The clue-solving race season has come to an end in Phoenix. I'm so sad! I might have to look at some summer travel to do a few more races. :)
CityScape Adventures - March 16
How we did: First and Second Place in the race. Pat and I were a team and Brian/Irene were a team. We worked together but my team crossed the line first, so technically my team won. :)
What we wore: No costumes this time. The plan was for me to be a waitress and Pat to be a short order cook. That morning I went to the restaurant supply store to get him an apron and a hat, just making it back in time to get dressed and leave for the race. Alas, I had bought him a plastic dishwasher apron instead of a regular apron and it was WAY too hot for that.
Race Recap: I have done 2 out of the 3 CityScape Adventures that have come to Phoenix. We won both of those races. (We missed one because it was the same day as the 12Ks of Christmas and my dogs would have been very mad at me if I skipped taking them to that race!) Pat was my partner for the last CityScape so he got the nod for this race as well. He's not as fast as Christy but he has heart and he follows direction well.
Clues: Better than they have been in the past. Previously there were crossword puzzles and letter-solve puzzles all put on the same page so that the font was so small you could barely read any of the words. This time they gave a few clues on paper, a few clues via a scanned QR code and then the remaining clues after your bring back a scavenger item. Some of the clues were interactive where you text your answer and then you get a return text with the location. I liked receiving the clues in these different formats, it livened things up.
What went right: When we solved the initial set of clues, we saw that more clues would follow when we brought back a scavenger item. We did the scavenger item first off so that we would have all our clues from the start. This was very good since the second set of locations were near many of the first set of locations and we prevented a lot of backtracking. Generally I don't like working together as a team because keeping track of more than 2 people can be frustrating, but when we race as couples I think it helps alleviate some of the bickering that spouses can do when they are alone. It also helps you solve clues faster when there are 4 people working on them simultaneously.
What went wrong: One of our boys solved one of our clues wrong. We caught it before the end of the race so that was good, but we did have to backtrack a half mile to get the checkpoint.
Challenges: There weren't any challenges but there was a variety of finding scavenger items, interacting with strangers and checkpoints that required photos with certain poses. Previous races included challenges but they must have traded out the challenges for the interactive format of the clues.
Distance: It was pretty short and we didn't take any public transportation. I think our total distance was 3 miles.
Prizes: They did it right with the prizes. 1st
place - Cash and a free entry to a future race. 2nd place - Less cash and a free entry to a
future race. I don't recall the denominations of the prizes because we pooled them together and split them.
Overall Grade: B+. Overall a very decent race though I would like it to be just a bit longer.
Urban Dare - March 23
How we did: 4th Place in the race, no placement in the costume contest.
What we wore: We were lazy and went back to our Assault and Battery costumes. We got a hearty laugh from the crowd but were beaten out by some pirates.
Race Recap: We were originally registered to do the Scavenger Dash by Bike this day but when Urban Dare ran a Groupon, we changed our plans in an effort to win a cash prize. We've done a few Urban Dares previously but the past few years we have had conflicts with vacations and 10-day migraines so it's been a while. It was a gorgeous day for racing so we were just happy to be out and about!
Clues: All google searches.
What went right: We aren't very good in Scottsdale since we very rarely go there, but we got lucky that some of the destinations were places we had been in recent clue-solving races.
What went wrong: Our Scottsdale inexperience showed for most of the race. We had to put almost every destination into Google Maps. One of our destinations was a very popular sushi place right on Scottsdale Road. Everyone knows where it is...except us. We kept walking back and forth thinking we had passed it but we hadn't gone far enough down the street. We did the same thing looking for a sports memorabilia store. Google Maps had it pinpointed at the mall, but we just didn't think that an experienced race director would put a checkpoint in the mall because that would be a nightmare with security. Well, despite all our stupid attempts to find it by avoiding the mall, it actually was in the mall and as we thought, it was a nightmare with security. Security guards were chasing teams and yelling at teams all over the place. We also had issues with reading...a basic skill we supposedly mastered 35 years ago. We had to read one clue literally 10 times before we could understand it was a business we were looking for and not a statue. :) I am still laughing about this!
Challenges: Ugh. My first clue-solving race was an Urban Dare 5 years ago. 5 years later, the race director is still using the SAME challenges! So lazy! It's not that hard to come up with new challenges every year. And you'd think that after 5 years, he'd have them figured out. For the "scrabble dare" you have to search an area for sticks with letters on them. Each letter is assigned a value and you have to add up the value of your assigned word. Our word was "Celebratory". After searching for way too long and not finding a C, we went to the volunteer and asked what was up. "Oh there is no C. It's value is 31" she said. WHAT?! Don't you think you'd tell people that when you see them searching forever? Don't you think you'd make a replacement "C" and put it out there for all the people who had a C in their word? We finished 14 seconds behind the 2nd place team and 7 seconds behind the 3rd place team. Do you think the extra time wasted looking for a letter that wasn't there made a difference? I do! The team that placed 2nd also had "Celebratory". They were there at the same time we were and they gave up on the C before we did. They told us later that they just made up a number value to offer to the volunteer. It sounds like the volunteer was accepting any random answer because of the C issue, so the time we spent doing the math was also wasted. Luckily we were way behind the 1st place team or we would have seriously had an issue with this!
Distance: 4 miles all on foot. Public transportation is difficult in Scottsdale so the distance was good.
Prizes: 1st
place - $300. We qualified for next year's Super Dare with our 4th place finish.
Overall Grade: C-. This grade gives him the benefit of the doubt and assumes that the scrabble dare challenge was correct to begin with and assumes that someone stole the missing letter. However, an experienced race director should be able to get his over-used
challenges correct and he should also appear to care that there is an issue
when it is reported to him. And seriously, what is up with using the same challenges year after year?!
Showing posts with label Adventure Racing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adventure Racing. Show all posts
Monday, April 8, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Mid-Season Race Recap
We are more than halfway through the clue-solving race season here in
Phoenix so while the rest of the US waits for their seasons to start, I
figured I'd give a recap of how things are going so far. The first five
races of the season included: Scavenger Dash, Glow Rush, Great Urban
Race, CitySolve Urban Race and the Urban Bike Adventure. Challenge
Nation happened too, but I obviously didn't participate in that one! CityScape Adventures and Urban Dare are coming up in the next two weeks.
Scavenger Dash - January 26
How we did: FIRST PLACE in the race, tied for First Place in the costume contest. Someday we will get a dual first place without a tie!
What we wore: Bubblegum Machine costumes. The weather forecast was iffy for that day. We didn't plan on a costume since we didn't know what kind of weather to plan for. When we woke up that day, it was pouring rain and it looked like it would be pouring rain all day. We quickly brainstormed what kind of costume we could make with rain ponchos. Christy went to Target for red hats and red tights (we bought Jeggings! I never thought I'd own a pair!) and I went to Dollar Store and Party City for rain ponchos and balloons. We finished making our costumes with about 2 minutes to spare. They weren't the greatest Gumball Machine costumes in the world, but they were decent enough to earn some cheers and we were as dry as we could be during the race!
Race Recap: Like I mentioned, it was raining and it never stopped raining. Ever. The race took us 3 hours! 3 hours in non-stop pouring rain! Our maps were sogged into one unreadable wad of paper. Our phones were crashing. My feet were soaked since my ankle was not fully healed and I wasn't able to jump puddles, I just had to slog through them. But we still had a really great time!
Clues: Pretty good - a fun mix of puzzles and google look-ups. Bonus points for incorporating a clue about dog breeds! It's very rare that I get to show off my only topic of useless trivia and I loved it! A few people were put off by the Steele Indian School Park being called a "downtown" dog park but since it's the only dog park within racing distance we knew where to go. Some people had some major issues finding the specific part of an art installment "Ducks in A Row" but we only had minor issues. We took some pictures of the other parts of the installment at the light rail station but it just didn't feel right since none were specifically ducks. We finally realized we should search the entire light rail station (yes, even the FAR end!) and found what we were looking for.
What went right: One clue required a picture of our feet with a specific footprint plaque at a light rail stop. The footprint we needed was right outside our light rail car and we were able to get off, get the picture and get back on before the light rail took off again. Awesome! Also, our internet support was able to stay with us even after he went to his daughter's volleyball game so he continually helped us with bus times as we continually missed the original bus times or changed our plans/locations.
What went wrong: Nothing major but our costumes made some of the challenges a bit difficult, including a plank-ski challenge that would have been A LOT easier if we could have seen our feet. :)
Challenges: Pretty fun, as usual. Scavenger Dash consistently has the most fun challenges of the urban races. They even incorporated the weather in a challenge - one teammate held a cup with holes in it. The other teammate had another cup (without holes in it) and had to scoop up enough water from nearby puddles to fill the first cup before all the water leaked out of its holes.
Distance: Way too long! Our total mileage was over 15 miles and we ran almost 7 of them, which for my first real run on my ankle was way too much. Apparently they had received feedback that their races are too short. Well, they certainly fixed that problem! :)
Prizes: 1st place - a free entry to a future race. 2nd place - a free entry to a future race. I don't mean to be a sore winner, but while a free race is awesome, I want more! (Especially since, as a huge fan of Scavenger Dash, I have already registered for all 3 races this year.) Other races give cash and gift cards or sponsor-donated stuff. Also, 1st place should get something more than 2nd. Yes, I'm whining. I admit it, I'm a sore winner.
Overall Grade: B+. You should definitely do this race when it comes to your town!
Glow Rush 5K - February16
How we did: Second Place in the race.
What we wore: No costumes this time. We wore our safety-green Storming the Castle t-shirts. The costume contest was going to be at the after-party and we had a casino night to go to so we didn't plan on staying for the contest. Our friends did win with their awesome Harlem Glow-Trotters costumes.
Race Recap: After putting on a really good initial race with their Phoenix Halloween Hunt, we were excited to do the second race put on by this organization. We won $500 at the first race so we were also looking forward to a decent prize if we won. Glow Rush 5K ran a bunch of Living Social deals and then even more deals and sent out a bunch of emails offering the deal price. With all that marketing they sold a TON of registrations! It was right after New Years so they got the people with fitness as their resolution and they also got people who thought this was a "real" 5K with neon like the Neon Run. There were 1700 people there! For that many people, they did a pretty good job of organization and they gave away a lot of swag (t-shirt, cinch bag, lots of glow sticks).
