« Becca's New Bike! | Main | O'Dells 6A »
August 23, 2005
Urban Adventure
A few weeks ago, my father and I competed in the second annual Urban Adventure here in Burlington. Finally, RunVermont.org has posted some photos from the event, so I decided it was probably about time to write a post on our experience. If you've seen The Amazing Race on TV, you're probably somewhat familiar with the general concept: we were given about a dozen clues that led us to various checkpoints around Burlington. The distance between each clue was no more than two miles, and you were allowed to use any resources to solve the clues (yes, even the internet), provided your resource-checker wasn't working for another team. It must have looked pretty funny, because there were about 40 people running around Burlington with race numbers on, cell phones glues to their ears, and books in their hands they were attempting to read while sprinting across city streets.
Considering that we ran about 15 miles without any training, my father and I did remarkably well. I'm actually really impressed with my father, because he hadn't done any sort of training since the marathon, and he was keeping up with Miss I-Workout-Two-to-Three-Hours-A-Day. Probably the most annoying part of the race was right at the end, because the final clue couldn't be found anywhere online. Poor Karl and Becca were at my dad's house online, frantically trying to find out how many trains passed through Burlington on an annual basis in the early 1900s. They were even calling historical societies, but to no avail. Finally, we found the answer on a plaque on the opposite side of the train station, but now without about 10 minutes of frantic searching. Overall, we came in third with a time of 2:44:02, and we had the third-fastest orienteering time. More importantly, though, we had tons of fun, and we're definitely planning on an even more competitive time next year.
Posted by rgutwin at August 23, 2005 05:25 PM
Comments
Actually, your dad looks like he's beating you there, Miss I-work-out-two-to-three-hours-a-day...
Posted by: Diana at August 26, 2005 12:38 PM
Well, we couldn't cross the finish line until we knew the answer to the train question, so we were both looking around for some plaques to give us the answer.
Posted by: Rebecca at August 27, 2005 12:47 PM