The “Warrior Dash Race” is described as: “the ultimate event for thrill-seeking athletes. This 5k race is held on the most demanding and unique terrain from around the world. Participants will take on intense obstacles, and celebrate their feat with music, beer, and muddy shorts! “
On August 11, 2012, I will be participating in my first Warrior Dash here in Indiana. I am pretty excited about it since it will allow me to see what kind of athletic performance gains I have been able to establish since I started with P90X back in 2009 and P90X2 in 2012.
What is the Warrior Dash?
Most of the races are a 5K-6K in length with obstacles, including jumping over fire and crawling through mud with barbed wire hung overhead. A typical race will have anywhere from 10-13 obstacles over the course of that 5k-6K.
Each region/state will have varying obstacles, but they are generally all laid out in a similar manner. You will want to check with the specific race you are planning to run for the course map and obstacles that you will be up against.
The following video should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect at a Warrior Dash event.
How to Prepare For a Warrior Dash Race
A good friend of mine, Sean Zaleski (trainlikeawarrior.com), is somewhat of a veteran of these races and was kind enough to allow me to share his recent blog post about how he trained for his Warrior Dash and how he would recommend that you train as well.
I would highly recommend that you check out his article in it’s entirety as he provides a great review of the training he incorporated as well has his suggestions for getting the most of your results in the Warrior Dash Race.
Here is his intro to the article:
“Currently to date I have done 2 Warrior Dashes and 2 Tough Mudders. I am also signed up for another Warrior Dash here really soon in August at Clay’s Park in Ohio. The big question of everyone I talk to that is intrigued by the idea of doing Warrior Dash is, “How did you train?” Well that’s pretty simple actually.
My training started with focusing on getting my running up to par. When I decided to do my first Warrior Dash in Logan, Ohio back in 2011 I had never ran an actual race in my life. In order to get myself up to par I started running every three days about a mile. I did this for about two weeks before I decided to up my miles. Now I suffered from shin splints because I didn’t know how to land on my feet properly. How did I eventually correct that? Well I bought a pair of Vibram 5 Finger shoes. Let me tell you that if you don’t land correctly in those it will hurt. It basically forced me to quit my heel striking. Which was awesome because now I could run more frequently and more miles.“
Read the rest of Sean’s article here –>: How to Train for Warrior Dash
Summary
I am really looking forward to the “Warrior Dash Race” and will be especially interested in how my time to complete the course stacks up with others in my age group. I anticipate that the event will be lots of fun and challenging as well. Based on reviews and feedback from others, I feel that my training up to this point should be good enough to complete the dash without much trouble. Competing with my brothers should also add to the long lasting memories I hope to obtain on August 11, 2012.
Has anyone else done a Warrior Dash race in the past or have one coming up? I would love to hear from you and how your experience went.
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I was disappointed to find out that Sean’s website is no longer available. I really wanted to read his article about how to prepare for a mud run but it says the domain is currently for sale. What gives?