Clues: All google searches. I knew 8 out of 10 without even looking them up.
What went right: I knew 8 out of 10 clues without looking them up. We ran as fast as my ankle and my sad state of cardio fitness could handle, there was no way we could have gone any faster.
What went wrong: It was so quick that I didn't even have time to map the destinations, I had to keep them all in my head. We passed one checkpoint (which had staffers handing out tickets or stamping clue sheets instead of picture-stops) because we thought the people gathered around were looking at a map. We're dumb sometimes. We had to backtrack a block after we realized our mistake.
Challenges: No challenges.
Distance: Way too short!! As I said, it was advertised as a 5K, which is just strange. You can't put a distance on a clue-solving race! Our total mileage was 2.5 and we finished in 31 minutes. 31 minutes! Good thing we had free entry from the Phoenix Halloween Hunt because 31 minutes isn't worth paying for.
Prizes: 1st place - One Alice Cooper Bobblehead. 2nd place - One Alice Cooper Bobblehead. Again, 1st and 2nd place should not get the same thing. And SERIOUSLY??!!!? ONE bobblehead as the prize for a TEAM event? How do you share a bobblehead (assuming that you even want a bobblehead)?? This is the lamest thing ever. At least give us a gift certificate for the host venue. Or movie passes. Or 2 homemade certificates. Or something!
More Opinions: While I was initially impressed with the race directors from their first race, this one was really disappointing. When we arrived at the finish line, they weren't ready for us...and we weren't even first back! They should have realized after the first place team came through that more teams would be coming (duh). We had to ask them to check our clue sheets and tickets. We could have skipped half the clues and they wouldn't even have noticed. After the 3rd place team came in they said "Ok, all 3 teams are here, we can stop keeping track". Um, except that your website says there will be a Nationals and if you stop keeping track how will you know who qualified for Nationals? And your website says that times and results will be posted after the race. I told them they better take that off their website ASAP or they'd have some pretty pissed off racers (they took my advice). They didn't even give most of the finishing racers the courtesy of checking their clue sheets. Why bother assigning people to go to specific sites if no one cares if they even visit them? I would be very disappointed if I had finished out of the top 3 and didn't even know where I placed.
Overall Grade: D (they didn't get an F because they did a good job of managing 1700 people, which is a crazy-lot of people). If you are just looking for a fun, silly night and you aren't particular about your races, this race could be a fun time out playing with your friends. If you are looking for a quality clue-solving race, this race isn't for you.
Great Urban Race - February 23
How we did: We didn't.
Recap: This is the race I look forward to the most every year and it's the race we have been doing the longest. After a complete mess last year, we were hoping that we would redeem ourselves and that the few missteps that GUR made in their planning would be rectified as well. Also, Nationals are in San Juan this year so we were already planning for that! The Friday night before the race, I got a call from a Chicago number. It was a GUR staffer telling me that they were unable to get permits and the race was cancelled. WHAT?! First of all, this is something I would expect from other race operators and newbies to the scene but not from the big-daddy of the clue-solving race circuit. I was so upset!
More ranting: Last year I was mad because I fell for their "Buy early for the lowest prices!!!" email and paid $30 more than the Groupon they ran later. I feel that it is just bad business to screw your loyal racer base. It's even worse to cancel a race the night before! I'm somewhat suspicious about the permit thing since most races like this don't get permits, but someone did mention that they might have needed a permit at the venue for going over capacity or for hosting an event in the plaza around the venue. I guess it doesn't really matter since whatever the reason, I didn't get to race and I didn't get to qualify for Nationals. And I also didn't get a t-shirt for the first year in forever. :(
Follow up: They sent an email offering free entry to another GUR and asked that you reply by March 15. I have replied twice now and have not heard a single response from them. Now that is seriously bad business!! I thought the personal phone call about the cancellation was great and even defended them quite a bit on their facebook page but how can they not reply to their own request about rescheduling a new race?
Overall Grade: F-
CitySolve Urban Race - March 2
How we did: Third Place in the race and First Place in the costume contest.
What we wore: Christy unexpectedly went to Florida to visit her ailing grandfather so two days before the race I asked Irene to be my partner. The text conversation went like this,
Me - Christy went to FL, can you do CitySolve with me on Saturday?
Irene - I'll check with Brian to see if he can stay with the kids.
Irene - Ok, we got everything taken care of, I can race with you.
Me - Great! And btw, you have to be a zebra.
Luckily, Irene is a good sport and she embraced the zebra. She was a zebra and I was a giraffe, we wore party hats and pulled party popper streamers and blew party horns because we were PARTY ANIMALS! Yeah, so clever. :) It was Irene's awesome face painting skills that won the contest. I wish it had something to do with the 4 HOURS I spent painting giraffe spots on a shirt with the skill and finesse of 4 year old but the win belongs to Irene.
Race Recap: After last year's starting snafu, Jason had a lot of ground to make up. And he did. He came through with a near perfect race!
Clues: Mostly puzzles, which is fun but makes my strategy of instant movement impossible. The clues were also very specific about things you couldn't do or had to do which I appreciated! They were also all correct. Bonus points for including a clue with a picture of a Coyotes player! I can tell you the name and number of every player on the team. So happy they didn't choose a Sun, a Cardinal or a Diamondback!!
What went right: Uh... we won the costume contest. That's about it.
What went wrong: When I think of all the things that went wrong, I can't believe we finished 3rd! First of all, as soon as I solved that one of our destinations was Encanto Park, I called our clue solver and told him to stop solving clues and to get me time/location for the next bus to Encanto. He told me 12:25 at the Central Station. Cool. We got there at 12:20 and waited for the bus. And waited. It was important to get the bus to Encanto so we could save ourselves 1.5 miles of running. Running is always our weak point. So we kept waiting for the very late arriving bus. Finally, at 12:35 I called our clue solver to see what was going on. Turns out he gave us the time for the WEEKDAY bus, not the Saturday bus. Oh, was I mad!! We sat around getting nothing but one tic-tac-toe clue accomplished in 15 minutes!! The next bus was still 15 minutes away so we had to change course and do the close ones first. Gr. Then I missed a checkpoint that was mapped on page 2 of my maps so we had to go back and get it later. Then I yelled at Irene about a mural (sorry, Irene!). Then we found some people painting a wall and asked them to paint the words that we needed for the bonus clue, not realizing until later that every team would pass by this same wall and get the same exact picture for the same exact bonus time. And our big losing decision was choosing to wait the 10 scheduled minutes for the light rail after our last checkpoint. The light rail was then 5 minutes late and taking into account the time it took to take us to ride to our destination, we checked in 20+ minutes after we finished our last checkpoint. Had we sucked it up and run to the finish, we would have made it there in 13-14 minutes and won the race. We are lazy and we deserved to lose.
Challenges: Good. One was even educational and tied in the race charity! We had to throw a cornhole bag into the hole with our arm weighted with 2 six-pound weights. This was to show how ALS affects your body so that your motions don't seem to be your own. Pretty good idea for a challenge!
Distance: Perfect! Total distance was 8 miles of which we ran 4 1/2. Perfect!
Prizes: 1st place - $300, 2nd place - $150, 3rd place - $50. Very nice!!! For the costume contest though, we got ONE JammyPack for our team of two. Last year we won the costume contest and still haven't gotten our prize so I guess one item is better than none. Jason said he would email the prize company and cc me so I can follow up with them; and with one reminder he did, so I'll have my prizes soon. :)
Overall Grade: A. If you haven't done a CitySolve in a while, it might be time to come back.
The Urban Bike Adventure - March 10
How we did: First Place in the race. (I was expecting to get 4th since I got 1st in my first race, 2nd in my second race and 3rd in my third race so I was starting to see a pattern...)
What we wore: We wore red t-shirts. We had a team of 4; me, Pat, Brian and Irene. We should have worn a costume because no other team did and we would have won the costume contest.
Race Recap: I was not impressed with last year's race even though overall it wasn't that bad. I was just annoyed that the winning teams got dog tags (that's it) and the non-winning teams "won" (i.e. were assigned, literally) raffle prizes like restaurant gift certificates and racing jerseys, and because it was windy, and I'm a terrible biker, and I was on a mountain bike, and I was slow, and...a bunch of other whiny reasons that didn't have much to do with the race at all. I only signed up this year because they offered a very good return-racer discount. Then they moved the race from downtown Phoenix (my home turf) to Chandler (where I've been only once in my life). I was very pessimistic going into this one. However, it was pretty darn good! Great job, TUBA people!
Clues: Fairly easy but a nice combination of google clues and picture clues.
What went right: Just about everything. We couldn't have been more on our game.
What went wrong: First of all, we failed to read the part of the clue that said "Challenge open from 12:30 - 3:00" and we chose that as our first destination and got mad that we couldn't find the checkpoint at 12:24 when we got there. :) Second, Irene was pretty slow on her mountain bike compared to the rest of us on our road bikes, so Brian pushed her most of the way. He is awesome!
Challenges: Good! Last year there were no challenges so anything would have been appreciated. This time they had 3 physical challenges, all of which were fun.
Distance: I'm not sure how long a bike race should be, but this one was 15 miles and took about 2 hours. That seemed like a good distance.
Prizes: For first place we got a $30 gift certificate from Road ID and $20 to the host restaurant. Not a huge prize, but good enough for a very small race and better than last year. I don't know what 2nd place got.
Overall Grade: A. If you haven't done this race before, you should check it out!
Scavenger Dash - January 26
How we did: FIRST PLACE in the race, tied for First Place in the costume contest. Someday we will get a dual first place without a tie!
What we wore: Bubblegum Machine costumes. The weather forecast was iffy for that day. We didn't plan on a costume since we didn't know what kind of weather to plan for. When we woke up that day, it was pouring rain and it looked like it would be pouring rain all day. We quickly brainstormed what kind of costume we could make with rain ponchos. Christy went to Target for red hats and red tights (we bought Jeggings! I never thought I'd own a pair!) and I went to Dollar Store and Party City for rain ponchos and balloons. We finished making our costumes with about 2 minutes to spare. They weren't the greatest Gumball Machine costumes in the world, but they were decent enough to earn some cheers and we were as dry as we could be during the race!
