Bridget Franek flew over a mud mound and couldn’t believe that, for the first time in several minutes, she caught sight of race leader Kimber Mattox. Soon, Franek was off the hill’s peak and alongside the defending champion, struggling to get out of the mud.
“It was up to my ribs, just crazy. I’ve never had that feeling that I can’t go anywhere before,” Franek said.
Franek, a 2012 Olympic steeplechaser, let her legs float to the mud’s surface to ease her escape. “At the next obstacle, I crawled through barbed wire,” she said. Franek went on to win the Warrior DashWorld Championships—and its $30,000 prize—last weekend in 32:22. Mattox was second in 32:48, earning $10,000 on the four-mile course in Pulaski, Tennessee.
For the second year in a row the Warrior Dash World Championships awarded a whopping $100,000 in prize money the top five men and women, and for the second year in a row, it was a pair of notable elite steeplechasers who finished on top.
A Part of Hearst Digital Mediath in the 3,000 meter steeple at the 2015 USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships, each of the men’s top three were veteran steeplers. Max King, who now focuses on trail and ultra competition, successfully defended his men’s crown by beating out 2008 Olympic steepler Josh McAdams, and former Weber State University standout Brett Hales.
“Brett [Hales] and I left Max [King] at about a mile and a quarter into the race, pushing the uphills pretty good,” McAdams said. “At about mile two, I left Brett and had probably a 70 meter lead on him.”
After “Alcatraz”—a water-based obstacle that requires swimming, climbing, then swimming again—McAdams saw King moving up through the field into second place. “And he looked strong,” McAdams said.
King made a late, but decisive pass and ran to victory in 27:52. McAdams finished in 28:21, and Hales was third in 28:35.
Franek and McAdams said watching the inaugural event last year drew them in—and the possibility of a large paycheck didn’t hurt either.
“I retired in 2012 after the Olympic trials, and that was really my last competitive race,” said McAdams, who is now working as an optometrist in Arizona. “I did an obstacle race in Arizona called the Mountain Mudder last year, and it was a ton of fun. And when I saw the success and payday Max King had last October, I decided that’s something I’d enjoy. That day, I signed up for the Arizona Warrior Dash.”
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“Obstacle course racing and steeplechasing both require explosive speed, jumping, and athletic ability,” McAdams said. “It’s no surprise that many endurance athletes aren’t exactly the most coordinated.”
Franek, on the other hand, is still competing on the track. She finished eighth at this year’s USATF championships, but laments not doing better. The $30,000 Warrior Dash prize is a huge boost during an Olympic year—Franek, who was once supported by Nike, is currently without a sponsor.
“Kimber off-handedly mentioned that I should do it last year, and I thought it actually sounds really fun, and the prize is too good to pass up,” Franek said, adding that her expertise in steeple translated well. “Physiologically, there’s a lot of starting and stopping in the steeplechase. It’s a different rhythm than the 5K and 10K. Being good at the steeple is about being good at being out of rhythm.”
While the steeplers again enjoyed widespread success at the Warrior Dash event, that pattern hasn’t been repeated in other obstacle race formats, like the Spartan series. King, who posted on Twitter that he used last year’s prize to install solar panels at his home, has called Warrior Dash obstacles more efficiency-based rather than strength-based. Franek agrees.
“I’d describe it as intense cross country,” she said. “The course and obstacles are designed so everyone can do it.”
Though she did train by stacking exercises in front of track intervals and hill repeats, the “everyone” at the race included her entire family, who took a road trip to Tennessee from Ohio. “It is a fun change from track and field,” Franek said. “The bands, and my family, it was a blast to have them all along.”
