The Warrior Dash

I'm behind on my posts but I figured I'd start with a recap of the past two days since it's fresh in my mind. About three weeks ago, Jeff signed up for the "Warrior Dash". I had never heard of it but he told me it was a 5K with a bunch of obstacles. These weren't any obstacles though, they involved fire, swamp, hay bales, nets, and mud...lots and lots of mud. Originally Jeff was going to go up with some friends but then I heard it was in Lake Wales which is not far from Disney so of course I had to turn it into a (albeit short) Disney trip. I was also kind of intrigued by the event and wanted to witness it first hand. So we tagged along. It was actually a two-day event with some people racing on Saturday and some on Sunday (here's a link to the website for more info). They do these all over the country - apparently they are quite popular. Jeff happened to be in the 1pm wave on Sunday. Every half hour a new wave takes off and each wave consists of 500-600 people! So needless to say, there were thousands of people there each day. Who knew? The funny part was that a lot of them dressed up in costumes - all sorts of crazy costumes. You'll see some pictures of the costumes in a minute, but first, here are a couple of pre-race photos. Jeff and his gang didn't have costumes but they made sure they had their warrior face paint on:


During the race, I camped out with the kids, and Allison's friend Alexis (who's dad, mom, and older sister were also racing).The weather couldn't have been any nicer and we enjoyed hanging out on a blanket:
I wanted to play catch with Daniel but he was too tired, so he used the football as a pillow:
Then he spruced up and smiled for a picture taken by Allison:
The girls preferred to pass the time by playing on the Ipod touch:

I, on the other hand, was totally into the people watching. Here are some of the costumes I saw (and yes, these people stayed in their costumes for the race):

Firemen

Ghostbusters

Some jailbirds

When I figured they might be nearing the end, I took the kids up to the finish line so we could cheer for everyone. We were able to see the last two obstacles- one involved jumping over fire and the last one was swimming through a swamp with barbed wire hanging across it.
Alexis's dad came by first (which is no surprise because he's in top shape) and then about ten minutes later Jeff came on down the stretch:

And over the fire he goes:
I wasn't able to get a picture of the last obstacle, but here he is just after finishing the race:
Jeff and Bryan feeling like REAL men:
This is as close as the kids would get to their daddy after the race . I tried to get them to give him a hug but they wanted nothing to do with that muddy mess of a man.

Yes, I do believe he earned his warroior helmet and medal:
Kim and Taylor (Alexis' mom and sister) after the race. I commend them for being willing to compete in such a race and for finishing it! You couldn't pay me enough to traipse trough all that mud! So proud of them!

It took Jeff a nice long shower at the hotel that night to get most of the mud off, although I think he's still finding some here and there. He ended up finishing right around the fiftieth percentile overall for all the runners that day which isn't bad considering he barely trained for it. Everyone had a great time and they're already talking about doing it again next year, but with costumes - any ideas? One final picture before I end this post. I think we found Daniel's halloween costume for next year: