Shoe Dipping Dangling

Thousands brave mud, fire and heat at Warrior Dash

On their first wedding anniversary, Jennifer and Quinn Bowman went to Disney World.</p><p>For their fifth, they ran through fire and wallowed in a mud pit in Kansas City.</p><p>&#x93;We are very adventurous,&#x94; said Jen Bowman, a 25-year-old nurse at Via Christi Hospital in Wichita. </p><p>The couple was among the thousands of people who challenged themselves Saturday in the Warrior Dash, billed by its organizers as &#x93;The Craziest Freakin&#x92; Day of Your Life.&#x94;</p><p>For a little metal Viking helmet dangling on a ribbon and the chance to say, &#x93;I did it,&#x94; about 15,500 people registered to run the 3.1-mile obstacle course at Tiffany Springs Park, about 18 miles north of downtown.</p><p>In waves of 500, they took off from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to test their strength, endurance and just plain crazy level on the course set up by Chicago-based Red Frog Events, which puts on the Warrior Dash. The event continues from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. today.</p><p>Runners paid $40 to $70. The obstacle course added excitement to the average, humdrum 5-kilometer race around town, they said. </p><p>While some tackled the course, hundreds more lined the last leg of the route, snapping photos and rooting on spent runners, who sometimes wilted in the heat.</p><p>Josh Crawford and Sara Durnbaugh, both 20-somethings, waited for a friend they know from Bible study to slide into the course&#x92;s mud pit and cross the finish line. Durnbaugh, who works for the Kansas City Health Department, said she was glad she doesn&#x92;t do weekend duty. </p><p>&#x93;I don&#x92;t want to even know what&#x92;s in that mud pit,&#x94; she said and then laughed.</p><p>Some participants said they had never run a race of any kind. And based on what they said afterward, those neophytes were christened with a doozy.</p><p>Patricia Duvall of Tonganoxie, Kan., said the horseshoe-shaped course started fairly mild. </p><p>&#x93;A few water obstacles, you had to trudge through a creek, jump some hurdles, crawl under barbed wire and run through some tires,&#x94; said the 37-year-old stay-at-home mom.</p><p>But the challenge built. </p><p>&#x93;The scariest for me was the dead man&#x92;s drop,&#x94; Duvall said. &#x93;You had to climb a ladder about 10 feet high, go over a barrier and make a drop, sliding straight down. I&#x92;m afraid of heights.&#x94;</p><p>Jennifer Bowman struggled to climb up and over the &#x93;very tall&#x94; cargo net. </p><p>&#x93;If you didn&#x92;t get your footing just right, you could fall,&#x94; she said. &#x93;It was scary.&#x94;</p><p>Blobs of mud dripped from 29-year-old Heather Mayo&#x92;s face and coated the rest of her as she made her way across a hay- and straw-laden field. The Warrensburg banker was heading home after completing the course.</p><p>It took her and her husband, Bryan Mayo, a U.S. Air Force radar technician, about an hour to do the race. The average time Saturday was about 47 minutes.</p><p>&#x93;The best and worst thing about the course was the mud pit,&#x94; Heather Mayo said. &#x93;It was nice and cool and thick and gross. I&#x92;m pretty sure someone lost a shoe in there. Nasty stuff.&#x94;</p><p>When the Mayos began the run about 10 a.m., a brief rain had lowered the temperature to the upper 70s. By the time they finished, the sun had burned through the clouds and it was &#x93;beginning to get toasty,&#x94; Heather Mayo said. Before the day ended, temperatures climbed into the 90s.</p><p>At the first-aid tent, a few participants and spectators needed hydration. Others complained of scrapes and minor ankle sprains.</p><p>By 4:30 p.m., though, two people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses. About a dozen others were treated for problems related to heat.</p><p>Runners thought the hottest part of the race was crossing an asphalt parking lot where the sun beat down on them for every inch. But as they came through a wooded path into a clearing, they were greeted by two rows of fire &#x97; blazing mounds of logs &#x97; blocking their path. One after another, runners leaped the flames that were probably more than a foot high.</p><p>&#x93;It was only just a little warm,&#x94; said 42-year-old Melodie Ash, a worker in the registrar&#x92;s office at the University of Kansas. </p><p>From the fire, it was on to the giant mud pit. </p><p>Andrea Caudillo dipped down in the mud to her neck, then scooped up a handful and put muddy warrior streaks under each eye.</p><p>She headed straight for the warrior wash, where volunteers hosed down mud-covered runners huddled in a messy mash on the edge of the park grounds.</p><p> Hundreds of volunteers from local high schools helped organizers throughout the day.</p><p>Takyah Walker, 16, from Lincoln Preparatory Academy, placed medals around the necks of runners as they finished.</p><p>&#x93;When they finish, they are all very excited,&#x94; she said. &#x93;One of the runners was so excited he hugged a friend of mine, and the runner was all covered with mud. My friend wasn&#x92;t too happy.&#x94;</p><p>The Warrior Dash is one of three runs that Red Frog Events organizes. The others are the Great Urban Race, modeled after television&#x92;s &#x93;The Amazing Race,&#x94; and the Beach Palooza, an obstacle run on a beach.</p><p>The Warrior Dash started in 2009 with a sold-out, 2,000-person race near Chicago. In 2010, there were 10 Warrior Dashes across the country, and this year the company has 35 scheduled races, including two outside the United States.</p><p> This was the first event in the Kansas City area.

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