Thursday, November 14, 2013

Great Urban Race Recap

Great Urban Race Recap

November 2, 2013
San Diego, CA

The race started and ended at Whisky Girl downtown. We arrived at 11:00 (the race starts at noon). Upon arrival, before entering WG and obtaining your bib # and swag, you must sign your life away to Red Frog Events.




Since we arrived early, the signing process and pickup went relatively fast. Once this was done, we were able to relax a bit before the adventure began. It was fun watching as teams arrived emanating excitement and donning fun costumes.

The race started right on time. There were several 'race personnel' scattered about WG ready to hand off the envelope that contained the clues. We grabbed our clues and got right to solving the 12 puzzles.
Each puzzle solved would give you the address to the checkpoint. You were allowed to skip one.





It took us nearly 45 minutes to work on the puzzles and we still hadn't solved them all! But we knew we had to get moving! So we mapped out the most logical route using the addresses we had solved, and hoped we would stumble upon our unsolved locations. (Spoiler: we did!)


Our first three stops took us to seaport village.
{At every stop, you must either take a picture or video as proof, along with collecting a flyer.}

1. Hot Licks- Eat a bug covered in hot sauce.


2. Apple Box Toys- One teammate must stack blocks according to a picture while the other teammate calls out directions.


3. Seaport Oil and Vinegars- Taste 2 vinegars and 2 oils and identify their flavor.

We then headed back toward Gaslamp via the Convention Center stairs (Thanks, Jessica).

4. Old Spaghetti Factory- Climb to the 3rd floor. Hold an uncooked spaghetti noodle in your mouth and "thread" 6 penne noodles onto the noodle in your mouth, no hands!

5. Bub's @ The Ballpark- Shoot 6 baskets into a hoop positioned onto your teammates head, then pose like Michael Jordan.

6. Basic Pizza- link an arm with your teammate so each only have one functioning hand, construct a pizza box. (This place was so HOT we were dripping pools of sweat all over the box)

7. Feel It- Construct a cassette tape tower, pull the middle cassette out and repeat until the top cassettes land on the bottom with out falling <--- if that makes any sense? (It actually wasn't as hard as it looked and sounds) After this, complete a puzzle of a record label.



After this we encountered a nice, BIG hill! So fun ;)

8. Little Yoga Studio- One teammate stands in tree position while other wraps toilet paper 12 times around torso. Then both must stand in this pose for a picture.



9. This clue was in tic-tac-toe form (with 9 choices). We were to choose 3 that formed a tic-tac-toe.
Our choices that we completed throughout the course:
     Take a picture with a bald man.
This man was quite happy to be chosen :)

     Take a picture with a bridge in the background.
Might as well make those convention center stairs worth while!

     Take a picture with a witch or zombie. This was so hard to find, luckily Jessica spotted this candle in a coffee shop!


One of the clues listed 7 toiletry items that we could choose 2 to buy and donate to Father Joe's Village.
After our yoga stop, we still hadn't seen a CVS which we were sure we would. Luckily en route to the drop off location for the donations, Jessica spotted thesmallest shop that sold what we needed!!

10. Toussaint Academy- Drop off donations.

11. The Local- Play a plinko-esq game involving Bacardi Oakheart Rum (a sponsor for Great Urban Race). "Plinko" chips must land in coke, oakice and avoid landing in spill. If this happens, start again. We got it on our second try!!



Half skipping, half running we made our way back to WG. We were so excited to have completed all the clues! As we came down the block, there was a lot of cheering. We then had an official check our pictures, videos and flyers to mark our finishing place and completion.



We came in 21st place out of over 100 teams. 

Overall, this race was a lot of fun. It was a great opportunity to explore part of our city. The clues were slightly difficult(for us at least) but somehow we managed. We covered almost 5 miles during this race and ran to each destination. I would definitely do this again!

Have you ever completed a Great Urban Race? Or a race with different checkpoints, destinations, or scavenger hunt?

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