Race Recap: Like I mentioned, it was raining and it never stopped raining. Ever. The race took us 3 hours! 3 hours in non-stop pouring rain! Our maps were sogged into one unreadable wad of paper. Our phones were crashing. My feet were soaked since my ankle was not fully healed and I wasn't able to jump puddles, I just had to slog through them. But we still had a really great time!
Clues: Pretty good - a fun mix of puzzles and google look-ups. Bonus points for incorporating a clue about dog breeds! It's very rare that I get to show off my only topic of useless trivia and I loved it! A few people were put off by the Steele Indian School Park being called a "downtown" dog park but since it's the only dog park within racing distance we knew where to go. Some people had some major issues finding the specific part of an art installment "Ducks in A Row" but we only had minor issues. We took some pictures of the other parts of the installment at the light rail station but it just didn't feel right since none were specifically ducks. We finally realized we should search the entire light rail station (yes, even the FAR end!) and found what we were looking for.
What went right: One clue required a picture of our feet with a specific footprint plaque at a light rail stop. The footprint we needed was right outside our light rail car and we were able to get off, get the picture and get back on before the light rail took off again. Awesome! Also, our internet support was able to stay with us even after he went to his daughter's volleyball game so he continually helped us with bus times as we continually missed the original bus times or changed our plans/locations.
What went wrong: Nothing major but our costumes made some of the challenges a bit difficult, including a plank-ski challenge that would have been A LOT easier if we could have seen our feet. :)
Challenges: Pretty fun, as usual. Scavenger Dash consistently has the most fun challenges of the urban races. They even incorporated the weather in a challenge - one teammate held a cup with holes in it. The other teammate had another cup (without holes in it) and had to scoop up enough water from nearby puddles to fill the first cup before all the water leaked out of its holes.
Distance: Way too long! Our total mileage was over 15 miles and we ran almost 7 of them, which for my first real run on my ankle was way too much. Apparently they had received feedback that their races are too short. Well, they certainly fixed that problem! :)
Prizes: 1st place - a free entry to a future race. 2nd place - a free entry to a future race. I don't mean to be a sore winner, but while a free race is awesome, I want more! (Especially since, as a huge fan of Scavenger Dash, I have already registered for all 3 races this year.) Other races give cash and gift cards or sponsor-donated stuff. Also, 1st place should get something more than 2nd. Yes, I'm whining. I admit it, I'm a sore winner.
Overall Grade: B+. You should definitely do this race when it comes to your town!
Glow Rush 5K - February16
How we did: Second Place in the race.
What we wore: No costumes this time. We wore our safety-green Storming the Castle t-shirts. The costume contest was going to be at the after-party and we had a casino night to go to so we didn't plan on staying for the contest. Our friends did win with their awesome Harlem Glow-Trotters costumes.
Race Recap: After putting on a really good initial race with their Phoenix Halloween Hunt, we were excited to do the second race put on by this organization. We won $500 at the first race so we were also looking forward to a decent prize if we won. Glow Rush 5K ran a bunch of Living Social deals and then even more deals and sent out a bunch of emails offering the deal price. With all that marketing they sold a TON of registrations! It was right after New Years so they got the people with fitness as their resolution and they also got people who thought this was a "real" 5K with neon like the Neon Run. There were 1700 people there! For that many people, they did a pretty good job of organization and they gave away a lot of swag (t-shirt, cinch bag, lots of glow sticks).
Clues: All google searches. I knew 8 out of 10 without even looking them up.
What went right: I knew 8 out of 10 clues without looking them up. We ran as fast as my ankle and my sad state of cardio fitness could handle, there was no way we could have gone any faster.
What went wrong: It was so quick that I didn't even have time to map the destinations, I had to keep them all in my head. We passed one checkpoint (which had staffers handing out tickets or stamping clue sheets instead of picture-stops) because we thought the people gathered around were looking at a map. We're dumb sometimes. We had to backtrack a block after we realized our mistake.
Challenges: No challenges.
Distance: Way too short!! As I said, it was advertised as a 5K, which is just strange. You can't put a distance on a clue-solving race! Our total mileage was 2.5 and we finished in 31 minutes. 31 minutes! Good thing we had free entry from the Phoenix Halloween Hunt because 31 minutes isn't worth paying for.
Prizes: 1st place - One Alice Cooper Bobblehead. 2nd place - One Alice Cooper Bobblehead. Again, 1st and 2nd place should not get the same thing. And SERIOUSLY??!!!? ONE bobblehead as the prize for a TEAM event? How do you share a bobblehead (assuming that you even want a bobblehead)?? This is the lamest thing ever. At least give us a gift certificate for the host venue. Or movie passes. Or 2 homemade certificates. Or something!
More Opinions: While I was initially impressed with the race directors from their first race, this one was really disappointing. When we arrived at the finish line, they weren't ready for us...and we weren't even first back! They should have realized after the first place team came through that more teams would be coming (duh). We had to ask them to check our clue sheets and tickets. We could have skipped half the clues and they wouldn't even have noticed. After the 3rd place team came in they said "Ok, all 3 teams are here, we can stop keeping track". Um, except that your website says there will be a Nationals and if you stop keeping track how will you know who qualified for Nationals? And your website says that times and results will be posted after the race. I told them they better take that off their website ASAP or they'd have some pretty pissed off racers (they took my advice). They didn't even give most of the finishing racers the courtesy of checking their clue sheets. Why bother assigning people to go to specific sites if no one cares if they even visit them? I would be very disappointed if I had finished out of the top 3 and didn't even know where I placed.
Overall Grade: D (they didn't get an F because they did a good job of managing 1700 people, which is a crazy-lot of people). If you are just looking for a fun, silly night and you aren't particular about your races, this race could be a fun time out playing with your friends. If you are looking for a quality clue-solving race, this race isn't for you.
Great Urban Race - February 23
How we did: We didn't.
Recap: This is the race I look forward to the most every year and it's the race we have been doing the longest. After a complete mess last year, we were hoping that we would redeem ourselves and that the few missteps that GUR made in their planning would be rectified as well. Also, Nationals are in San Juan this year so we were already planning for that! The Friday night before the race, I got a call from a Chicago number. It was a GUR staffer telling me that they were unable to get permits and the race was cancelled. WHAT?! First of all, this is something I would expect from other race operators and newbies to the scene but not from the big-daddy of the clue-solving race circuit. I was so upset!
More ranting: Last year I was mad because I fell for their "Buy early for the lowest prices!!!" email and paid $30 more than the Groupon they ran later. I feel that it is just bad business to screw your loyal racer base. It's even worse to cancel a race the night before! I'm somewhat suspicious about the permit thing since most races like this don't get permits, but someone did mention that they might have needed a permit at the venue for going over capacity or for hosting an event in the plaza around the venue. I guess it doesn't really matter since whatever the reason, I didn't get to race and I didn't get to qualify for Nationals. And I also didn't get a t-shirt for the first year in forever. :(
Follow up: They sent an email offering free entry to another GUR and asked that you reply by March 15. I have replied twice now and have not heard a single response from them. Now that is seriously bad business!! I thought the personal phone call about the cancellation was great and even defended them quite a bit on their facebook page but how can they not reply to their own request about rescheduling a new race?
Overall Grade: F-
CitySolve Urban Race - March 2
How we did: Third Place in the race and First Place in the costume contest.
What we wore: Christy unexpectedly went to Florida to visit her ailing grandfather so two days before the race I asked Irene to be my partner. The text conversation went like this,
Me - Christy went to FL, can you do CitySolve with me on Saturday?
Irene - I'll check with Brian to see if he can stay with the kids.
Irene - Ok, we got everything taken care of, I can race with you.
Me - Great! And btw, you have to be a zebra.
Luckily, Irene is a good sport and she embraced the zebra. She was a zebra and I was a giraffe, we wore party hats and pulled party popper streamers and blew party horns because we were PARTY ANIMALS! Yeah, so clever. :) It was Irene's awesome face painting skills that won the contest. I wish it had something to do with the 4 HOURS I spent painting giraffe spots on a shirt with the skill and finesse of 4 year old but the win belongs to Irene.
Race Recap: After last year's starting snafu, Jason had a lot of ground to make up. And he did. He came through with a near perfect race!
Clues: Mostly puzzles, which is fun but makes my strategy of instant movement impossible. The clues were also very specific about things you couldn't do or had to do which I appreciated! They were also all correct. Bonus points for including a clue with a picture of a Coyotes player! I can tell you the name and number of every player on the team. So happy they didn't choose a Sun, a Cardinal or a Diamondback!!
What went right: Uh... we won the costume contest. That's about it.
What went wrong: When I think of all the things that went wrong, I can't believe we finished 3rd! First of all, as soon as I solved that one of our destinations was Encanto Park, I called our clue solver and told him to stop solving clues and to get me time/location for the next bus to Encanto. He told me 12:25 at the Central Station. Cool. We got there at 12:20 and waited for the bus. And waited. It was important to get the bus to Encanto so we could save ourselves 1.5 miles of running. Running is always our weak point. So we kept waiting for the very late arriving bus. Finally, at 12:35 I called our clue solver to see what was going on. Turns out he gave us the time for the WEEKDAY bus, not the Saturday bus. Oh, was I mad!! We sat around getting nothing but one tic-tac-toe clue accomplished in 15 minutes!! The next bus was still 15 minutes away so we had to change course and do the close ones first. Gr. Then I missed a checkpoint that was mapped on page 2 of my maps so we had to go back and get it later. Then I yelled at Irene about a mural (sorry, Irene!). Then we found some people painting a wall and asked them to paint the words that we needed for the bonus clue, not realizing until later that every team would pass by this same wall and get the same exact picture for the same exact bonus time. And our big losing decision was choosing to wait the 10 scheduled minutes for the light rail after our last checkpoint. The light rail was then 5 minutes late and taking into account the time it took to take us to ride to our destination, we checked in 20+ minutes after we finished our last checkpoint. Had we sucked it up and run to the finish, we would have made it there in 13-14 minutes and won the race. We are lazy and we deserved to lose.
