I suppose technically this doesn't count as a "race," as next to nobody was running, but considering the hours of walking involved, the football I had to catch, and the fact that I wore my GR1, I'm going to call what I did today an athletic event and therefore worthy of posting about here.
Austin, TX, is chock-full of amazing outdoorsy-type opportunities, from regular races/triathlons to mud runs to various other, more "out there" events (zombie run, anyone?). I was thrilled to discover that not only does Austin host super-tough physical events (well, that part doesn't quite thrill me, lol), but there is also this group called the Austin Sports and Social Club that hosted probably the most fun race-like event I've ever participated in, an "Amazing Race"-like challenge called the Downtown Dash.
Participants (in teams of two) met up at a local sports bar downtown, and from there, hoofed it all over the downtown area in search of places to perform various challenges at, and then reconvened at the start point after completing at least 10 of 12 tasks. If you hated scavenger hunts as a child, this kind of thing likely would not be for you, but lucky for me I friggin' LOVED those things and apparently never got my fill. Today was awesome. Simply awesome.
I started out by loading up my GR1 with supplies--mainly Gatorade. I also packed a brick, because that pesky goruck challenge is looming. I was going to pack both of them but then figured this thing today really ought to be fun, so left one out...and was glad I did since summer appears to start in March here in Texas. But I thought it'd be a good experience to put a little weight in the ruck...that's what it's for, after all, and this would let me traipse all over the city with something heavy (well, heavy-ish) on my back, letting me feel (hopefully justifiably) a bit more prepared for October.
Anyway. Got packed, drove to start location, met up with partner. After hanging out with other participants on the patio and getting a free breakfast courtesy of My Fit Foods, we were herded back into the bar to divide us into start groups. Their technique was trivia questions: they'd ask one, we'd move to the appropriate corner of the bar to indicate our answer, and the correctly-answering group would get their clue sheets first. Great idea in theory. In practice, trying to get 500 or so people to quickly move to another location through single-file-wide passageways was not so pleasant. Still, thanks to wikipedia and some pushing, we were able to get into the right group and were dismissed first.
We were able to figure out the destinations for about half of the clues right off the bat, and set out to find what we thought was the closest one, but even an iphone map app can't work magic, and when we figured out there was no easy way to get to where we were headed, we changed tactics. About six to eight blocks away was a cluster of bars that were all answers to different clues, so we knocked those out first, with some ball-throwing and skeeball challenges, and a round of quarters. We also had to get various photos of ourselves and strangers taken, posted, and liked on facebook...also easy enough. Some of the destinations, though, took us pretty far from the start point, and after 3+ hours of walking through downtown Austin, my friend suggested taking a bus back rather than walking all that way. (Participants were allowed to walk or take a bus, but no cabs/cars/bikes/etc were allowed.) Sounded like a great idea in theory, but it seemed some other event taking place that day had shut down nearly all the streets to through traffic...so there were no buses. My friend decried the event organizers' false promises, but we managed to make it back to the start point without collapsing, and got an ego boost when two guys passed us and asked how many challenges we'd done--only to be dismayed that we'd completed all 10 required, when they had only done six. Go us!
All in all, this was an awesome day to experience a variety of things Austin has to offer. We found some bars to go back to at a later date, got to try our hand at things like catching a football while simultaneously hula hooping, and got to see the different restaurants and shops along (too) many streets. Even better, I got to paddleboard! A stand-up paddleboard company has rentals along a lake downtown, and one of the challenges required one team member to paddle out to a certain point and back. I kept the ruck (and brick) on to paddle...but opted to kneel the whole way, figuring I could test my balance standing when I didn't have other challenges to complete that might be best done not soaking wet. That was definitely the highlight of my day. Taste testing salt was less fun, but probably only because I couldn't do it. Yay having a partner!
Even better, I effectively gave myself a mini-goruck-lite deal for the day. I had one brick rather than four, and according to google maps, covered a distance of...two miles (one way, so four miles, and there was a lot of back and forth, so probably five to six altogether). But I walked around for hours with something on my back and felt like I absolutely could have kept going, so that's a good sign. I also found out I only noticed the weight of the ruck when we weren't talking, concentrating, or doing any challenges...when my mind was occupied, I didn't even notice I had the ruck on. So, goruck people...be ready to entertain me in October!
Race duration: got clues at 10:30, headed out around 11:00, finished at 2:54, so pretty much 4 hours of actively moving around
Placed: 45th (female team division; there were divisions for male, female, and coed).
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