On Saturday, July 30th, Tara & I competed in our first ever Warrior Dash, which also happened to be the first one held in Michigan and the second largest one ever with 24,912 people registered! The race takes place on a 3.1 mile course with 12 obstacles spread throughout the entire distance. The first mile is all running, so that people get spread apart and are not getting all jammed up at the obstacles. The obstacles ranged from cars to walls to mud to fire. While Tara & I didn't do very well overall, we had a blast nonetheless and have already signed up to do it again next summer! Best of all, aside from a broken middle finger on my left hand, neither of us were any worse for wear afterwards (although we were incredibly muddy... so much so that most of our clothes ended up being thrown out because being soaked in water and then in bleach did little to get the stains or the smell out of them!).

    This first group of pictures are from our miscellaneous sightings from before the start of our heat...

Pre-Dash Sights
	We saw this sweet bumper stick on a car on our way into the parking lot.
	Two sets of brides and grooms were in line waiting to run.
	A look at the area near the start/finish line.
	Nice skirt, dude.
	Rodney messing with Tara as she is on the phone trying to figure out where our friends were in the crowd of people.
	A look at the crowd of people.
	A guys in a dress shirt and tie crossing the finish line as photographers stand by.
	More contestants making their way through the Muddy Mayhem obstacle.
	Some contestants jumping through the Warrior Roast obstacle.
	Contestants climbing over the Cargo Climb.
	One of many nice outfits that were worn during the race.
	Even a lady carrying a baby warrior competed in the race.
	There was even a Scottish band playing on stage.

    Finally as three o'clock approached, it was our turn to make the dash that would turn us into Warriors! Beginning with the shooting of the flames at the starting line we began our 1 mile run to start the race. We hit our first obstacle, Road Rage, and made our way through the tires and over the cars. After another brief run we came to Deadweight Drifter, where we waded through a lake while crossing over floating logs.

Our Warrior Dash!!!
	Here is the overall course layout, including the 1+ mile run to start the race.
	The flames shooting from the starting line signaled the start of our heat.
	Rodney & Tara posing for a picture during the running portion of the race.
	The first obstacle encountered was entitled Road Rage, and it consisted of a bunch of tires to navigate with wrecked cars to climb over. There was tires, then cars, more tires, cars, tires, one more set of cars, and then a few more tires before it was over.
	Tara making her way over the first set of cars.
	The next obstacle was Deadweight Drifter. It consisted of waist deep water with several logs that you had to climb over.
	Tara entering the water as she makes her way towards the logs.
	Tara climbing over the final log.
Please click here for page two of the photos