July: must be time
for another stifling hot summer day race
with Carolyn!Last
year we ran the CitySolve
race in July – when the temperature at 5pm was 100
degrees.Even
took a picture of the temp.This year, we
were running the inaugural
XPlore Adventure Race, created by locals Logan and
Jonathan, which will travel to
nine other cities by November.One
difference is that there’s no championship – you get
points for placing in each
city, with domination points (tie-breakers, more or
less) based on how much
faster you finish than the next team.We
decided to try the first race before deciding whether to
go all-in and get an
All-Access race pass (which the Boston team had already
done).Unsure
of how difficult the clues would be,
we had two folks on support (thanks Jim and Jen!!!),
though we ultimately
needed only one (and it’s so tough to let them know
you’re set when you’re
running down the street while attempting to text).
The race started at
1pm, an hour later than most races (and
1 ˝ hours later than one in particular), which in July
made for an even hotter
day.We
started at the Fieldhouse, an
excellent choice (along with McGillin’s and a few other
places) – centrally located
with quality clues in all directions (as opposed to
starting at the
waterfront).We
would get 13 clues and
had to solve & go to 12 of them – no mandatories and
no bonus clues.We
went through the usual pre-race meeting
(their first one!) and then – we were off!Ran about 15 feet and opened the clue sheet.Always
appreciated:two
copies for each team and plenty of white
space to write things (and white paper, not some dark or
neon color!)Oh,
and highlighting what you needed to do on
each clue – very nice!Carolyn started
with side 2 and I side 1.
Clue 1 was a high
altitude photo grab with stick pin showing
the location of the clue.Despite seeing
City Hall, it was tricky to orient it (especially since
north was down in the
photo – boo hoo for me).The clue turned
out to be near Broad and Vine, close to us but
ultimately the skip.They did add a good math problem that you had
to solve to find the correct floor to find the clue (it
was a parking garage).Clue 2 I knew from experience (even though
they had removed the balloon historic marker several
years ago (not sure why));
3 was one of the ever present tour buses that could be
found all over the city;
4 was the LOVE statue (of course!); and 5 I had actually
heard about before
(that 30th Street station has an airport
code), but Jim confirmed
it.
Onto side 2!Carolyn
knew that 6 was the logo on many of the city newsstands,
so that was easy
enough (good luck looking it up online!); Monopoly was
7; she also knew the
song in 8 (from Fresh Prince and local celeb Will
Smith), which is good since I
didn’t; 9 was any “I” flag; 10 was our local whale mural
near 30th
Street (they are all near rail stations in cities across
the country); 11 was
an anagram for Ben Franklin (thanks again Jim!); 12 I
knew from my rallyes; and
13 could be done at any time.Now, time
to map!
Monopoly (7), Love
Park (4) and Sister Cites (12) were
towards the Parkway.We knew we could
find a tour bus (3) near there; I knew of a Ben Franklin
statue (11) on the way,
and also that the Israel flag (9) was the first one on
the south side of the
Parkway.So,
that is six clues between
here and 18th & the Parkway!We could then motor down 18th, nabbing
a newsstand (6) somewhere
on route, take a trolley (there are five lines that run
on the track from 19th
to 30th so that’s one every few minutes) to
30th Street,
nab the whale (10) and “The One” (5) up there, jump on
the subway down to 5th,
hit the Fresh Prince song (8) and Washington Square (2),
and then use the
fountain to pour water over our heads(13).Simple.
Off we went!First
stop was a picture with Ben, then up the ramp into the
wheelbarrow.Just
missed a Duck Boat, but got a trolley
tour bus at a red light.Then up the
steps to the Love Statue (and no, we are not waiting in
line like everybody else
– off to the side!), and onto the Parkway for the Israel
flag.It
was a few blocks to the Sister Cities,
where we had to each do 10 jumping jacks… over a water
fountain!It
looked like we could get in about 12ish jj’s
in-between the water shooting up, and despite Carolyn
saying “go” while the
water was still shooting up (a good four feet I might
add), we both managed to
stay dry and not knock over any children playing in the
water.Couldn’t
they see we’re in a race (we did
have race bibs on!)?
From there it was a
quick run south on 18th,
checking several newsstands (all wrong!) until we hit
pay dirt on Market!Then, up to 19th, down to the
trolley stop and caught one within two minutes.At the 30th Street stop, we ran a
block+ to get a good shot
of the whale and then into the station to find “The
One.”This
was a person or persons sitting on one
of the dozens of long wooden benches in the center of a
big concourse.We
split up to cover more ground.After
attempting to deduce who it might be, I
just started standing near the middle of the bench and
sortof asking everyone
at once – thinking “The One” would acknowledge me.We finally
converged at the last sector (of
course!) and found three women who gave us the X
acknowledgement (yes!).Apparently no teams got detained by the
transit police over this.We got our
special card, which I tucked safely away and then
sprinted back to the subway.
We waited maybe
five minutes for the subway, and decided
plan A was to use my now empty 16 oz. PowerAde bottle to
pour water on our
heads and plan B was to buy water to chug at the finish
(since neither of us
relished chugging 16 oz. in one shot and then running
several miles).The
subway deposited us at 5th,
and up we bounded to the Liberty Bell pavilion (since
Independence Hall had to
be in the shot).It
turned out to be
trickier than we thought to get some strangers to sing
with us – many did not
speak English or just thought we were crazy.Whatever.We
finally wrangled two
women into singing with us (well, they sang – I got out
the only line I knew
and mumbled along) while another videotaped us.A quick thanks and over to Washington Square,
where we accosted another
group to first shoot us jumping off the fountain and
then videotape one of them
pouring water from my bottle over our head.At least we didn’t have to sing.
Finally, a long and
numbing run north to Market and then
back to the Fieldhouse.I hit the red
zone at about 7th and Market, so it was a
combo fast walk/block run
until we finally hit the cool of the bar.It was really hard to tell how we did when I
entered the finish area
(maybe the heat) - I kept looking around for teams
sitting around and really
had no idea how long we’d been on the course.Turned out it had only been 1:07 (yow!) and we
were first!And
we were hot.This
may have been the first race I had a
glass of water before beer, but not really sure about
that one.Once
we cooled down, we waited for a bit and
then the next three teams came in with 3 minutes of each
other(!).More
teams trickled in, and finally the good ol’
awards ceremony.New
York City, anyone?