Warrior Dash Words of Wisdom

(this is my first post from my blogger iPhone app, not exactly sure how it's going to turn out)

Just for the record-I survived and lived to tell about it. See?

Also, just for the record, this was the greatest attended event in Warrior Dash history, and I heard over and over by workers and Warrior Dash veterans that this was by far the hardest dash they had experienced!

Words of Wisdom which may or may not have been learned firsthand by me:

1. When traveling to the Warrior Dash, be sure to ride there with your group. There may be 14,000+ participants and additional spectators to sort through when you get there and you may never find them. Also,  Do not plan to communicate with others in your group or anyone outside of warrior world.  There is no cell service.

14,000+ See?

2. When driving to the Warrior Dash, plan to be there at least 2 hours ahead of your start time as the parking seems to be unorganized and it may take you that long to move 5 miles into the parking lot.

3.  When arriving at your destination, make a conscious effort to turn off your headlights.  Although you needed them while driving through 2 hours of torrential downpour on the drive to the "dash", if you leave them on while you are actually participating, you will return to a car with a dead battery.

4.  Upon leaving your car, be sure to carefully observe where your car is parked or you may spend an hour searching for your car after you have completed the grueling 3.5 mile "dash".

5.  While trudging through the first 300 meters of the "dash" laden with mud that is up to and beyond 18" deep, it is not a good idea to leave your shoe in the mud should it get sucked off your foot.  There are many obstacles ahead including vertical walls to climb, dumpsters to scale, fire hurdles to jump, stoney paths, etc.  Shoes are important.

6.  Although it might seem like a good idea to try to lunge over the huge floating log as the big guys in front of you are just getting over it, these guys are much bigger and stronger than you and the log will inevitably fly back up after they are over and no longer pushing down on it, regardless of where in the process you are.  The log waits for no one and it's not soft and cushiony like one might assume.

7.  If you are a male choosing to wear a funny outfit of some sort, realize that if you wear thin, small undergarments as your "costume", murky water, sweat, and the soupiest mud you've ever encountered will undoubtedly suction this clothing to your nether-regions leaving little to the imagination.

8.  Any and all clothing that is not brown or black before the "dash" will surely be after the "dash."

9.  Do not bother taking any bathing supplies or clean clothes down to the "Warrior Wash."  It is simply a small area of a pond where 14,000+ other warriors have "bathed". This will simply help one get the large clumps of mud off of the outer layer of clothing.  There will still be a nice layer of scum on clothes (and under them) after exiting the "wash."

10.  Last but not least, after using the "Warrior Wash," do not think that just because all of the excess mud in your sight is gone, that you are actually rid of mud clumps..... See?

Can you guess which tips I learned the hard way? :) 

Regardless, I (and possibly you) will be much better prepared for the next Warrior Dash!!! I can't wait till my hubby is home to do it with me! This sort of thing is right up his alley! 

What am I thinking?

Bob and I have talked many times about running the Marine Corps Marathon. We were going to do it together, but now that he won't be home for it, I decided to run it for the both of us!  It's in October in DC.
It's currently March 17th. This past weekend the 5 miler was a bit of a struggle.  To say it's going to be a long road (pun intended) would be an understatement.  I am doing my best to fill the next year up with lots of activities to keep Cabbie and me busy. I believe this will do the trick.

I am running to benefit a wonderful organization called the Fisher House Foundation.  You can check out my fundraising page here.  It has lots of information about the charity, links, and a secure platform to donate to my fundraising efforts if you so desire!  You can also check out their Charity Navigator rating to see how they spend their funds.  In my opinion it's much more responsible and beneficial to its cause than some of the big name charities that you hear about every day (like here in this article in the Huffington Post about the Komen foundation and it's antics).  This is also a neat article about the Fisher House Foundation and some of its more famous supporters (Obama and O'Reilly)!

Anyways, it's going to take a lot of work, but I am really excited to run this Marathon! Any encouragement, words of wisdom, or just comments would be great!

