Dirty Dash "Virgin" NO MORE!

[Tom Kenobi]

Well guys, here is my "After Action Report" from the Dirty Dash.

 
The Challenge:
 
The Dirty Dash @ Bogus Basin, Idaho - 5mile obstacle mud run.
Base Elevation at Bogus:  5790ft 
Summit Elevation:  7582ft

 

First time doing any sort of Mud-Run, Race, Challenge, etc.
 
My training grounds:  Nampa, Idaho - Elevation:  2516ft

 
Training Regimen (everything below can be verified through my posts):  April - August
 
April, May - 1) Squats, Pull Ups, Push Ups, Planks - OR - 2) Lunges, Chin Ups, Pushups, Reverse Crunches
 
Lunges & Squats were weighted - minimal iron at home, so was doing squats and lunges with 55lbs added.
 
May - June - July
 
Did full body workout number 1 once per week plus mountain biking 7mile circuit every saturday.  I would focus more on GTGing pushes and pulls when I couldn't get a full body workout in, which seemed like A LOT.
 
July - August
 
Road Work - 2.5mile road run that included two bridges, one hill and a nice steady incline at the finish.

 
The Dirty Dash
 
My race was at 1200.  The majority of the run was on what looked to be old logging trails, or old ATV trails.  I forgot to set my watch right at the start, thankfully realizing this about 15 - 20 seconds in, but for the sake of humility and intellectual honesty, I am going to round it up to an even 30seconds.  I stayed with the first 1/4 of the pack and I noticed that a large separation happened between the remaining 3/4 who were basically walking and "us" those who were running or jogging at a faster pace - this happened at about 1/4 to 1/2 mile in. 
 
The first mile was a lot of up and down on the trail (the path going up and down in elevation) and with obstacles.  The first set of obstacles on mile 1 were about 6 or seven large bails of hay which came up almost 3ft in height spread out, some you would come to one, some would be two in a row about 15yds apart.  One had to crawl or jump on them to continue to trail.  At crossing mile one, I glanced at my watch and noticed 7:30!  Not too bad!  So, including the 30sec, I ran a mile in 8min with differing elevation, terrain and obstacles.  Kinda felt like a badass, especially considering I was pacing myself on the first mile and walked down a few of the down grades because of how steep the trail was.  On the majority, about 90% of my "walking" was a really brisk marching pace. 
 
The first mud obstacle was right after mile 1.  A large, hard plastic tube lay across the trail, about waist high, after that were three small, hard plastic tunnels in a thick mud pit.  It felt a bit claustrophobic, as I crawled on hands and knees through thick, course mud.  I remember wondering if I would've fit in the tunnel if I was wearing my gear.  I probably would've had to resort to a much lower crawl.  Mile 2 had more up and downs, but way more inclines than declines.  From my road training and mountain biking, I pushed much harder on all the inclines (except for one...we'll get to that), running/jogging them, setting goals at the top to reach before i slowed down, etc.  I don't recall many obstacles on mile 2 except for the monkey bars, which were right at the end of mile 2, beginning mile 3.  Pull Up strength definitely helped my grip there.  Throughout the course there are water stations about a mile a part.  So, right before the monkey bars, I had grabbed a small cup of water, and also used it for my hands.  50yds down the road was the monkey bars...shit!
 
A good part of my shirt and pants were already muddied from the first crawl in the tunnel, so I did what I could to dry off my already wet hands from the water and mud and hit the bars.  I was able to cross without slipping, so again, I felt like a badass with my ninja monkey strength.  I was honestly suprised that I was able to hold on as well as I did with barely barely dry hands.
 
Enter mile 3.... HO-LEE-SHIT!
 
The third mile was a constant incline up what I believe was Shafer Butte, a few switch backs and then a devilishly designed trail that appeared to go straight up the spine of that $&*^&*(%$ mountain!  Bastards...but it was fun.  It was HERE that I forsook running and went straight into marching mode.  I passed a lot of people and I know I caught up with many stragglers from the 1130 and maybe even a few 1100 heat participants.  At the top of the major part of the incline there was a small plateau, cleared out and mostly gravel.  Obstacles shaped in a large U running away from and then back to the trail.
 
The first two of these obstacles were mud & water pits (mixed fairly well so it was a challenge to crawl through), each pit began with a large bail of hay you got over and then dropped into the pit, and another one you had to get over to get out of the pit.  The pits had four or five, fixed and low hanging pipe that forced you to crawl under or try to hop over - most people who tried to go over were given a hard time by the volunteers and sprayed with a firehose.  I crawled under them and was surpised at the speed I was able to get through them.  I did a spider-man/ Gollum - like crawl through both pits and stood up at the final bail and let the firehose guy spray me down a little.  The next set of obstacles in this U were three walls to climb over with rope.  They were maybe 15ft tall.  The ropes were knotted, the wall was not fully verticle and had a few foot holds, caked with mud.  Up and over each I went.  By this time, my sunglasses were almost worthless - glad I wore my cheap lawn mowing ones.  hahaha.  Mile three completed, a water station and a port-a-potty - WOOHOO!  I let the clock keep going on my watch (couldn't really see it anyway) and quickly relieved myself.  Back to the trail I went after hitting the water station for a small cup/shot of h2o.
 
