Until a few months ago, pretty much the only exercise I did was run. After a few years of running only, as you can imagine I reached a sort of plateau. Running had done so much for me, I lost a bunch of weight, I made amazing friends and achieved more goals than I could have dreamed possible, but I knew that strength was an area that I was sorely struggling in still, so I decided to make that a priority for myself in 2018. 

And for me, in order to keep focus, I need some kind of goal to work towards. When I first started running, I signed up for a 5K so I wouldn’t be able to quit. And so I wouldn’t give up on the strength training, I decided to sign up for a Warrior Dash. The Warrior Dash is a 5K set in basically a mud pit with 12 different obstacles. This year’s theme was the 4 Elements, so the obstacles were things like jumping over fire, crawling through muddy bogs, scaling tall structures and so on. Find all the 2018 obstacles: here. I recruited a few of my crazy friends, who were also working on their strength training, and we registered.

I swear, this is serious and necessary training

So our intrepid little group set out to do a variety of training exercises. Mainly, we were all members of Burn Boot Camp and made it a priority to hit up as many upper body strength days (there area I was/am most seriously lacking) as possible. Also, we planned a few fun little trips to a local playground where we worked on things like the Rock Wall, Monkey Bars and Obstacles. 

In addition to the strength, I trained running on trails more than I usually do as all of the running portions (5K worth) would be on grass and/or trail terrain. I do a few miles here and there at a time on trail, but it is another one of those areas that I would like to improve on. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in the day and you can’t train for everything at once. 

During my training I was lucky enough to be chosen to test out a few Buff USA items that were extremely useful to me, specifically for taking on this adventure. Mainly, I used the Run Pro Cap  when training for strength and cardio (regular road running) and the Insect Shield Multifunction Headwear was a lifesaver when it came to training on trails. It rained pretty much the entire month of May and all that standing water left little breeding pools for billions and billions of mosquitoes (which I am pretty sure are the SC State Bird) so having a Buff that repels them was amazing.My only regret is that I would not be able to wear my awesome Buff gear at the actual event due to not wanting to ruin or lose anything in the mud. Just not willing to risk that for these awesome products. 

So, finally, June 2nd, Warrior Dash Day arrives. It’s now or never and me and my crew are as trained as we are going to be. So how did my first Warrior Dash go?

So Clean, So Ready…

AMAZING!! It was an absolute blast. SO MUCH FUN! 

And I am proud to say that I had no issues on any of the obstacles! All my training paid off in spades. Heck, a few of us even did several of the obstacles more than once it was so much fun! Prepare for a big picture dump so you can see how much fun we had. 

Running from Obstacle to Obstacle 
Warrior Summit, So much fun we did it 2x 
Pallet Jacked
The Crew at the top of the Filth Element
Slogging through Under the Wire
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…..
Warrior Roast

We ended up being a muddy mess afterwards. I would totally do this again and in fact, a few of us are planning to up the challenge and sign up for a Spartan (maybe). 

Again, another special thank you to the Buff USA team and BibRave for the awesome gear that I used to train with and the inspiration to #LiveMoreNow. I could not have done it without these amazing tools. 

“Disclaimer: I received several Buff products to use and review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming aBibRave Pro (ambassador), and check outBibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!”