Challenges: Good. One was even educational and tied in the race charity! We had to throw a cornhole bag into the hole with our arm weighted with 2 six-pound weights. This was to show how ALS affects your body so that your motions don't seem to be your own. Pretty good idea for a challenge!
Distance: Perfect! Total distance was 8 miles of which we ran 4 1/2. Perfect!
Prizes: 1st place - $300, 2nd place - $150, 3rd place - $50. Very nice!!! For the costume contest though, we got ONE JammyPack for our team of two. Last year we won the costume contest and still haven't gotten our prize so I guess one item is better than none. Jason said he would email the prize company and cc me so I can follow up with them; and with one reminder he did, so I'll have my prizes soon. :)
Overall Grade: A. If you haven't done a CitySolve in a while, it might be time to come back.
The Urban Bike Adventure - March 10
How we did: First Place in the race. (I was expecting to get 4th since I got 1st in my first race, 2nd in my second race and 3rd in my third race so I was starting to see a pattern...)
What we wore: We wore red t-shirts. We had a team of 4; me, Pat, Brian and Irene. We should have worn a costume because no other team did and we would have won the costume contest.
Race Recap: I was not impressed with last year's race even though overall it wasn't that bad. I was just annoyed that the winning teams got dog tags (that's it) and the non-winning teams "won" (i.e. were assigned, literally) raffle prizes like restaurant gift certificates and racing jerseys, and because it was windy, and I'm a terrible biker, and I was on a mountain bike, and I was slow, and...a bunch of other whiny reasons that didn't have much to do with the race at all. I only signed up this year because they offered a very good return-racer discount. Then they moved the race from downtown Phoenix (my home turf) to Chandler (where I've been only once in my life). I was very pessimistic going into this one. However, it was pretty darn good! Great job, TUBA people!
Clues: Fairly easy but a nice combination of google clues and picture clues.
What went right: Just about everything. We couldn't have been more on our game.
What went wrong: First of all, we failed to read the part of the clue that said "Challenge open from 12:30 - 3:00" and we chose that as our first destination and got mad that we couldn't find the checkpoint at 12:24 when we got there. :) Second, Irene was pretty slow on her mountain bike compared to the rest of us on our road bikes, so Brian pushed her most of the way. He is awesome!
Challenges: Good! Last year there were no challenges so anything would have been appreciated. This time they had 3 physical challenges, all of which were fun.
Distance: I'm not sure how long a bike race should be, but this one was 15 miles and took about 2 hours. That seemed like a good distance.
Prizes: For first place we got a $30 gift certificate from Road ID and $20 to the host restaurant. Not a huge prize, but good enough for a very small race and better than last year. I don't know what 2nd place got.
Overall Grade: A. If you haven't done this race before, you should check it out!
Saturday, February 16, 2013
2013 Race Calendar
My 2013 race season started on January 26. I will be doing 14 races in 13 weeks. Hopefully, by the end of that time, I will be back in shape. I cannot believe how ridiculously out of shape I got during my ankle injury hiatus!
Here's the list of scheduled races:
January 26 - Scavenger Dash in Phoenix (After 3 hours of racing in non-stop rain, we finished FIRST and tied for the costume contest win!)
Feb 2/3 - no races, had to work on the weekend. Boo.
February 9 - Spartan Race (Our goal was to finish, and we did! We only had to do burpees at the spear throw.)
February 16 - Glow Rush Scavenger Hunt in Phoenix (We finished second in the shortest race ever - it only took us 31 minutes)
February 23 - Great Urban Race in Tempe
February 24 - Tough Mudder
March 2 - Retro Run 5K with Frankie and Georgie!
March 2 - CitySolve Urban Race in Phoenix
March 9 - Survivor Mud Run
March 10 - Urban Bike Adventure in Phoenix
March 16 - CityScape Adventure in Scottsdale
March 23 - Scavenger Ride in Phoenix. This is the same day as Urban Dare. Bummer.
March 23 - Neon Run
March 30 - nothing scheduled, going camping for a wedding
April 6 - Nothing scheduled - I'm open to suggestions if anyone is planning on signing up for something!
April 13 - Firefly Run. I've got to start working on a costume so I can defend my title!
April 20 - Cahoots Prison Break
What's missing? Challenge Nation - NO WAY! Urban Beer Hunt - not worth repeating, Toro Loco Challenge - I'm all signed up and the company has disappeared, my money with them. Bastards.
During the summer I'll do a few adventure races, hopefully, and Part 2 of the 2013 race season will start in September. Part 2 already includes a triathlon, Gilmore Adventure Race and Rugged Maniac.
Here's the list of scheduled races:
January 26 - Scavenger Dash in Phoenix (After 3 hours of racing in non-stop rain, we finished FIRST and tied for the costume contest win!)
Feb 2/3 - no races, had to work on the weekend. Boo.
February 9 - Spartan Race (Our goal was to finish, and we did! We only had to do burpees at the spear throw.)
February 16 - Glow Rush Scavenger Hunt in Phoenix (We finished second in the shortest race ever - it only took us 31 minutes)
February 23 - Great Urban Race in Tempe
February 24 - Tough Mudder
March 2 - Retro Run 5K with Frankie and Georgie!
March 2 - CitySolve Urban Race in Phoenix
March 9 - Survivor Mud Run
March 10 - Urban Bike Adventure in Phoenix
March 16 - CityScape Adventure in Scottsdale
March 23 - Scavenger Ride in Phoenix. This is the same day as Urban Dare. Bummer.
March 23 - Neon Run
March 30 - nothing scheduled, going camping for a wedding
April 6 - Nothing scheduled - I'm open to suggestions if anyone is planning on signing up for something!
April 13 - Firefly Run. I've got to start working on a costume so I can defend my title!
April 20 - Cahoots Prison Break
What's missing? Challenge Nation - NO WAY! Urban Beer Hunt - not worth repeating, Toro Loco Challenge - I'm all signed up and the company has disappeared, my money with them. Bastards.
During the summer I'll do a few adventure races, hopefully, and Part 2 of the 2013 race season will start in September. Part 2 already includes a triathlon, Gilmore Adventure Race and Rugged Maniac.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Gilmore Adventure Race 2012
The race started with some trekking checkpoints first. To get to the wilderness, we had to run through this neighborhood. We were behind all those people.
But we caught up...and here we are - IN THE LEAD!
The hiking checkpoints went well. Irene navigated fabulously. I provided fabulous moral support to her navigating. It was good. Having fun trekking:
After we zipped through our first set of checkpoints, we headed back to the transition area for some mystery events. Yay, mystery events! Why doesn't someone create an event with no running, no navigating, no clue-solving, just all mystery events? That would be a blast!
The first event was to throw balls into a bucket. Easy enough, except one of us had to wear the bucket tied to our back while facing away from our teammate. Like this:
The second event was to go out around a cone and back without your feet touching the ground. We were given pieces of wood to maneuver under our feet. If you fell off you had to start over. We fell off once at the beginning but then figured out a method that would work.
Next up was the bike leg of the race. Have I told you how bad I am at biking? I've been doing a lot of road biking recently so I was hoping that would translate to better mountain biking. Irene plotted the checkpoints, transposed the checkpoints onto a better quality map and we were off. About halfway to our way in to the wilderness, Irene changed her mind and decided we'd do better coming in the back way. We zoomed back past the TA and headed down past where we had been hiking. After we got to the back end of the wilderness, we couldn't find where we should go in to start looking for the checkpoints - it was all still neighborhoods. Uh oh. No, really, UH OH!
After looking at both maps for a bit, we realized that the transposing of checkpoints was wrong. We had marked our better map a few miles east of where we really were supposed to be. UH OH. We were too far from the correct entry into the forest, so we re-routed and came in the back way. The back way included a mile or so of STRAIGHT UPHILL biking, seriously STEEP uphill biking. It was torture. However, it seemed that my road biking had helped after all, since we were still road biking and I was able to make it up the mountain. When we finally reached the park, we had probably lost close to 45 minutes. Ergh. But nothing to do but keep on keeping on.
Now that we knew where we were, we knocked out a few checkpoints. Biking:
Then, UH OH, I have a flat tire. In our 5 years of racing, we have never gotten a flat tire. Neither of us have ever changed a tire. Usually before a race we make Brian show us how to change a tire. We didn't do that this year, of course. Nothing to do but give it a go. Irene was a rockstar, she just started taking shit apart and playing with tools that I wouldn't have had any idea what to do with.
And I pitched in by standing there and pretended that holding my bike counted as doing something, though I'm pretty sure I was doing nothing:
Irene used a CO2 cartridge to fill the tire. It wasn't quite enough air so she got out the second cartridge and UH OH, it was defective. Crap. It probably would have been a good thing to have an air pump, huh? I used to have one but it busted off my bike when I crashed at last year's Dreamy Draw race. Two women (not racers) had passed us while we were using the first cartridge and asked if we needed help. At that point we didn't think we did. Right after the second cartridge was failing us, another women biked by. She had an air pump on her bike. We asked her if we could use it. She said no. Seriously. She said no.
Spurred on by anger at this woman's rudeness, Irene pulled out her hidden MacGuyver resources and willed the second cartridge to work. It was pretty ingenious work. Woo hoo! I'm fixed! Pretty excited! And then we realized that we were now about an hour and a half behind. Pretty deflating.
We got the checkpoint we were going to and had to head back the way we came to go to the next checkpoint. It was quite a distance...perhaps there was a shortcut? We could see the trail we needed to get to:
And we thought maybe we could just go straight down the ravine and up the other side. Ha! Why do we even try these stupid things? We got about 40 yards and realized we'd never ever get through the pokey, thorny bushes and cactus so we headed back out. Another 20 minutes wasted. This really wasn't our race. :(
Feeling pretty low, we passed the mean lady. Now we are mad again. Then I almost crash my bike and fall off a cliff. It was terrifying. Irene didn't see it happen so she had no idea and kept going. I was so scared I was crying. (There's no crying in racing). Then we passed the mean lady AGAIN going on another trail. Seriously? Gr. I was so down and scared and angry and unhappy. Finally we got to a checkpoint that had a mystery event! That perked us up. And the team in yellow (from the ball/bucket checkpoint) was there. How could that be? They were about 2 hours ahead of us. Turns out, Sudoku is not their thing. But it is Irene's thing!
