I know a lot of my followers also read my wife's blog. For those of you who do that, this will be a repeat. For those of you that don't read her blog, here is a link to her latest post: Ups and Downs.
My wife has taken some serious steps in her life and has shown commitment and motivation to keep it up. I am proud of the steps she has taken and am excited to see how we will grow as a family through this. When reading her post, I not only proud, but also motivated myself. That is the reason I am sharing with my blog friends.
Other than that, not much new going on in my world. We have a 5K tomorrow morning, so I will post about that next week (I hope).
Until next time blogosphere...
Friday, May 17, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Urban Dare (Lexington) Results
Wow, it has been an extremely long time since I last posted! Sorry for the absence blogosphere. Not sure why, but I just haven't had time to even think about the blog and adding posts.
Last year was the first year I ran the Urban Dare and the second year the "tour" made a stop in Lexington. Here are the posts from last year: Urban Dare Post 1 and Urban Dare Post 2. Since I participated last year, I knew a little bit of what to expect.
Without boring you, the Urban Dare is a race similar to the Amazing Race. You register to race in teams of two. This year I teamed up with a co-worker who I talk running/fitness with often, Todd. Todd (in my eyes) is a veteran runner and also an avid cyclist. He cycles nearly everywhere around town and that would greatly turn into an advantage for this race.
Once you show up to the venue check in, you wait around until you see a mass herd of people heading to a location. The venue in this case was Lynagh's pub and we migrated to a nearby park, Woodland Park; the same as last year. The race coordinator announces a few rules and then it happens. BAM! The clues are handed out.
It was a mad dash to grab the clues and then find a spot to solve them. The clue sheet contains 12 clues/riddles that have to be solved correctly to determine the location. At said location(s) you either take a pic (most of the time) of the two of you or complete a dare/task. Oh yeah, one other helpful piece of information, the clues are in no particular order. That means that you have to determine what order you go in to find the most efficient route.
Just to break up all the text, here are Todd and I before the clues were handed out:
There are a few different theories on how best to approach the clue solving. Oh yeah, smart phones are allowed to be used as well as calling others for help. No bikes, skateboards, roller-blades etc are allowed to be used. Some people solve one and start heading that way and wait for their friends to call and tell them the next. Some just solve the clues one at a time going down the list. We chose to solve them all at the beginning and plan accordingly. We sent a pic of the clue sheet to my wife and Todd's fiance to help us solve the clues (thanks ladies!!). As they were solving, we were too on our phones.
It took us probably about 15 or so minutes to solve the clues. It was hard! I thought I had an app (the one I used last year) that would help us. It is supposed to determine the route that is fastest once you input all the destinations. Great! Yeah, not so much. They had some updates to the software and it didn't work. At. All. So that is when Todd took over on the navigation and nailed it! Again, I really think his cycling and knowledge of the town saved us!
OK, now for the fun part. The horrible pictures we took while we were out of breath in between sprints/runs:
First stop - Charlie Brown's (probably one of my favorite local places to eat):
Next up - the art sculptures in front of Singletary Center at UK:
Third stop - a specific theatre located in the Fine Arts building at UK:
Fourth - Memorial Hall on UK's campus:
The fifth stop we took was a dare. We had to find a specific park (I can't remember the name of it now) and run a fairly short distance. Oh yeah, one thing, we had to do it three-legged style; in other words, tied to each other. I think we figured out a quick system right off and we probably looked and sounded like idiots, but we accomplished it quickly.
Sixth and seventh stops - picture outside of Pazzo's and proposing to a non-team member (could have been done at any time during the race):
Last year was the first year I ran the Urban Dare and the second year the "tour" made a stop in Lexington. Here are the posts from last year: Urban Dare Post 1 and Urban Dare Post 2. Since I participated last year, I knew a little bit of what to expect.
Without boring you, the Urban Dare is a race similar to the Amazing Race. You register to race in teams of two. This year I teamed up with a co-worker who I talk running/fitness with often, Todd. Todd (in my eyes) is a veteran runner and also an avid cyclist. He cycles nearly everywhere around town and that would greatly turn into an advantage for this race.
Once you show up to the venue check in, you wait around until you see a mass herd of people heading to a location. The venue in this case was Lynagh's pub and we migrated to a nearby park, Woodland Park; the same as last year. The race coordinator announces a few rules and then it happens. BAM! The clues are handed out.
It was a mad dash to grab the clues and then find a spot to solve them. The clue sheet contains 12 clues/riddles that have to be solved correctly to determine the location. At said location(s) you either take a pic (most of the time) of the two of you or complete a dare/task. Oh yeah, one other helpful piece of information, the clues are in no particular order. That means that you have to determine what order you go in to find the most efficient route.
