Speed(y-ish) Racers

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the year because it was the day of the Great Urban Race! Although I normally steer clear of both competition and physical challenges, I make an exception for treasure/scavenger hunts.

The Great Urban Race is sort of like "Midnight Madness" (the movie, not any basketball nonsense) meets The Amazing Race, with digital cameras. Basically, it's a really fun way to run around the city doing things you would never normally do. 

You might remember that last year I competed with my friend Kevin as K-squared. We finished in 152nd place (out of 162 teams). Since Kevin has since run away to India, this year I competed with my friend Gretchen as team "Communication Breakdown." Our goal was to make the top 100.

Even though I knew what to expect this year, I still went into a bit of a panic/hyper-focus mode when it came time to rip open that clue envelope.  

Twelve clues and we could choose to skip one. The first was in Pig Latin, so I moved down to number 2: Make your way to the Minneapolis music club made famous by Prince in the movie Purple Rain. Take a picture of all teammates pointing at the silver star representing the band that has albums titled "Elephunk"and "Monkey Business." Awesome! We knew we needed to head downtown. Even more awesome was that this year, we'd actually researched the bus routes and were able to quickly board a bus going in the right direction. 

Even before we boarded the bus, I got in touch with our Google team headquarters (a.k.a. my husband) and began requesting information:

"Who has an album titled 'Elephunk'?" "Where did the Acadia move to?""Where's the Tin Fish?" "What does Molly Shannon's 'superstar' pose look like?"

By the time we got off that bus, we had all of our clues but one solved. The straggler was #9: Take a picture of all teammates in front of a sign that reads 'for bread * cake * pastry. It sounded so easy...

Undaunted, we quickly snapped our photo in front of the Black-Eyed Peas' star on First Avenue (clue #2), decided against recruiting eight other people to strike Molly Shannon's "superstar" pose under the Hard Rock Cafe guitar (clue #7 and a detour, which gave us another option), and ran back out to Hennepin Avenue to hop back on a bus headed to Uptown. 

We didn't know it at the time, but that bus ride was a critical juncture. First, my lovely stepsisters, who were also competing (as the intimidating team "Chicken Dinner") were already on the bus and we decided to partner up. Second, last year's winners (the Oozing Monkeys) were also on the bus. (We would later realize that 4 of the top 5 teams were on that bus with us.)

Once in Uptown, our competitors scattered. We (with the sisters, we were now four) ducked into a bookstore to complete part of clue #8: Find the Minnesota Literacy Council next to the Tin Fish on lake Calhoun and donate at least one new pre-school age board book.

We then hit Calhoun Square - clue #5 directed us there, but more importantly, we needed a bathroom break. Not wanting to appear rude, we ordered drinks at the bar before using their facilities...and naturally, we had to drink those drinks after having paid for them and all...

In case you're keeping track, that means we took our first pit stop after completing just 1.5 clues. 

After rehydrating at the bar, we counted all of the butterflies in the Fairy Godmother shop window, as instructed in clue #5. (I counted 106.) Then it was onto Amazing Thailand (part one of clue #12) to find the "tuk-tuk" and read its license plate so we could add the digits together.

After stopping at the East-facing mural at Cal Surf  to have our photo snapped holding up the proper number of fingers, based on the total of the license plate numbers (part two of clue #12), we continued on to Lake Calhoun, where we finished off clue #8 by donating the book, and then embarked on clue #4, which had us canoeing out to a red buoy and back. 

I was quickly reminded that I have not been in a canoe since I last went to summer camp at age 11. Though I managed to recall the very basics of how to steer a canoe, I would later learn that having both paddlers facing each other is not the ideal way to go...perhaps that explains why we spun the canoe around so many times. The good news is that we didn't drown. There really is no bad news, as that was a really fun part of the race. 

After getting our stamp to prove that we had canoed, the four of us were off and running. We thought we had figured out that elusive clue #9 (for bread * cake * pastry) and planned to hop a bus to French Meadow Bakery. Only rather than stopping to determine which bus to take, we just kind of kept walking the 1.5 miles, only to find out that it wasn't the right place (and they were a little tired of people asking, thanks). 

Feeling a little flustered, we decided it would be best to regroup at the neighboring CC Club (number of clues completed: 5). There, I grabbed the yellow pages, ordered a beer, and set out to solve this mystery. Everyone in the bar was eager to try to help, especially this kind old woman (who was drinking at 2 in the afternoon), who insisted that somebody had a bakery in Excelsior and their mother had a cafe nearby and that they sold bread. Right. 

So intent were we to solve this clue (and drink our drinks) that we missed our bus. Oh well, what's another 20 minutes? Drink up.

Once on the bus, we set out to solve the remaining downtown clues. First we hit the bird fountain on Nicollet Mall (clue #3, which was a cryptogram), then I channeled my former cheerleading self to make a human pyramid in front of the pyramid sculpture in front of the IDS Tower, also on Nicollet Mall (clue #7, the other detour option). Thankfully, another team arrived to help with that one, as recruiting strangers to be in a human pyramid can't be easy. 

From there, we walked over to the triangular statue that was pictured in clue #10 (we could have found the cross-streets for it by finding out the number of runs the Minnesota Twins had against the New York Yankees in Wednesday's game and the number of runs they had in Tuesday's game, but luckily Gretchen knew where it was). 

Next stop, the Mill City Museum, the answer to clue #1 (the one that was in Pig Latin): Take a picture of all teammates standing in front of the best smelling museum ever created. Google team headquarters really came through on that one...apparently it has something to do with flour because the museum is in the former Gold Medal Flour factory. I don't know.

Again, we intended to hop a bus back to the West Bank, where the race had started and where we knew we still had two more clues to complete, but we ended up walking the whole 2+ miles. Did I mind? Not really. I was completely distracted by how much fun I was having. 

Having finally given up on clue #9 (therefore making it our skipped clue by default), our last two stops had us feeding each other cookies at the Acadia Cafe and then playing bocce ball at the Nomad Pub. And then we were done! And, in contrast to last year, there were actually other teams around as we walked to the finish line!

So excited at the prospect of beating last year's time, I ran the last block to the finish line. Woohoo!! We did it! No penalties!

As it turns out, the answer to clue #9 was rumored to have been etched in the side of the Gold Medal Flour building, which I suppose makes sense, but I still don't think I would have ever figured it out. 

We finished in slightly under 4 hours, while the winning team - the same team that won last year - finished in 1 hour and 41 minutes. That means they were probably crossing the finish line while we were spinning around on the lake. I know that last year, right here in the comments of this blog, they denied being superhuman, but my new theory is that they are able to teleport. (Maybe they aren't superhuman, they are simply time travelers?)

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. In fact, I'm thinking of devising a scavenger hunt workout routine, as it seems to be the only way I'll ever be motivated to walk that far...

Did we break the top 100? We don't know yet - we're still waiting for results to be posted. 

**UPDATED 7/14/09: Results have been posted and we came in at #130. Oh well.**