She rocked it and finished in one of the fastest times of all teams. We had gained some time back! Whee!
And we were done and headed back to the TA and the big wall. We love the big wall!
Yippee!
We were now official finishers of the race. Surprisingly, we had a bit of time for free-style navigation points. We grabbed the map and were off. Some of the points were in the city areas so instead of orienteering flags, we were to find Go! Adventure stickers on an object in the area. Man, I SUCK at needle-in-a-haystack challenges. We looked forever for the sticker at our first location, finally finding it on a sign that I had looked at 3 times. Gr.
Our next checkpoint was in a wilderness area so we were looking for a flag. Whew. And then we saw this:
Like a crow to a shiny thing, we were sucked right in. We had already lost, right? And how often do you get a chance to climb a rock mountain? So, we climbed instead. It was awesome! Rocks:
Top of the rocks:
It was awesome! Best part of the day!
Then we climbed back down, realized we had overshot our search by A LOT and moved on to the next few nav points. We found a couple and ran back to the TA just in time. And guess what?! Though we didn't win, we got SECOND!
Ok, there were only two teams in the female, two person division. :(
Despite the "McKayla is not impressed" look on my face, I actually wasn't upset about losing. We really like Jill and her partner and we've beaten them a few times before, so no big deal that they beat us this time. We ended up having quite a fun day. And, you can't win them all!
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
August Is My Month!
August has been pretty good to me as far as contests go. In addition to the BIG win of the PetSmart Charities video contest, I had a slightly smaller win in a Great Urban Race contest. Every month they ask people to submit pictures from their races. GUR followers on Facebook then vote for their favorite. The photo with the most likes gets to be the GUR Facebook cover photo for the month. As I've said before, my friends rock and for this one, Nicole's friends rock too! The owner of the Obstacle Races and Mud Runs Facebook page posted the picture asking for votes and that led us to our big win.
Nicole and I are fabulous cover models! We should do this for a living. Check us out here: https://www.facebook.com/GreatUrbanRace or just check out this screenshot:
Best cover photo ever!!
Nicole and I are fabulous cover models! We should do this for a living. Check us out here: https://www.facebook.com/GreatUrbanRace or just check out this screenshot:
Best cover photo ever!!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Extemely Fun!
Remember when I said that trapeze is the most fun thing I've ever done ever? Well, I've found something that is equally as fun! Woo hoo! This new something is the Flagstaff Extreme Adventure Course.
Seriously, how often do you get to do this?
Any day of the week when you're in Flagstaff!
I was lucky enough to get to do this on the first weekend they were open back in April. The first thing we did when we arrived was to get fitted with a harness. Safety first, you know. Woot! Woot! Harnesses are sexy!
The staff then walks you through a training course where they teach you all the rules and safety procedures. After safety first comes safety second! One of the things they teach you is to sit in your harness so you get used to trusting it. This is my friend, Ian.
There are four courses for adults. Your admission fee allows you to do all four courses but you don't have to do them all. They get progressively higher and harder as you go and you can quit whenever you'd like.
This was one of my favorite challenges:
You swing on a rope from the platform on the right over to that cargo net where I am. You have to let go of the rope to grab the cargo net! The crazy thing is that this obstacle is on the second easiest course! Don't let that scare you though; this one is optional. There is an alternate/easier choice to get to the next landing if you choose not to fly face first into a cargo net.
In case you were wondering if I was enjoying myself:
Yep! I sure was! What a fun, fun, fun day!!
We took a short potty break between the second and third courses. To start the third course you have to climb a ladder up a tree. This takes forever because you have to keep clipping and unclipping your carabiners every other step. The tree ladders were the only part of the course I didn't like. But once you're back up on the course, it's back to having fun!!
A big ladder traverse:
The other guy in these pictures is our new friend, Greg. He was doing the course by himself and he hooked up with us as we passed some slower folks. He told us about halfway through that he was scared of heights! He said he couldn't believe how safe he felt with the harness and the safety lines. He did all four courses!
This rope crossing was the hardest obstacle, in my opinion. I kept getting my feet caught up in my harness wires. No one else seemed to be having this problem, but I'm pretty talented in the uncoordination department. In addition to being uncoordinated, it also took a lot of strength to pull yourself across like that. But I made it across finally!
If you do have any problems on the course or you can't finish an obstacle, the staff will come get you and bring you down. However, if they have to bring you down, you don't get to finish the course so don't go crying wolf!
A cargo net traverse at the end of the fourth course:
Greg, Ian and I finished all four courses with no staff assistance required!
Behind us is a tree ladder that you need to climb down to get off the course. My only critique of the whole shebang is this tree ladder. After a few hours of rocking obstacles and doing crazy-fun things, it's a bit of a let down to have to climb very, very slowly down this stupid ladder. I want to end with a WOW and a WHEE! How about a fireman pole or a free fall of some sort or even a slide?
There were a whole bunch more awesome obstacles that I didn't show here. I don't want to give away all the fun and surprises for you! Now, get yourself to Flagstaff and do this! It's only $42 to do all four courses. This seems really low to me since you pay $80+ to do ziplining courses elsewhere. This is ziplining plus a whole lot more stuff that is a lot more fun than ziplining! $42 is totally worth it!
Ok, did this whole post sound like a commercial? :) Honestly, I am not being paid to promote Flagstaff Extreme, nor am I in their employ in any way! I just love this place that much!! And you will too, so GO! www.flagstaffextreme.com
Seriously, how often do you get to do this?
Any day of the week when you're in Flagstaff!
I was lucky enough to get to do this on the first weekend they were open back in April. The first thing we did when we arrived was to get fitted with a harness. Safety first, you know. Woot! Woot! Harnesses are sexy!
The staff then walks you through a training course where they teach you all the rules and safety procedures. After safety first comes safety second! One of the things they teach you is to sit in your harness so you get used to trusting it. This is my friend, Ian.
The first course is fairly low and pretty easy. Pat choose not to participate because he's not very comfortable with heights, but after watching and taking pictures the whole day, he says that even he could do this course with no problem. Here are some of the fun obstacles in the first course. Tunnels: 
Ladder bridge with cargo nets:
As you move on to the next course, they spice it up a little bit. Yes, this is a skateboard. In the air. 
In addition to all the awesome obstacles to traverse, each course has one or two ziplines. This zipline is so long that you can barely see me flying toward you. Whee!
This was one of my favorite challenges:
You swing on a rope from the platform on the right over to that cargo net where I am. You have to let go of the rope to grab the cargo net! The crazy thing is that this obstacle is on the second easiest course! Don't let that scare you though; this one is optional. There is an alternate/easier choice to get to the next landing if you choose not to fly face first into a cargo net.
In case you were wondering if I was enjoying myself:
Yep! I sure was! What a fun, fun, fun day!!
We took a short potty break between the second and third courses. To start the third course you have to climb a ladder up a tree. This takes forever because you have to keep clipping and unclipping your carabiners every other step. The tree ladders were the only part of the course I didn't like. But once you're back up on the course, it's back to having fun!!
A big ladder traverse:
The other guy in these pictures is our new friend, Greg. He was doing the course by himself and he hooked up with us as we passed some slower folks. He told us about halfway through that he was scared of heights! He said he couldn't believe how safe he felt with the harness and the safety lines. He did all four courses!
This rope crossing was the hardest obstacle, in my opinion. I kept getting my feet caught up in my harness wires. No one else seemed to be having this problem, but I'm pretty talented in the uncoordination department. In addition to being uncoordinated, it also took a lot of strength to pull yourself across like that. But I made it across finally!
If you do have any problems on the course or you can't finish an obstacle, the staff will come get you and bring you down. However, if they have to bring you down, you don't get to finish the course so don't go crying wolf!A cargo net traverse at the end of the fourth course:
Greg, Ian and I finished all four courses with no staff assistance required!
There were a whole bunch more awesome obstacles that I didn't show here. I don't want to give away all the fun and surprises for you! Now, get yourself to Flagstaff and do this! It's only $42 to do all four courses. This seems really low to me since you pay $80+ to do ziplining courses elsewhere. This is ziplining plus a whole lot more stuff that is a lot more fun than ziplining! $42 is totally worth it!
Ok, did this whole post sound like a commercial? :) Honestly, I am not being paid to promote Flagstaff Extreme, nor am I in their employ in any way! I just love this place that much!! And you will too, so GO! www.flagstaffextreme.com
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Two Crappy Races and A Flight to Australia
Part I - CitySolve Urban Race
CitySolve released their yearly schedule at the beginning of the year with Phoenix scheduled for March 10. In February, many weeks after CitySolve's schedule was announced, Challenge Nation released their schedule and they also had Phoenix listed for March 10. Why would they do that? What assholes.
I noticed that CitySolve started at 12:00 and Challenge Nation started at 1:00, with start locations just a few blocks apart. Christy and I were already registered to do CitySolve but I thought it might be a fun challenge to try to do two races simultaneously! We've never tried that before. Has anyone? So, we signed up for both!
Our focus was going to be on CitySolve since we were trying to redeem our second place loss last year and reclaim our first place spot from 2 years ago. If we happened to be in the area at the start time of Challenge Nation, we'd pick up that clue sheet and work it too. If nothing else, we'd get to do two costume contests with our awesome new costumes! The kicker to all this is that we'd have to be done with both races by 4:00 because we had to be at the airport for a 5:30 flight to LAX, en route to Australia! Two races and a flight to Australia all in a 5.5 hour time period. :)
All packed for Australia, we headed downtown and checked in for CitySolve. The costume contest was first. We had fierce competition from the Wizard of Oz gang (the Dorothy even had on red sequined shoes that she was going to wear for the race! Love it!) but in the end our funny pun won! Woo hoo! Not even noon and we were one for one!