Here's a little video about the Fisher House Foundation.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
<3 Amanda

Run, Run, Rudolph!

We ran our 2nd annual Reindeer Run in Lakewood, OH last weekend.  Bob, his sister, me, and some other friends ran in below freezing temperatures, along the lake at Lakewood park.  We have made it a tradition to wear some type of holiday attire.  Last year and this year we wore cute antlers!  I thought that would be silly for a dog to wear, so I got Cabbie a more functional sweater to keep her warm, and also a fluffy jingle bell collar. Much more fitting, don't you think?

Here is a picture of the sweater, because it was hard to get a good shot of it while she was wearing it.

Here she is on our way to the race.  I know many of you won't believe me (that's assuming enough people read this to constitute "many") but she does not hate this outfit.  She always looks like this in the car. If she sits up and looks out the window, she gets car sick (which did happen on this day, about 3 minutes before we parked the car-Poor thing had to run on an empty stomach!) (thank heaven for our Kurgo car seat cover. I really like it-it's waterproof, cleans up easily, and has saved my car seat more than a few times from Cabbie. It's actually called the Wander Hammock, but it can be used by putting the front part down along the seat and since Cabbie doesn't try to jump in front with us, we just keep it down)   Anyways, here she is in the car:

She was much better once we got out of the car, see:

Much happier, don't you think... I'd say even a little proud of herself.  

This year, though, the cold was somewhat bearable because it was nice and sunny:

This was after the race-All smiles.

Before the race, however, was a different story.  Cabbie is such a great dog. We love her to death and really feel that we hit the jackpot as far as finding a good dog to rescue and join our family.  She is sweet, gentle, listens as well as you would expect an 8 month old puppy that you've had in your home for about a month.  And let's be honest-she's beautiful.  I know this because people tell us this and swoon over her everywhere we go. :)

She changes a little, though, when other dogs are around. She barks and gets very antsy when she initially sees other dogs.  She eventually settles down, but it takes a bit. The dog trainer suggested that her anxiety/excitability with other dogs probably is due to her being out on the street as a stray. He explained that she probably only had negative interaction with other dogs, as they probably attacked her or tried to fight her for food or places to sleep.  That is very logical to me, but I never would have thought of that! He says we will just need to help her gain confidence by providing her with positive interactions with other nice dogs.  Anyone reading this who would like a doggy play date- let us know :) 

So, anyways, at these races that we do, there are always a lot of runners who bring their dogs. We were very excited to begin this with Cabbie. I've always wanted to be a runner (jogger) with a dog :) I had her all ready- sweater, fluffy jingle bell collar, training collar, leather lead, and blue doggie bags (incase we needed to make a pit stop).  Everyone we passed oohed and ahhed over how cute she looked. 

We started the race and Cabbie was so overwhelmed.  She wanted to run with everyone there, kept weaving all over the place and cutting people off, and started barking like crazy. I'm sure people were mumbling under their breath and cursing that "stupid lady for letting her dog run amuck and get in everyone's way." Thankfully, I had my earphones in and my music was playing so I just smiled and mouthed "Sorry" to all of those from whom I received glances (dirty looks-what happened to the oohs and ahhs?!). Also, it was probably a good thing we went with the sweater, I think some people couldn't help but smile at Cabbie in her cute, festive outfit.  

I tried to let most of the crowd clear out and we sort of trotted along as I tried my best to keep Cabbie next to me and away from other runners.  She did not settle down until about a mile in.  At one point, Bob thought it would be a good idea to get an action shot of us.... you can tell how happy I was with our crazy puppy and her antics. Here she is coming back into the street and weaving in front of me:

Like I said, she eventually settled down and we had a nice run together for the last two miles.  Here we are doing much better as we head to the finish line:

So, I would categorize our first race together as a quasi success!  We made it and had quite a bit of fun, and have an amusing little story to tell :)