with whom I talked, loved every minute of it. Truth is, we all ran three miles, but this wasn’t really a race. Oh, sure, plenty of people covered the course plenty fast, but that’s not why most of us were there. In fact, I talked to lots of Warrior Dashers who aren’t runners at all.
In a race, the competitors try to separate themselves from the rest of the field. In the Warrior Dash, participants embrace a rare bond. Runners help other runners over obstacles. They pull each other from the mud. They wait on their buddies so they can enter the next state on their tour of hell together.
And when they cross the finish line, they don’t go immediately to the nearby tanker trucks to have the muddy spoils of the effort washed away. The first thing finishers do is go and find friends and family members who came to watch so they can see just how crazy it is to do the Warrior Dash.
And then they celebrate, from the time they turn in their electronic timing chip in exchange for a free beer. And what, exactly, do they celebrate?
The fact that human beings aren’t just willing to do completely crazy things, but that it’s more fun to do them together.
