Sleeping in Seattle: races

What does one do after competing in an adventure race for 6 hours? You come home and wrestle and play with your little boy, have a nice healthy dinner of bagel bite, ice cream, (adults) and grilled bean and cheese sandwiches peas, and apples and ice cream (Walter).

(i apologize in advance for what seems like a fog, it’s the camera fogging up on me. It was relatively humid in Seattle today!)

The race was really really fun. I’m having kinda a hard time with our finish especially since I was the weakest player the last leg. We wanted to play in our division and we were about an hour off. BUT, not that I’m justifying it, we had about an hours worth of setbacks (not bad decisions or game play, literal set backs).

Reason #1

We lost at least 10 minutes each time we had to wait for the bridge (twice)

First time: on the 4th leg the Roosevelt Bridge was just starting up when we go there.

Second Time: was on the 4th leg again, got there just as they were lowering the gates.

Reason $2

We also lost at least 45 minutes (Jenn says more I say less) on the last leg when Greg got not one but 2 flat tires. We used this method to get around after we ditched Greg’s bike in some random boat dealers office.

Reason #3

The last leg had many parts, one of which was to successfully match 4 beers from one of the sponsor to their name/brew. We got it wrong twice and had a 10 minute penalty. BUT we found out they had accidently set them out in the wrong order so we were right.

The race details, before you sign up, said if you can complete a 10K you have the appropriate fitness level. However, I don’t know any 10K’s that take 6 hours to complete! It was harder than I thought physically and not as much brain power required as I suspected.

We made a series of mistakes that cost us some time but that’s game play, and our fault. The most common was not completely reading the clue before setting off and having to un-necessarily exert effort and time instead of planning better. I think we did a pretty good job navigating but probably could have been a little faster if we knew more short cuts or direct paths.

We only engaged Evan twice and it wasn’t cheating either time. The team that won had a support person hanging out in the transition area to pull up maps and to coordinate gear switches based on what other teams were doing. We asked him for directions once, and we called him to help with the number puzzle. Although he solved it in less than 2 minutes, we didn’t call him till we’d tried for 7 minutes and while we were talking it through with him we made some additional discoveries that we shared with the other teams. That team solved the problem before Evan got back to us and we followed them (still not cheating) and were almost half way there before he texted me with the answer.

A few other mistakes:

Greg left with out his helmet once so had to go back.
One challenge we had to run to the check point, pick up a Sudoku puzzle and complete it on the street car. We couldn’t get off the car till it was done. We completed it but thought that we should ride it for awhile to a drop off closer to the TA. Turns out this would have worked if there wasn’t a 5 minute stop and if we would have planned our route back more appropriately and didn’t have to go out of our way to double back to the TA. the team that was riding with us was about a minute/mile slower than us and beat us to the TA by 3 minutes.
The map showed us the farmers market was in a spot different that it really was and we did 2 full laps before we found the vendor we were to buy and eat raw oysters from.

Those were the most easily identifiable decisions that cost us and we take full responsibility for them all. The others were just unfortunate events. We did learn our lesson with the bridges though and almost got stopped by a train but instead booked it across and then ended up having to finish up hill. If you’ve been to Seattle and have seen the hills from the Waterfont down town to the Seattle Center, you would understand how painful this decisions was.

So here is a brief review of the day, with a picture tutorial. Enjoy!

(we used Greg’s camera for the first 2 challenges, and then switched to mine since it was much faster reaction time)

First Challenge

One of us left at 8 (Greg). The other 2 were released 8 minutes later and given our passport which directed us to run to Kerry Park, in the middle of a pretty steep hill (very steep hill) and our first team member would meet us there. We were to duplicate the picture on the card will all team members in the picture. It was a little over a mile (but with the previously mentioned hill) so we booked it thinking he’d be there soon. Greg was blind folded and taken to a random location (Magnolia) by the Duck and dropped off and told where we were and he had to run to us. It was over 2 miles away and he got to his drop location after we’d already reached the park. So we booked it, and probably wasted considerable energy, for nothing.

