What did I sign up for?

There is one key feature missing from my training plan for the Portland Marathon: a Half-Marathon.  For my past four Marathons I've run a Half halfway through training as a gut check for the Marathon and as a convient way to get another state off the list.  As it turns out, it's never really a gut check.  I run the race knowing that it's not the "serious" race I'm training for.  Also, I'm running out of neighboring states to run in, so the half-way Half-Marathon doesn't help with the 50 state goal.

However, always being game when someone suggests a run/race, I did just sign up for a race a few weeks before Portland.  But this race is not a Half-Marathon or 10K or 5K or anything that resembles a standard running event.  It is a nuts crazy uphill, obstacle laden 3.23 mile race called the Warrior Dash.

This race takes place on Windham Mountain, which is a ski slope during the winter.  During the race not only do you zig zag up and down a ski slope, but you also:

1. High step through a series of tires
2. Jump over a wall
3. Crawl through a pipe
4. Navigate a forest
5. Wade through a swamp
6. Run across a gully on thin wooden planks
7. Run over a rickety wooden bridge
8. Run through a wide stream
9. Climb cargo nets
10. Scale a wall of slate bricks
11. Go down a mud slide
12. Leap over a line of flames
13.  Scramble through a mud pit under barbed wire

And there is no further description than what is on the website.  There is no walk through or detailed orientation of what the obstacles entangle.  That's all part of the challenge.  Even though I've never done anything like this before and it's completely out of my typical races, I'm really friggin excited!