Just to break up all the text, here are Todd and I before the clues were handed out:
There are a few different theories on how best to approach the clue solving. Oh yeah, smart phones are allowed to be used as well as calling others for help. No bikes, skateboards, roller-blades etc are allowed to be used. Some people solve one and start heading that way and wait for their friends to call and tell them the next. Some just solve the clues one at a time going down the list. We chose to solve them all at the beginning and plan accordingly. We sent a pic of the clue sheet to my wife and Todd's fiance to help us solve the clues (thanks ladies!!). As they were solving, we were too on our phones.
It took us probably about 15 or so minutes to solve the clues. It was hard! I thought I had an app (the one I used last year) that would help us. It is supposed to determine the route that is fastest once you input all the destinations. Great! Yeah, not so much. They had some updates to the software and it didn't work. At. All. So that is when Todd took over on the navigation and nailed it! Again, I really think his cycling and knowledge of the town saved us!
OK, now for the fun part. The horrible pictures we took while we were out of breath in between sprints/runs:
First stop - Charlie Brown's (probably one of my favorite local places to eat):
Next up - the art sculptures in front of Singletary Center at UK:
Third stop - a specific theatre located in the Fine Arts building at UK:
Fourth - Memorial Hall on UK's campus:
The fifth stop we took was a dare. We had to find a specific park (I can't remember the name of it now) and run a fairly short distance. Oh yeah, one thing, we had to do it three-legged style; in other words, tied to each other. I think we figured out a quick system right off and we probably looked and sounded like idiots, but we accomplished it quickly.
Sixth and seventh stops - picture outside of Pazzo's and proposing to a non-team member (could have been done at any time during the race):
Next up - a long trek to the Grey Goose:
The next stop was inside of a small shopping mall. I am sure all the stores loved hot sweaty people running through the "mall" all day long yelling. We had to find a specific shop and answer two Trivial Pursuit questions. Off. The. Same. Card. We did it, but it wasn't pretty.
Tenth stop - The Village Idiot:
The next stop was one of the tall building's downtown. I can't remember the name of it, but it was Lexington's first skyscraper according to the clue:
The twelfth stop was a good jaunt away. Our running caught up to us. We both kept a pretty good pace, but we were winded. Our chatting diminished and our breathing took over. The last stop (before returning to "base") was at another park. At this park we had to solve a small riddle and add some numbers up and submit the correct answer to move on. We did this first try and knew we had a good 1.25 - 1.50 miles to the finish.
We took off running and made it back to Lynagh's pub to check in. We didn't see many teams along the way, so we were feeling pretty good about our finish. If anything, we knew we had nothing left in the gas tank.
We got to the pub, checking in (time stamp on our passport/card) and then had to show the pics to verify we solved the clues correctly and went to the correct destinations. We did it! All correct first try! Score! So, how did we do? You're going to have to wait a little bit...
Before I get into our finishing place, here are the maps from our race. The first is from my Nike+ GPS SportWatch. Todd and I both wore them and used them, but we weren't very good at remembering to pause and start them when we stopped and started back up running. This caused the GPS map to basically connect the stop position and the start position with the straightest line possible. Here is the output from the watch:
The final readout from above says 6.09 miles in 47:07 minutes at a 7'44"/mile pace. I think the pace is pretty accurate. We were moving pretty fast. But the time is skewed because I didn't start the watch until we started running to the first spot and also paused it when we stopped (and forgot to turn it back on at times). So this data isn't very accurate.
That led me to go to my RunKeeper account and use some of the mapping from Nike and recreate the path we ran. I also plugged in the actual start time and duration of the entire race. That means that the pace shown is the pace we ran including all stops and solving the clues (dead stop for at least 15 minutes). Here is the output from RunKeeper:
I'd say that the 7.27 mile distance is pretty accurate for the route we took.
Now, how did we do? Here is a snapshot of the email that was sent out the day after the race with final results:
We got 3rd! There were 124 total teams that showed up for the race. We were pretty pleased with third, but we won't mention the time difference between us and the second place team. Argh!
Here is a picture of the top three teams:
We all got little plaques and the first place team won $300. Also, the top five teams get a free registration to the "Super Dare". Last year it was held in New Orleans and it is yet to be determined for the next one. According to the site the "Super Dare is a fun-filled 3-stage race with an Urban Dare obstacle course, and a trivia quiz on Saturday. On Sunday you will run Urban Dare New Orleans. The team with the best combined score wins $5000." We aren't sure if we will be able to go yet or not, but we are hopeful.
I had a blast and I think Todd enjoyed it as well. I look forward to running more of these in the future if they continue to come back to Lexington. To end this post, here is a picture of Todd and me with our plaque that is now displayed at work:
That's it for now. Until next time blogosphere...
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