Second Challenge

All together again we return to the transition area (TA) to get our second passport. This is when we first called Evan. Quick side note: after Jenn and I got our first passport I was reading it and asked her if she had gum. Because I wanted some not because it has anything to do with the challenge. She didn’t. Fast forward about 40 minutes, we get our second passport and we are to bike to the famous “gum wall” and leave a piece of gum there and capture it on camera. This is where Greg forgot his helmet but we didn’t have gum anyway so we had to stop and buy some. Evan was able to text me the location so I didn’t have to text and drive (my bike). Wish I had those pictures, I’m sure it was a great one. I’ll share when Greg shares his pics tomorrow. Return back to TA for third passport.

My trusty steed. I borrowed Evan’s bike to avoid the use of my bike shoes (not knowing what I’d be doing when I biked somewhere, good choice) and also if I had used my bike I probably would have ended up with 2 flat tires like Greg after all the crap we put these bikes through today.

Third Challenge

We returned to the TA and were told to travel by any means we’d like to get a picture of a street or business starting with each letter in the word OYSTER. We didn’t have a plan and each set off to get 2 letters. With in 3 minutes we had all but Y. We knew a few streets with Y, but pretty far away. Greg took off for one and I took off for a business about a mile and a half away and he called a minute later that he found a business Yahama something or other. Mission accomplished, although next time we’d take 2 minutes to come up with a plan and search a map because after the fact I knew exactly where I’d go to get them all.

Fourth Challenge

Bike to the farmers market and wait for instruction. Instructions to follow include finding a particular vendor to buy and eat some raw clams. Then bike to Greenlake. This is where we were reading step by step instead of the whole thing. Had we read the whole thing before leaving we would have found out that only 2 of them were to go to the boat house and hop in a kayak and the other (me) was to go to the dog park and await instruction. We all went to the boat house then I had to double back about a mile and a half to the dog park and carry 10 shovels full of mulch from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill. I rode back to the others and then all 3 of us biked back the direction I had just come from. Lesson learned.
Greg and Jenn heading out on the bike

Sarah and Jenn waiting for the (first) bridge to lower

the second bridge issue of this challenge!

Fifth Challenge

Bike back to the TA from Greenlake and were directed back out by foot. We stopped for a team picture first.

Next we were to go to the “Chinese Bulletin Board” and find our next clue there. We had to take a picture while there. This is where we needed Evan again. We got there quickly and efficiently avoiding most of the hills and we were happy with our time. We did have a hard time with the number puzzle but eventually got it.

The puzzle directed us to the aquarium again by foot and we were to look for something with a weird name when we were there. We found out this was a Sea Cucumber. I googled it to find out what it looked like. I felt rude and mean running around the aquarium like a crazy person when so many families were trying to enjoy their day, we would bust into their lecture to have someone take a picture of the 3 of us pointing at this thing.

But that was the game, so we did it.

And since we were all supposed to be in the pic, I took one of myself pointing.

But it didn’t turn out so we had someone else take one

We then returned to the TA by foot, avoided the train, chucked up the hill, and started to realize the sun had come out and it was getting hot. I was getting hungry and thirsty. We were supposed to be done in 4 hours (I thought) so I was sure we were about to get our last challenge. No such luck.

Sixth Challenge

The soduku on the SLUT (south lake union trolley, yes that’s what it’s called). We wasted too much time waiting for the SLUT and then more time on the SLUT but had some fun with the camera while we were there. We needed to take a pic of the completed puzzle before getting off.

Jenn started

Calls in for reinforcements

OK all numbers in

Team shot

Jenn working the SLUT (we were the only people on by this point)

SEVENTH Challenge (the last)

This was the unfortunate challenge with the 2 flat tires, and the time out for missing the beers. We were told to get to the Seattle Language Academy anyway we wanted and we opted to bike after the SLUT incident turned us off from public transportaion and not wanting to run that far again. We had to learn a Russian phrase, stop at a bar, complete a task and then repeat the phrase we learned. The task was the beer and I had no idea what the phrase was. Luckily Greg knows a bit of Russian.