A day in the sun, and in the mud, was enjoyed by three area women on Saturday, June 29. Along with her sisters, Maria and Jennifer Voss of Fulda, Lori Henkels of Heron Lake took part in a Warrior Dash. The 5K event was an obstacle course which took participants through the mud and much more.
Held at LeSueur, the Warrior Dash raised funds for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Lori and her sisters ran in memory of Lori’s son, Wyatt, who passed away as a result of a car accident in May of this year.
The son of Lori and Sam Henkels, Wyatt had graduated from Heron Lake-Okabena High School in 2017, and from Minnesota West in Jackson in 2019. He was planning to begin work at Federated Rural Electric in Jackson as a power lineman.
The Warrior Dash obstacle course included going though a creek, up and down muddy hills and jumping over a fire. “Definitely not something I wanted to do on a hot day,” Lori added with a laugh. It was a small fire, but a fire nonetheless. The participants also climbed a cargo net and crawled under wire, in the mud of course, during the Warrior Dash.
After completing the 5K, the ladies received a finisher’s medal. They also had some unusual sunburns, due to the heat of the sun and the mud that had gotten onto their skin during the Warrior Dash.
Lori and her sisters had never done anything like the Warrior Dash before. “We went out of our comfort zone to try something different,” she explained, “and we were glad we did it!”
They are considering doing another Warrior Dash, and would like to have more people join with them to run the 5K obstacle course.