I ran and marched this up to the remaining height of the trail.  Upon studying the topo map this morning, I do not think we went all the way to the summit of Shafer Butte, we got up to about 6700/6800 ft elevation.  Here there were four obstacles, three close together - mid pits with walls to climb over or under - and one right before the path down (a large cargo net).  The walls each had two versions, one that was about 3.5 - 4ft in height, and one that was about chin height.  Basically, you grip the wall, jump and push yourself up over.  I hit the higher wall, of course, (I didn't want to puss out)  Thankfully, again the body weight routines I was doing paid off here as I was able to get over each wall without a struggle.  It took a little effort as I was weighed down with mud and water, but I got over them, first try on each.
 
The cargo net had a line...so I waited my turn, only took about a minute or two to get to the net, but i had to wait for people to get OVER and DOWN too.... what should've been a nice brisk ascent and descent was slower, but I got over it.
 
Right after the cargo net was a "special" challenge - a beer "chug" - which I had opted out of.  I didn't want to risk a) spewing all over the trail or 2) getting dizzy and hurting myself on the trial.  Es No Bueno.
 
I noticed the "beer chug challenge" was basically a resting point.  There was really no slamming of beers and taking off.  Everybody there was liesurely sipping and enjoying their beer.  I wasn't going to wait around, so I bypassed the group and began running down the trail.  For the most part, I ran the remainder of miles 4 and 5 as we winded down the hill.  One "obstacle" was basically metal planks that you ran up, across and down.  Vader said it best:  All too easy.  I did walk/march down at a few points as my legs and feet would send signals of "HEY!  Stop that!" 

 

Running downhill definitely has a large impact on the legs and feet.
 
There weren't very many obstacles after this, there was a mud pit to run through which literally SHOT mud at you from air compressed pipes on your left.  And there was an inflatible obstacle...really not worth mentioning, was more there for fun than anything.  Wasn't a "challenge".  In the last 1/4mile there were car & truck tires on the ground for about 30ft or so.  I haven't done that type of obstacle in awhile, so that was fun.  My legs were almost fried by this point, but I was able to keep my legs up and get through it without falling or stopping.  The last "obstacle" was a large inflatible slip and slide to go down.  To get there you had to go up about a 100 yard incline.  THere was a large line for some reason that I had noticed halfway down the mountain, apparently there was a SNAFU with the slip n slide and someone had damaged it.  A Bunch of people were crossing over the trail and just going to the finish line.  I ran up the incline, around the group of people crossing over and got to the top of the slip - n - slide and then just went down the side path with everyone else.  I didn't want to cut the run short, so that's why I went to the top even if the sli= n slide was out of commission.
 
The final obstacle was just a very, very large mud pit to get through.  I jumped in and slowly waded my way through (a lot of people were in there) many of these were definitely the 1130 and 1100 participants.
 
I checked my watch after the finish line:  1hr 14min
 
With all the waiting I did for some of the obstacles, plus the 30sec differential with starting the clock., I think that I completed the course at 1hr 10min...but that's just me.
 
I definitely want to do this next year.  My wife plans on doing it with me, so hopefully we can bring a few more with us!
 
I must admit, in spite of being a little tender and sore in a few places, I still feel like a bad-ass.

 

To my knowledge, I am still the only Nerd Fitness Rebel in Idaho, so I tried to represent well and wore my NF T-shirt in the race.

 

I learned a handful of things for how to adjust my training going forward and what to change or tweak for the Dash next year.  But you've read enough for now.  As usual, I'll be either joining challenges or making battle logs with goals and working towards them.

 

Thanks Nerd Fitness and my Rebel friends for all the support and awesome info to help me get here and beyond!

 

The pics are too large for some reason to put them here, so I am going to try to put them on my album so you can see before/after pics of the dash.

 

For the Rebellion!

 

~Tom Kenobi

[Elastigirl]

Major Congrats and props to you! Sounds like you had a blast! Excited to see the pictures. Doing the next one with Mrs Kenobi will be even more epic.

[Norgaard]

grats! its deffently sounds awesome!

 

im going for my first spartan race in september and looking foward to it!

[orcwarrior]

Congrats!  I'm impressed with your performance, and your memory for details during the race!  I just did my very first obstacle race yesterday as well (Ohio, Warrior Dash 5K) and I couldn't do nearly as detailed a report as you've done.  Does make you feel awesome to make it through - sense of accomplishment!

[Tom Kenobi]

Major Congrats and props to you! Sounds like you had a blast! Excited to see the pictures. Doing the next one with Mrs Kenobi will be even more epic.

 

Thanks!  See the link below for pics, hopefully it works!

 

grats! its deffently sounds awesome!

 

im going for my first spartan race in september and looking foward to it!

 

Thanks Norgaard!  Hope all goes well in the Spartan Race!  That race doesn't visit my neck o' the woods...yet. 

 

Congrats!  I'm impressed with your performance, and your memory for details during the race!  I just did my very first obstacle race yesterday as well (Ohio, Warrior Dash 5K) and I couldn't do nearly as detailed a report as you've done.  Does make you feel awesome to make it through - sense of accomplishment!

 

Thanks, Orc!  I knew that I'd be reporting back to the Rebellion and a few other people who were helping me get ready for this, so I tried to burn it in my head...hahaha.  HUGE sense of accomplishment, and congrats on the Warrior Dash!

[Tom Kenobi]

BEFORE PIC.

 

AFTER PIC # 1

 

AFTER PIC # 2

 

Links work with or without FB account.

[jonnblaze]

I just did my very first obstacle race yesterday as well (Ohio, Warrior Dash 5K) and I couldn't do nearly as detailed a report as you've done. 

[Tom Kenobi]

I just did my very first obstacle race yesterday as well (Ohio, Warrior Dash 5K) and I couldn't do nearly as detailed a report as you've done. 

 

Congrats on the Warrior Dash!  Glad you liked the details, haha.