Assault and Battery - Costume Contest Winners:
CitySolve starts their races with a trivia question. They hold up a huge sign with the question and answers that direct you to various street corners in the area. The correct answer gets you to the corner where the clues are handed out. Our question was something like "Which state shares the longest border with Arizona?" I read the question quickly, decided the answer was C, 1st Street and Jefferson. We took off running and a few of our friends were headed the same way, which was encouraging. When we arrived at the street corner, ahead of most of the teams, there was no clue-hander-outer there. We crossed the street to see if she was hiding in the doorway of a restaurant. Nope, no clue-hander-outer. A group of us conferred and we all felt the answer we chose was correct, but no one took a picture of the question so perhaps we read it wrong? It appeared we were all wrong, so we'd better try something else. We headed to one of the other corners listed . No one there. We went to all four corners listed on the trivia sign and no clue-hander-outers at any of the corners. WTF?! After more than 15 minutes running all over downtown, we headed back to our original street corner...and there was the clue-hander-outer! She had been told to go to the wrong street corner! UGH!
They fixed the mistake and got her in the right place in time for the later arriving teams to get their clues, but us faster teams were already gone by the time she got there. This meant that many teams had at least a 10 minute head start on us. Teams were already done solving their clues by the time we got ours. We started solving the clues, but realized when you win races by minutes or even seconds (we lost Scavenger Dash this year by 13 SECONDS, remember!), ten minutes is a huge disadvantage. We also realized that there was no way to make the outcome fair, as they weren't able to track what time each team actually received their clues. In frustration, we decided to write off CitySolve this year and just do ChallengeNation and maybe we could still cash in on a prize.
Knowing what it takes to produce these races, we felt terrible for Mitch and the CitySolve crew. One tiny error makes for a big issue. I don't know how they ended up scoring the race but I hope people weren't too angry.
After our initial excitement of winning the Costume Contest, we were now just feeling frustrated. And that ends Crappy Race #1. Stayed tuned for Crappy Race #2.
CitySolve released their yearly schedule at the beginning of the year with Phoenix scheduled for March 10. In February, many weeks after CitySolve's schedule was announced, Challenge Nation released their schedule and they also had Phoenix listed for March 10. Why would they do that? What assholes.
I noticed that CitySolve started at 12:00 and Challenge Nation started at 1:00, with start locations just a few blocks apart. Christy and I were already registered to do CitySolve but I thought it might be a fun challenge to try to do two races simultaneously! We've never tried that before. Has anyone? So, we signed up for both!
Our focus was going to be on CitySolve since we were trying to redeem our second place loss last year and reclaim our first place spot from 2 years ago. If we happened to be in the area at the start time of Challenge Nation, we'd pick up that clue sheet and work it too. If nothing else, we'd get to do two costume contests with our awesome new costumes! The kicker to all this is that we'd have to be done with both races by 4:00 because we had to be at the airport for a 5:30 flight to LAX, en route to Australia! Two races and a flight to Australia all in a 5.5 hour time period. :)
I don't want to hear that we are crazy. I already know this. You're thinking that we're crazy just on the premise of this post. Wait until you read the end of this story where I'm standing on a bench screaming in anger trying to incite a riot. (Not an exaggeration.) Then we can talk about crazy!
All packed for Australia, we headed downtown and checked in for CitySolve. The costume contest was first. We had fierce competition from the Wizard of Oz gang (the Dorothy even had on red sequined shoes that she was going to wear for the race! Love it!) but in the end our funny pun won! Woo hoo! Not even noon and we were one for one!
Assault and Battery - Costume Contest Winners:
(We are standing on the wrong side of each other. Oops.
Battery and Assault doesn't make as much sense.)
Battery and Assault doesn't make as much sense.)
CitySolve starts their races with a trivia question. They hold up a huge sign with the question and answers that direct you to various street corners in the area. The correct answer gets you to the corner where the clues are handed out. Our question was something like "Which state shares the longest border with Arizona?" I read the question quickly, decided the answer was C, 1st Street and Jefferson. We took off running and a few of our friends were headed the same way, which was encouraging. When we arrived at the street corner, ahead of most of the teams, there was no clue-hander-outer there. We crossed the street to see if she was hiding in the doorway of a restaurant. Nope, no clue-hander-outer. A group of us conferred and we all felt the answer we chose was correct, but no one took a picture of the question so perhaps we read it wrong? It appeared we were all wrong, so we'd better try something else. We headed to one of the other corners listed . No one there. We went to all four corners listed on the trivia sign and no clue-hander-outers at any of the corners. WTF?! After more than 15 minutes running all over downtown, we headed back to our original street corner...and there was the clue-hander-outer! She had been told to go to the wrong street corner! UGH!
They fixed the mistake and got her in the right place in time for the later arriving teams to get their clues, but us faster teams were already gone by the time she got there. This meant that many teams had at least a 10 minute head start on us. Teams were already done solving their clues by the time we got ours. We started solving the clues, but realized when you win races by minutes or even seconds (we lost Scavenger Dash this year by 13 SECONDS, remember!), ten minutes is a huge disadvantage. We also realized that there was no way to make the outcome fair, as they weren't able to track what time each team actually received their clues. In frustration, we decided to write off CitySolve this year and just do ChallengeNation and maybe we could still cash in on a prize.
Knowing what it takes to produce these races, we felt terrible for Mitch and the CitySolve crew. One tiny error makes for a big issue. I don't know how they ended up scoring the race but I hope people weren't too angry.
After our initial excitement of winning the Costume Contest, we were now just feeling frustrated. And that ends Crappy Race #1. Stayed tuned for Crappy Race #2.
Two Crappy Races and A Flight to Australia (continued)
Part II - Challenge Nation Phoenix
The street corner where we got our CitySolve clues was, in a bad judgement call on CS's part, also the corner of the restaurant that was the start location for Challenge Nation. A bit confusing because many CN racers saw people with clues and thought they were late or that they missed something. We helped sort out some of the confusion and went upstairs to the plaza where the CN race was to start.The Challenge Nation staff asked one person from each team to stand in a big circle with one hand out. There were a zillion teams so the circle was larger than the area that the sound of their megaphone could reach, causing some teams to miss the announcements. Something to work on, but overall the process worked. Everyone had to remain in the circle until all teams had clues. 1, 2, 3, go! After our first clue fiasco, this seemed like a really fair way to do it.
The clues:
Many of the clues we already knew from previous races and just general knowledge. A lot of them were scavenger type, find-a-stranger clues. John from the Avenging Narwhals in Seattle and Kiri were our clue solvers. A few of the clues were tricky, including #6, which we never solved. That was a shame because we really wanted to skip #12. It didn't even open until 2:30 and we hoped to be finished with the race by that time!
The clue instructions were fun. You really had to read the clues. For example, you had to find a stranger from a specific state, have them show their drivers license in a photo with you while all of you formed the shape of their state with your arms. Can you tell this is Washington? :)
The specifics of this clue were that you had to take a picture when the minute hand was at a 5 minute increment and you had to mimic the arms of the clock. I guess I think that clock arms should be bent.
We weren't in full-on race mode because we had time to kill before we could complete #12 at 2:30. We somewhat leisurely finished the rest of the clues. We got to Wells Fargo at 2:27 and, with a HUGE group of other teams, waited until 2:30 to take our picture. The staff there said that people had been coming in there for the past hour taking pictures and they were letting them. Seriously? What a bunch of morons who couldn't read the rules. The clue specifically stated, IN BOLD, "this clue can only be completed after 2:30." To make sure we didn't get a penalty like all those early teams were going to get, we made sure the time on our phone was visible in the picture. See? 2:30!
As we were getting our photos checked, I asked the photo checker about the penalty for those people who came in before us and used Wells Fargo as one of their 11 completed clues. He had no idea what I was talking about. They hadn't been giving penalties to those teams. I started to get a little angry. The clue specifically stated AFTER 2:30. The volunteer wisely took us over to the race director. This is where things quickly went downhill.
We presented the problem to the race director. Race Director: "Oh, that was supposed to say 1:30. I copied/pasted from a previous clue set and must not have changed it." Nope, that excuse isn't good enough! The clue sheets say 2:30 so teams should be penalized for not following the actual written rules, instead of abiding by your intended rules. Race Director: "Well, there isn't anything I can do about it now." Yes, yes there is. You can re-check the photos of the 16 teams who arrived before us and assess the accurate penalty. Race Director: "No, I can't do that. There is nothing I can do."
At this point, I'm starting to get a lot angry. He keeps trying to brush us off. The finish line area is starting to get really crowded with other teams arriving from Wells Fargo. I keep pushing my point, because I'M RIGHT and he is WRONG. (See? Getting angry.)
Race Director: "Well, I can assure you of one thing. I PERSONALLY checked in the top 5 money-winning teams and they all did #6 and skipped Wells Fargo."
Oh, okay. I can accept that. I'm starting to calm down. That is fair. We didn't win the money. They were smarter than us. Okay. We proceeded to photo check and accrued no penalties so we stayed in 17th place. The top 25 teams qualify for nationals so they asked us for our email address and phone numbers.
I was still a little worked up from our altercation and decided to do a little research. We went into the bar and started asking around for the teams that came in the Top 5. As we found them, I asked each of them if they skipped Wells Fargo or if they skipped a different clue. We found 3 of the top 5 AND ALL OF THEM SAID THEY WENT TO WELLS FARGO!
Okay. MAD AGAIN! The race director LIED RIGHT TO OUR FACES! He said all top 5 teams skipped Wells Fargo. LIAR!!!
We found the lying race director in the entry way of the restaurant. I confronted him with the information I had found and told him that lying is not the correct way to get out of a mistake. The correct way to get out of the mistake would be to fix it. He really, really hated me at this point. Race Director: "There is nothing I can do for you." Yes there is! You have the phone number of every team in the Top 25. Most of them are still here. Call them and ask them to come back to photo check. If they arrived before 2:30 and didn't skip Wells Fargo, they get a penalty. Easy solution. Prizes haven't been awarded yet. No harm done. Race Director: "There is nothing I can do for you." No, there is plenty you CAN do, but there is nothing you WILL do for us.
This went on for a little bit longer until Christy and I couldn't handle it anymore and he was on the verge of physically escorting us from the building.
