Mud Runs are quickly coming of age in the world of competitive sports. Warrior Dash, one of the big three Mud Run companies in the United States, has just announced the Warrior Dash World Championship with a $30,000 cash prize for the winner! With $100,000 in total prize money, this is likely the most money ever given away at a 5K in the history of running.
The championship invites the top-25 male and top-25 female finishers of each regular season Warrior Dash race to compete in the World Championship for the chance to win the cash prize. Of course with all of the recent press regarding mud runs, if you win this, you are likely to land yourself some additional benefits in sponsorship opportunities.
If you’re interested in competing in the World Championship, you must sign up for the competitive wave during registration for your selected regular season Warrior Dash and then be a top 3 male or female finisher. The championship event will take place across five kilometers of what the organizers are calling “some of the most rugged terrain in the country” in their NorCal location, one of their toughest and hilliest courses. The course will include 12 obstacles on a Warrior Dash course with race officials monitoring each and every obstacle along the way.
It’ll be interesting to watch and see how this unfolds over the next year or so. With Reebok now sponsoring the Spartan race, we’re guessing they will create their own championship event with an even larger purse, and then there is Tough Mudder who could also follow suit. At this rate, don’t be surprised to see Mud Run Obstacle Course events introduced to the 2016 or 2020 Olympic Games. If this sounds far fetched, so did the idea of creating an Olympic sport out of the fringy sport of snowboarding in the early nineties.
