OCD FOR OCR

Every race year, I have completed one Warrior Dash and this season my schedule worked out for me to return to the Pennsylvania Warrior Dash for a second year in a row.

• Registration and Festival:

Both the registration and the festival areas have always been set up well at Warrior Dash events/venues and they did a good job at this event as well. I registered very early in the morning and it was fast and simple. The festival area was set up, easy to locate just about everything. I did have to look around to locate the porta-potties, but having them tucked out-of-the-way was more a good thing than bad.

• The Course:

The course was almost the exact same path as last year. It started out exiting the raceway stadium area and on black top pavement for about a half a mile and then made its way onto a dirt trail/road. The course continued on the dirt and arrived to the first obstacle at about 1.3 miles into the course. Personally, I was disappointed the course began with such a long sprint prior to arriving to the first obstacle. I understand that Warrior Dash uses a limited number of total obstacles and also that the venue probably prohibits them from placing obstacles on the black top pavement, but they could have placed at least one obstacle on the initial half mile section of the course once we were off the black pavement and on the dirt trails.

The first obstacle on the course was the Diesel Dome, which is a fun climb up across and back down. A short distance ahead was Shocktop Unfiltered, which is a series of several obstacles to climb/crawl up, under, and over and then after a brief distance sprint the next obstacle up was the Trenches to crawl through. The course continued on for a short period with tree coverage and circling around the massive race track and then made its way out of the woods and up next was Fisherman’s Catch. which is the Warrior Dashes version of a rig type obstacle with hanging rings, and other hanging grip strength items to traverse across. The obstacle has a rope net and water under it to help everyone make it across this one. My favorite part of this obstacle is they shower cold water on racers at the end of it and even on an early morning wave, I love to get cooled off.

The next obstacle up was Mud Mounds, but they didn’t really have almost any water in the trench sections so I would more call this obstacle a trench and mounds crossing. A short distance ahead was a rope net crawl and I was happy I didn’t get my backpack hydration caught in it. The course had now made its way to the other side of the race track and next came the balance beam crossing obstacle, Risky Business, which I always struggle with, but made it across! After another short sprint it time for the obstacle Pipeline, which is a small climb up and then crawl through a suspended rope-net tube and climb back down. I have done this type of obstacle several times and typically complete it fast and easy, but this time my backpack hydration got caught up in the ropes really bad and without exaggeration, it took me about five minutes to take the hydration off and drop it down to the ground.

At this point, the course was making its way back to the festival area and finish line and the next obstacle was the Warrior Summit, which is a slanted wall (with ropes) climb up and back down. A very short distance ahead came Goliath, which starts by entering knee-deep water and then two slanted ladder wall climbs and finished with an always fun water slide and splash into water. Just a short distance ahead was the last two obstacles, the fire jump and last, Muddy Mayhem which is always a very muddy crawl and leaves racers covered head to toe in mud at the finish line.

• The Bling:

Warrior Dash always provides great bling in the form of a sexy redesigned and unique finisher medal for each year, a stylish finisher’s shirt, and the signature Fuzzy Warrior Dash helmet.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I personally was disappointed that the course was almost the exact same as last years at this same venue and would really like to see Warrior Dash try to change things up each and every year.

When it comes to rating some events I use a different rationale as Warrior Dash is clearly a race series designed for families. friends, newer racers, and those looking for something less serious than races like Spartan, so I have less of an expectation when it comes to the courses and obstacles. The bling is top-notch, the staff and volunteers were awesome and smiled the entire time. The course started with a longer than I would like distance sprint prior to seeing the first obstacle and was almost the same as last years, so I am rating the event/race a 4.6 out of 5 stars.

Article Written By: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)