City Chase 2010

Saturday, Julie and I competed in the Dallas CityChase with Sunny & Aaron, and Erin & Casey. Its a 2-person team, but you are allowed to work with other teams. This race, like the Urban Dare and Great Urban Race forces you to solve clues and stratergize a route (on foot or with use of public transporation only) to hit the required checkpoints and perform the required challenges at each checkpoint. This race stretched way beyond the boundaries of any of the other races we had done, and our previous strategy of just running to the locations failed us for this event. Our lack of knowledge of the bus system ended up making us work much harder than most teams, but in the end, we did get all 10 punches (most of the 360+ teams that we saw at the finish line did not get all of theirs punched).

Here was our approximate route:


The Cassholes


The Team:


This race was a little different (and I liked it) that we had to do a short scavenger hunt before we could even get our clue sheet to start the race


...and then we were off...


...to the Red Brick Courthouse for a BlackBerry photo hunt...



...Ten Sports Bar on Main Street for a Wii bowling challenge...



...and to Thanksgiving Tower for a "parquor" challenge...



While we were "parquor-ing", Jeremy (aka Johnny Google Nuts) came up with a clutch clue-find. We had him searching for Paul's gym, and he figured out it was really Pulse Gym we should have been looking for, and Sunny saw it right as we were leaving that challenge. If Jeremy hadn't texted the answer just in time and if Sunny hadn't seen it as we were walking out, we never would have found this one...NEVER. Inside Pulse Gym, we had to pick a bag of candy out of basket. I didn't hesitate to snag the peanut M&M's. As soon as I grabbed them, I went "DOH" as I just realized what we were going to have to do. We had to hop on a stairclimber and work until we burned the number of calories in the candy we chose. Wups, Peanut M&M's was the worst choice (90 calories), so I had to work my butt off to not hold up the group.


The next phase of the race is where if we had a decent knowledge of the DART system, it would have really paied off. We had to make our decision based on things we could get reasonably run to, and it was hot Hot HOT! We made our way north to Pike park to shoot some baskets (and Sunny tried to die along the way)
At Pike park, we had to shoot a free-throw and a layup. Luckily we could trade off partners, so Julie hit the free throw and I hit the layup. If I had to hit the free throw, I'm pretty sure I'd still be there right now.



This was the Magnolia theater, and this was NOT one of the locations we were supposed to visit...and this mistake ended up costing us pretty huge.


We hit the T-Mobile store in West Village for another BlackBerry challenge, where one partner has to text message you on another scavenger hunt through West Village then get back to the T-Mobile station.


halfway up McKinney avenue on the long trek to West Village, Sunny was about to die, so she and Aaron had to drop out of the race and find some fluids.

The rest of us were off to Cole Park for a Flip Cup challenge (with a twist). Instead of beer, you had to eat a live mealworm....yes, LIVE meal worm. I didn't understand the instructions so I just reached into the cup, pulled one out and ate it, so actually had to eat 2 (the second one as part of flip cup game). The loser of the flip cup match (vs another team) had to eat a LARGE LIVE MEALWORM. Those things were disgusting, so I'm glad Julie was on the mark with her flipping.




Erin and Casey were going to skip the mealworm challenge but if they did, then it would mean we would have to find some other checkpoint to make up for this one, and that would mean more running. We were exhausted, so luckily they stepped up and ate the worm.
Also, they won their challenge (BARELY), so they celebrated not having to eat the big worm...


Our last long trek was from Cole Park to Reveshon Park (via the Katy Trail) where we could knock out two challenges in the same area, (skipping GRIGGS PARK and then making up for our "wrong theater mishap")

The two challenges in that area were kinda lame, a step challenge and then singing some CAR-EOKE. You had to do the singing with a stranger and it was in a part of Dallas were there was nobody around, so we had to force some little girl to get in a car with strangers, while Erin and Casey had to pay some shirtless guy $1.


There, we had 10 punches, time to get home via the bus route Jeremy (aka JGN) had mapped for us, the #29 bus would get us within a mile of Gilley's. Unfortunately, we had to wait almost 30 minutes for the bus, during which time 3 other teams had joined us at the busstop just minutes before the bus got there. There was no way we were gonnna let them beat us after we had been that far ahead of them, so Julie made us sprint the last mile to get back




Our bodies were done, finito, 5.5 hours of this business.


And here was the route again....