As we were passing by the photo check area, which had a long line of teams just arriving, I got up on a bench. I started screaming. "For all of you who just got here from Wells Fargo! They are accepting Wells Fargo pictures from before 2:30! They refuse to fix this!" Probably not one of my finer moments, but at least I didn't lie to a paying customer! A paying customer with a really loud voice! The people who heard me started to get pissed off too. I don't know what happened after that because we left.
We left. To Australia! In the airport:
The ironic end to this story is that CN emailed everyone a week later with this:
There were some irregularities with the finish results in our Phoenix race this year, which we have worked throughout this week to address in a fair manner. In 50 races that we have conducted, we've never had to do this much follow-up, so please accept our apologies for the delay in resolution. However, getting the finish places and times correct is very important to us.
The fundamental issue is that despite the clue clearly indicating that the Wells Fargo History Museum clue was not to be conducted prior to 2:30 p.m., it is apparent that some teams broke that requirement and took that photo prior to 2:30 p.m. Subsequently, these teams were able to record a finish time that was incorrect, because of our error in fully verifying the photo time for that clue and disqualifying those teams at that point.
They went on to ask everyone to resubmit their pictures so they could verify the actual winning teams. Oh my god. If he had just listened to me that day, none of this would have been an issue. He literally had the top 16 teams' phone numbers in front of him. Those teams all had finished within the past half hour. All he had to do was ask them to come back to photo check. A ten minute fix. Instead, he thought lying to me would be a better option.
After all was said and done, we finished 6th. Which very conveniently puts the trouble-causing team one place out of the money prizes. Who's with me on screaming conspiracy on this one? :)
I have half a mind to enter the Nationals just to scream at him some more. But I won't because I won't be giving him another dime.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Scavenger Dash 2012
AZ Central ran an article about the Scavenger Dash. They interviewed me for it and quoted me like crazy!
Fame points = 10 seconds.
Remaining in my 15 minutes of fame = 13 minutes and 40 seconds
Nice article, huh? Too bad I lied to the reporter. I told her that Christy and I finished first in the first Scavenger Dash and that we won that year's costume contest. It would have been a good idea to re-read my blog prior to the interview to remind myself that we actually placed second in the race and second in the costume contest. Oops. I guess my memory thinks very highly of me.
2012 was a repeat of 2010 - second place in the race and second place in the costume contest. But in two years I'll remember us placing first in both!
Let's do costumes first. Our team name this year was Assault With a Deadly Weapon.
Get it? Christy is a salt and I am a ninja, and ninjas are known to be deadly weapons! I think that the audience applause-o-meter gave us a tie for first, but I'm probably biased. The prize went to Cowboy and Indian, which was a boy in a cow suit and a girl dressed as an indian. They were cute and clever so no bad feelings here.
The race this year was held in Scottsdale. I don't know Scottsdale all that well so I wasn't putting any high hopes into winning. I meant to spend a day walking around the area prior to the race and taking the buses and trolleys, but I never actually did. Lazy. I wasn't very happy with the maps I'd printed out because my printer ink was running out. I got to the race about 30 minutes early so I decided to walk to the visitor's center to get a real map. I followed the signs to the visitor center, but I never found it. Not a good sign!!
In the pre-race meeting, the race director told us that all of the checkpoints were within a 3 mile radius. Well, that eliminated the need for buses and trolleys. Whew! She then announced that our clue sheets were to be handed out at the Naked Chocolate stand at the Scottsdale Farmer's Market and everyone started running. We didn't know where that was so our strategy became to follow the crowd since they all looked like they knew where they were going. Luckily, they all did!
We got our clues and I emailed a picture of them to Kiri, our very super-awesome clue solver. She didn't get the email. We tried again. In the meantime we were also solving the easier ones and mapping all our checkpoints. Some clues involved no solving such as "find a license plate on a car from a state that starts with M" and "get a picture of both of you jumping in the air." By the time Kiri got our email, we only needed her to solve a few of the clues.
We took our jumping picture while still at the Farmer's Market. One clue done. I have mad ninja skillz:
While Kiri was solving, we ran to the first challenge site, as it was only a block away. There we had to maneuver these furniture dollies through the cones with only a stick to steer and propel us. I went first, which I should never do on challenges. Christy is way better at figuring out the fastest way to do stuff and should always go first so she can give me pointers. I, not surprisingly, took forever to get my dolly there and back. When Christy started out she was weaving in to everyone else's weaving out. Here she is about to crash into the people weaving the other direction:
I told her she'd do much better if she started over and went with traffic so she didn't keep hitting people. So, she brought the cart back and started over. I mapped the rest of the clues that Kiri had solved while Christy quickly finished the challenge. On our way to our next stop she told me that she wouldn't have had to start over as she figured out how to maneuver faster than the other racers so they wouldn't have been in her way after all. I replied that if we lost "by, oh gee, about 13 seconds" then I would take the blame.
We found our car with an M license plate on our way to the next challenge:
We still had one clue left to map, but we headed out to a checkpoint at Scottsdale Stadium, taking the risk that we wouldn't be missing any checkpoints in the area we passed to get there. When we completed our task at Scottsdale Stadium we mapped the last point and our risk paid off. The final spot was the furthest out and was easily added to our plan of attack.
The hardest challenge was next. We had to balance a ping pong ball on a ping pong paddle while walking a short course that included crossing a bridge, going down a hill, going up a hill and weaving though cones. The wind wasn't very strong but it doesn't take much to blow a ping pong ball off a paddle. Brian and Irene had the most trouble with this one. Christy did it in one try. I dropped the ball a few times before I was successful. These are our racing friends and rivals, Johnny and Kelly:
Off we ran to hit the rest of our checkpoints. We had to find two people in cowboy boots. We wasted some time taking pictures with single people in boots thinking that maybe we could turn in two separate pictures. We then found this pair and got the picture:
We ran some more. We did some more checkpoints and a challenge that involved sticking your noses in vaseline and transporting cotton balls without your hands. We tried a short-cut through a neighborhood but it was a bunch of dead ends up against a canal. Crap! We knew the "short-cut" was a risk, but neither of us felt like running the half mile back to where we deviated off the map. So we wove through the neighborhood looking for an outlet. We ended up crawling through fences: 
and jumping over a wall to get back on track. It's not every day you see a salt shaker jump a wall so I had to stop to take pictures:
We finished our clues and ran back to the finish line. We felt we did well, but we weren't thinking that we were fast enough to win.
As we crossed the finish line, we saw one other team. We were told that we got second place. Ok, that's fine. But then they added that we got second place....by 10 seconds. 10 seconds! Remember that bit earlier about how if we lost by all of 13 seconds then I would take the blame. Ouch. I take the blame.
Johnny and Kelly's teams took 5th and 6th, and Brian and Irene got 11th (the ping pong ball challenge did them in).
Brian and Irene:
I say it every year, and I'll say it again: Scavenger Dash is super-fun! Great clues, with a nice mix of easy and difficult, the most fun challenges of all the races of this type and always a great atmosphere. If you haven't done one yet - do it! You can find their schedule for the rest of the year here: www.scavengerdash.com
Fame points = 10 seconds.
Remaining in my 15 minutes of fame = 13 minutes and 40 seconds
Nice article, huh? Too bad I lied to the reporter. I told her that Christy and I finished first in the first Scavenger Dash and that we won that year's costume contest. It would have been a good idea to re-read my blog prior to the interview to remind myself that we actually placed second in the race and second in the costume contest. Oops. I guess my memory thinks very highly of me.
2012 was a repeat of 2010 - second place in the race and second place in the costume contest. But in two years I'll remember us placing first in both!
Let's do costumes first. Our team name this year was Assault With a Deadly Weapon.
Get it? Christy is a salt and I am a ninja, and ninjas are known to be deadly weapons! I think that the audience applause-o-meter gave us a tie for first, but I'm probably biased. The prize went to Cowboy and Indian, which was a boy in a cow suit and a girl dressed as an indian. They were cute and clever so no bad feelings here.The race this year was held in Scottsdale. I don't know Scottsdale all that well so I wasn't putting any high hopes into winning. I meant to spend a day walking around the area prior to the race and taking the buses and trolleys, but I never actually did. Lazy. I wasn't very happy with the maps I'd printed out because my printer ink was running out. I got to the race about 30 minutes early so I decided to walk to the visitor's center to get a real map. I followed the signs to the visitor center, but I never found it. Not a good sign!!
In the pre-race meeting, the race director told us that all of the checkpoints were within a 3 mile radius. Well, that eliminated the need for buses and trolleys. Whew! She then announced that our clue sheets were to be handed out at the Naked Chocolate stand at the Scottsdale Farmer's Market and everyone started running. We didn't know where that was so our strategy became to follow the crowd since they all looked like they knew where they were going. Luckily, they all did!
We got our clues and I emailed a picture of them to Kiri, our very super-awesome clue solver. She didn't get the email. We tried again. In the meantime we were also solving the easier ones and mapping all our checkpoints. Some clues involved no solving such as "find a license plate on a car from a state that starts with M" and "get a picture of both of you jumping in the air." By the time Kiri got our email, we only needed her to solve a few of the clues.
