Warrior Dash - Afton

Kent Throlson sent me an email last winter telling me I had to sign up for this crazy obstacle event being held at Afton Alps, MN during the summer.  Well, the date for the event was yesterday, Saturday and in the books.
Kent sent me the link and said sign up right away so that he and I could be in the same heat.  Here's the deal.  There is a promoter that sets up the whole Warrior Dash series at different venues across the country.  250 "warriors" start in half hour intervals through a 3.2 mile course tackling obstacles along the way.  From what I learned they start at 8am and send people off every half hour until 5pm.  There was so much of a demand for the Afton race that they added a second day!  Thousands of people!
Click HERE for the web page to get the whole skinny including the results.

I was actually prepared and read the details on the web page before we got there.  Due to limited parking at Afton Alps the directions point you to local farmer fields as close to Afton as possible.  10 bucks to park followed by a hay wagon and a school bus to get you to the starting line.  What a generator of cash!  10 bucks to park and I am sure that the spots get turned over multiple times a day as the people who raced early finish up, leave and then the parking spot gets filled again pulling in another 10 bucks.

Thousands of people.  I have been to big events all over the country and this one was right up there with numbers.  Kent and I were attempting the math as we were hanging around.  Each racer pays a minimum of $40 to play.  If 250 people go off every half hour for 9 hours for two days they are pulling in approximately $360,000 and that is not including the crap people are buying or the parking fee.  I know there is overhead, but that is a sweet two day wheel barrow of cash......

This is the jumping over fire obstacle right towards the end.

The last feat was to army crawl through 2 feet deep mud.  The cool part was that there was actual barb wire that kept your ass down.

Ben and Kriston joined us for the days festivities.  Not sure what Ben thought of the whole deal but he did say that he would like to try it next year.

Kent and I are in the starting chute.

Kent and I after the finish.
Tough race.  The guy on the microphone kept talking about the obstacles and how tough they were.  I thought the obstacles were cool and definitely something different, but it was the climbs that hurt me.  Remember, Afton Alps is a ski area in southern MN, there are some serious hills there.  4 major climbs total and all of them were hard.  I was able to hold my own going up but got it handed to me going down.  I liked the rope ladder climb along with the rope aided climb over the wall.  Kent and I had decent starting positions and were at the front of our heat which helped, but when we reeled in the last people in the heat that took off 30 minutes before ours things got more interesting with the traffic.
Overall, I was skeptical but had a great time.  Things were organized and it was good to see Kent again.
Would I participate again?  For sure especially if Matt and Ben get involved.
It was a good day.