wow, it has been a crazy few days…actually, a crazy few weeks, if not months. as official partners of warrior dash mississippi, we have been very busy training clients for the race and promoting the event. we knew how special the warrior dash would be for the jackson area and we wanted to make sure that everyone knew about the event in the hopes that warrior dash would return to our state. we also wanted our clients to be as prepared as possible both physically and mentally.
after speaking with the people at red frog events (the company that puts on warrior dash), we knew that they were expecting big numbers. WAY TO REPRESENT, MISSISSIPPI!! the event was promoted well so the next order of business was to ensure that our clients were ready for the big day. we spent some amazing saturday mornings at the levee for our official warrior dash training program with our action jackson coaching team. we did tabatas, ran hills and got focused at butterfly yoga. once our warriors were ready, they even got tattooed with their own liveRIGHTnow warrior dash (temporary) tats. not only were they warrior ready, they looked the part!
throw into the mix that we were being filmed as part of an international television show, “get stuffed,” and you can see that we were heavily immersed in all things warrior dash. action scotta and i spent all day friday training our warriors-to-be, ryan “6 pack” lapadat and joshua, and thoroughly enjoyed being a part of their show that will air later this year. friday night, we finally settled in for a little rest and relaxation before the big day and it dawned on us that in all of our training of clients, promoting and filming that we had forgotten to train for the dash ourselves!! oh well, what are you going to do – just give it your best I guess!
saturday morning the action jackson team assembled at the parking lot downtown and we joined the other thousands of warriors-to-be as we were shuttled south to mississippi offroad adventures where the race was being held. having been familiarized with the course by helping out and participating in last year’s mississippi mud challenge, we knew the course would be challenging and was in some tough terrain. as we lined up for our wave, we were thankful that the rain had decided to hold off and the excitement of what was about to happen hit us. the music was pumping, the crowd was energized and the flames were hot! BOOM BABY – we were off and running!!
what happened between the start and the finish was a blur, but it involved a lot of slipping and sliding (and falling), almost knocking myself out on a tree limb, climbing and crawling over and under obstacles, and a very unexpected round of swimming at the end. only after i emerged from the mud and muck and received my medal did the reality and the magic of the moment start to unfold. as i stood there, i saw my teammates, my clients and my fellow mississippians burst through to the finish. there were tears and wet hugs as people who had just faced some of their worst fears were now able to celebrate their accomplishments. at that moment, we were all just a bunch of muddy, nasty, half-clothed individuals that had just done something incredible as a group – we were warriors in every sense of the word! and what else did we do? we showed people in and out of our state that mississippi can host a large event like warrior dash and bring people out in mass to participate. we showed everyone that we can be known for being “fit” and not “fat.” we showed ourselves that with some excitement and enthusiasm, along with some training and healthy decision making, that we can climb any wall or swim through any obstacle that is laid out in front of us. we showed that to film and news crews and to ourselves. mississippi rocked warrior dash 2012!
but let’s not stop here.
hopefully, warrior dash will return in 2013. in the meantime, let’s keep promoting and participating in as many local and national running events as possible. whether it be finding your first5k to run, a first triathlon (like soak up the sun), or just having fun at one of fleet feet‘s poker runs, the main thing is that we all keep moving and keep moving in the right direction. i saw a lot of people running warrior dash that, to be honest with you, looked extremely out of shape. hopefully, this was a kick-off point for them to start taking better care of themselves. we have the resources here in mississippi to go from “fattest” to “fittest” but it will take time and a warrior mentality to make that a reality.