We took our jumping picture while still at the Farmer's Market. One clue done. I have mad ninja skillz:
While Kiri was solving, we ran to the first challenge site, as it was only a block away. There we had to maneuver these furniture dollies through the cones with only a stick to steer and propel us. I went first, which I should never do on challenges. Christy is way better at figuring out the fastest way to do stuff and should always go first so she can give me pointers. I, not surprisingly, took forever to get my dolly there and back. When Christy started out she was weaving in to everyone else's weaving out. Here she is about to crash into the people weaving the other direction:
I told her she'd do much better if she started over and went with traffic so she didn't keep hitting people. So, she brought the cart back and started over. I mapped the rest of the clues that Kiri had solved while Christy quickly finished the challenge. On our way to our next stop she told me that she wouldn't have had to start over as she figured out how to maneuver faster than the other racers so they wouldn't have been in her way after all. I replied that if we lost "by, oh gee, about 13 seconds" then I would take the blame.We found our car with an M license plate on our way to the next challenge:
We still had one clue left to map, but we headed out to a checkpoint at Scottsdale Stadium, taking the risk that we wouldn't be missing any checkpoints in the area we passed to get there. When we completed our task at Scottsdale Stadium we mapped the last point and our risk paid off. The final spot was the furthest out and was easily added to our plan of attack.The hardest challenge was next. We had to balance a ping pong ball on a ping pong paddle while walking a short course that included crossing a bridge, going down a hill, going up a hill and weaving though cones. The wind wasn't very strong but it doesn't take much to blow a ping pong ball off a paddle. Brian and Irene had the most trouble with this one. Christy did it in one try. I dropped the ball a few times before I was successful. These are our racing friends and rivals, Johnny and Kelly:
Off we ran to hit the rest of our checkpoints. We had to find two people in cowboy boots. We wasted some time taking pictures with single people in boots thinking that maybe we could turn in two separate pictures. We then found this pair and got the picture:
We ran some more. We did some more checkpoints and a challenge that involved sticking your noses in vaseline and transporting cotton balls without your hands. We tried a short-cut through a neighborhood but it was a bunch of dead ends up against a canal. Crap! We knew the "short-cut" was a risk, but neither of us felt like running the half mile back to where we deviated off the map. So we wove through the neighborhood looking for an outlet. We ended up crawling through fences: 
and jumping over a wall to get back on track. It's not every day you see a salt shaker jump a wall so I had to stop to take pictures:
We finished our clues and ran back to the finish line. We felt we did well, but we weren't thinking that we were fast enough to win.
As we crossed the finish line, we saw one other team. We were told that we got second place. Ok, that's fine. But then they added that we got second place....by 10 seconds. 10 seconds! Remember that bit earlier about how if we lost by all of 13 seconds then I would take the blame. Ouch. I take the blame.
Johnny and Kelly's teams took 5th and 6th, and Brian and Irene got 11th (the ping pong ball challenge did them in).
Brian and Irene:
I say it every year, and I'll say it again: Scavenger Dash is super-fun! Great clues, with a nice mix of easy and difficult, the most fun challenges of all the races of this type and always a great atmosphere. If you haven't done one yet - do it! You can find their schedule for the rest of the year here: www.scavengerdash.com
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
2012 Race Schedule
Just so you know what I've got planned this year (and so my stalkers know where to find me)...
January 15 - Tough Mudder - Done and blogged about. Check.
January 28 - Scavenger Dash and costume contest - with Christy. The first year we came in second. Last year we came in 8th. Second place in costume contest the first year, tied for costume contest win last year.
February 11 - Spartan Race (Super) - another mud/obstacle run. 8+ miles, 15+ obstacles - with Christy, Brian, Irene and Wayne.
February 19 - People Saving Pets Walk empowered by PetSmart Charities and costume contest for the dogs - with Pat and Christy's daughter, Miranda. Last year it rained and was soooo cold. It was sad because so many rescue organizations brought out pets for the adoptathon but no one stayed after the walk. I sincerely hope for better weather this year!
February 25 - Great Urban Race and costume contest - with Christy. Our race history: 3rd, 4th, 1st. We haven't won a costume contest yet, though we were finalists the past two years.
March 10 - CitySolve Urban Race and costume contest - with Christy. Our race history: 2nd and 1st. No costume contest wins.
April 1 - Urban Bike Adventure and costume contest - with Pat. This is a new race and it will be my first one on bikes.
April 7 - Toro Loco - with FRANKIE! And Brian and Irene and their kids. And some girls from work with their dogs. This is a mud run that has two divisions, easy and hard. The easy one allows you to run with your kids and your dogs. Dogs at a mud run? I love it! They are raising funds for Southern Arizona Humane Society. And they let you do both courses for the price of one. I love them already.
April 14 - Firefly Run Illuminated Night 5K and costume contest - with Brian and Emily. This is also a new race. It's just a regular ol' 5K but it's at night and they give you glow sticks. I bought it on a Schwaggle deal, plus with my Active Advantage membership, it was practically free.
April 21 - CityScape Adventures and costume contest - with Pat. Race history: 1st place with Christy the first year, 1st place with Pat the second year, plus a finalist in the costume contest. I should blog about that race, huh?
May 19 - 5K Foam Fest. Another new race. It's an obstacle/mud/foam run. So far, I'm doing this one alone. Come on, people.
July 7 - Extreme Heat Coon Bluff Adventure Race - with Irene. This was my first ever adventure race. Race history 16th, 11th, ?, and last year I missed it because of my family reunion.
August 11 - Extreme Heat Dreamy Draw Adventure Race - with Irene. I don't remember how we did our first year, but last year we got 6th out of 19.
September 22 - Gilmore Adventure Race - with Irene. My favorite race!! This will be our 5th year! Race history: 2nd place for 2-person female team and 17th overall, 1st/7th, 1st/3rd, 1st/6th. While proud of all our great finishes in our division, I have to admit there have never been more than five 2-person female teams and last year there were only two!
October 20 - Extreme Heat Night Adventure Race with Irene. We got 3rd out of 19 last year.
November 3 - CitySolve Nationals (Miami) with Christy. We got 8th, 9th or 10th at the CitySolve Nationals in 2010 (the scoring was a little wonky) and we didn't go this past year.
- or - Scavenger Dash Night Race with Christy or Irene. This is new!
- and November 4 - TGen 5K for Pancreatic Cancer with work. I've done the TGen 5K twice and have gotten in the top 3 in my age division both times. It helps that this race is scheduled on a weekend where all the real runners are doing the New Times 10K or the women's half. :)
November 10 - Great Urban Race Nationals (Las Vegas) with Christy, if we qualify! Race history: 14th, 65th, 38th and one costume contest win. We're all over the place on this one.
November 17 - Rugged Maniac with Karissa. Another mud run. Last year was super-duper fun!
December 9 - 12K's of Christmas and costume contest for people and dogs - with Emily and my pups. Last year we won a prize in the costume contest. We went as gingerbread men and gingerbread dogs. We need a new theme for this year. Suggestions are welcome!
What's missing? The Oyster Race - they aren't coming to Phoenix this year. Boo. The Warrior Dash - done it, don't need to do it again. Urban Dare - we are going to be on vacation. Hybrid Adventure Games - they don't have their schedule posted. They had better hurry as my year is filling up quickly!!
January 15 - Tough Mudder - Done and blogged about. Check.
January 28 - Scavenger Dash and costume contest - with Christy. The first year we came in second. Last year we came in 8th. Second place in costume contest the first year, tied for costume contest win last year.
February 11 - Spartan Race (Super) - another mud/obstacle run. 8+ miles, 15+ obstacles - with Christy, Brian, Irene and Wayne.
February 19 - People Saving Pets Walk empowered by PetSmart Charities and costume contest for the dogs - with Pat and Christy's daughter, Miranda. Last year it rained and was soooo cold. It was sad because so many rescue organizations brought out pets for the adoptathon but no one stayed after the walk. I sincerely hope for better weather this year!
February 25 - Great Urban Race and costume contest - with Christy. Our race history: 3rd, 4th, 1st. We haven't won a costume contest yet, though we were finalists the past two years.
March 10 - CitySolve Urban Race and costume contest - with Christy. Our race history: 2nd and 1st. No costume contest wins.
April 1 - Urban Bike Adventure and costume contest - with Pat. This is a new race and it will be my first one on bikes.
April 7 - Toro Loco - with FRANKIE! And Brian and Irene and their kids. And some girls from work with their dogs. This is a mud run that has two divisions, easy and hard. The easy one allows you to run with your kids and your dogs. Dogs at a mud run? I love it! They are raising funds for Southern Arizona Humane Society. And they let you do both courses for the price of one. I love them already.
April 14 - Firefly Run Illuminated Night 5K and costume contest - with Brian and Emily. This is also a new race. It's just a regular ol' 5K but it's at night and they give you glow sticks. I bought it on a Schwaggle deal, plus with my Active Advantage membership, it was practically free.
April 21 - CityScape Adventures and costume contest - with Pat. Race history: 1st place with Christy the first year, 1st place with Pat the second year, plus a finalist in the costume contest. I should blog about that race, huh?
May 19 - 5K Foam Fest. Another new race. It's an obstacle/mud/foam run. So far, I'm doing this one alone. Come on, people.
July 7 - Extreme Heat Coon Bluff Adventure Race - with Irene. This was my first ever adventure race. Race history 16th, 11th, ?, and last year I missed it because of my family reunion.
August 11 - Extreme Heat Dreamy Draw Adventure Race - with Irene. I don't remember how we did our first year, but last year we got 6th out of 19.
September 22 - Gilmore Adventure Race - with Irene. My favorite race!! This will be our 5th year! Race history: 2nd place for 2-person female team and 17th overall, 1st/7th, 1st/3rd, 1st/6th. While proud of all our great finishes in our division, I have to admit there have never been more than five 2-person female teams and last year there were only two!
October 20 - Extreme Heat Night Adventure Race with Irene. We got 3rd out of 19 last year.
November 3 - CitySolve Nationals (Miami) with Christy. We got 8th, 9th or 10th at the CitySolve Nationals in 2010 (the scoring was a little wonky) and we didn't go this past year.
- or - Scavenger Dash Night Race with Christy or Irene. This is new!
- and November 4 - TGen 5K for Pancreatic Cancer with work. I've done the TGen 5K twice and have gotten in the top 3 in my age division both times. It helps that this race is scheduled on a weekend where all the real runners are doing the New Times 10K or the women's half. :)
November 10 - Great Urban Race Nationals (Las Vegas) with Christy, if we qualify! Race history: 14th, 65th, 38th and one costume contest win. We're all over the place on this one.
November 17 - Rugged Maniac with Karissa. Another mud run. Last year was super-duper fun!
December 9 - 12K's of Christmas and costume contest for people and dogs - with Emily and my pups. Last year we won a prize in the costume contest. We went as gingerbread men and gingerbread dogs. We need a new theme for this year. Suggestions are welcome!
What's missing? The Oyster Race - they aren't coming to Phoenix this year. Boo. The Warrior Dash - done it, don't need to do it again. Urban Dare - we are going to be on vacation. Hybrid Adventure Games - they don't have their schedule posted. They had better hurry as my year is filling up quickly!!
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