Urban Dare

So Sunday Wes and I competed in our first Urban Dare. I had never heard of it before, but Groupon offered a discount on it so we signed up. Basically it's a challenge to complete checkpoint dares and getting required photos as a two-person team (and stay together the whole time). You can complete the checkpoints in any order but you have to run, walk, or use public transportation to travel. NO other ways of transportation is allowed (no cars, taxis, bikes, etc.). 

There were well over 200 teams racing so chances of us winner were slim.


 At the beginning of the race, they gave us a clue sheet and a passport. Basically, it was a run that was part photo hunt, part trivia and part dares. We had to solve the clues on the sheet to find the checkpoints throughout the city. To move on we had to either take pictures to prove we were there or perform dares to earn stamps on our passport. The key to it all...we could cheat on the clues. We were allowed to call anyone, use smart phones, whatever is helpful.


We came with a game plan. First solve all the clues, then put them in order of route we would take to do them. We decided to use our trivia team mates as our phone-a-friend, as well as have our Moms on stand-by. That would have been the first mistake. Amanda and Patrick had their re-house warming party the Saturday before so to say it nicely-Patrick wasn't fully there (mainly because like Wes, he woke up still a lil' drunk) and Mom & Debbie aren't the most computer savvy.


For those who know me also know I don't like to lose so needless to say I became very frustrated with my phone-a-friends slowness. Mistake #2: threw game plan out the window and once we answered a clue we began to run toward it. It was clue 3: Get your picture with the sculpture Three red lines. Thanks to Patrick, we found it in front of the Frist.


We also new right away that clue 5: Go to Roy Orbison's star on the Music City Walk of Fame for your weelbarrow dare was in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame near the Frist so while our phone-a-friends were working on the rest of the clues we went toward it. On our way there, we passed a family of tourist with a young daughter and I figured they'd probably help us out with Clue 1: Take a picture of someone not in the race doing a cartwheel. I was right, however because of being in a hurry and also getting excited to mark off a clue I didn't finish reading all of Clue 1 before crossing it off. Mistake #3 because the rest of Clue 1 was: AND a picture of 4 people not in the race posed as if they were shooting a bow and arrow. That family of tourist were a Dad, Mom, daughter & son and I'm sure they would have easily helped with that as well.

We got to the star at the same time as another team and agreed if they took our picture, we'd take theirs. I don't think I can claim that as a mistake because it's all in good nature but it was definitely a time killer because they didn't have a digital camera just an i-phone that was super testy. It took forever. I ran to the dare impatiently and waited for Wes to catch up. We then had to do a wheel barrow race around cones where a member of Urban Dare would stamp our passport when finished. Sorry no pictures of it (no time to stop and pose).

By then, our phone-a-friends had come through with answers to more clues, but they were on the other side of town so while we were downtown we took on Clue 9: Get your picture with this downtown mural. You'll find it near all the live music joints. Finding this mural would prove to be our Achilles Heel. We showed that image to cops, waitresses, shop owners, random people on the streets and nothing. Not one person knew where to find it. We spent at least 45 min. jogging up and down streets and avenues looking on the side of every brick building downtown only to find it staring us in the face on the side of Legends bar past the Ryman. We only ultimately found it after seeing other teams getting their picture too. 

We also spent a good amount of time trying to find the Salvation Army after both Mom and Patrick told us it might be the answer to Clue 11: According to Joe Hill's song The Preacher and the slave, you will get this when you die. Get your picture with the establishment that goes by this name. Come to find out the "this" it was talking about was the Pie and the Sky pizza place which is not downtown, but across the interstate off West End which makes Mistake #5 (if the mural is #4).


That take us to our team mistake #6, which is also Clue 4: Get your picture with Owl's Lookout. This clue was a hard one. Wes's stepdad, in his usual fashion, wanted to make the challenge harder than it was and thought that the Owl's Lookout was based on a song from a band and we needed to get  picture in front of a club they once played at. Not sounding like a justifiable answer we followed yet another team and got our picture in front of Hooters-WRONG! After we got home after the race 

I found out that the Owl's Lookout is actually a bronze statue in front of the Vanderbilt Library.


From then on, the clues began to fall into place. It had a lot to do with the fact that my sister was now involved and that instead of computer searches, my Mom used the phone to call her local Nashvillian cousin as well as local establishments looking for answers.


It started to fall together. Clue 7: Steve McQueen starred as Captain Virgil Hilts in this movie. Get your picture in front of the establishment with this name. Thanks to Patrick we knew it was The Great Escape.



Then Debbie gave us to the address for Michaelangelo's pizzeria which was the answer to Clue 8: He is most famous for painting the Sistine Chapel. Get your picture in front of his restaurant. 
Then after Mom called the local Pink Berries, as well as my sister helping locate a local neon sign we were able to knock Clue 2: Nashville's newest frozen yogurt store officially opened for business on Friday. Get your picture in front of it. and 2:00 min. bonus clue: Get your picture with a neon sign that says "free smells". right out since they were in the same strip mall.



It was all falling into place. Sadly, we passed a team who had finished along the way so we knew we weren't close to winning. At this pointing finishing was the only option. My knee had pooped out already so we were run/walking the rest of the way. I know the rules allowed us to use public transportation and even though we passed many bus stops, I never once saw an actual bus along the way.


Clue 6: I gave my best to make a better world is the inscription on a local memorial. Go there for you scrabble stick dare. Using the numbers on the scrabble sticks, add up the value of the word on your passport. Our word was Barnacles. I ran around finding the letter values and Wes wrote them down, then we used my phone to accurately add them up (123) fast to earn our passport stamp and move on.


We were on our last clue. Clue 10: Find the Urban Dare official by the building with the quote "The brain is wider than the sky", for your bubble dare. Debbie had answered this clue earlier (The Vanderbilt Science Building), but Vanderbilt is a spread out campus so Whitney was helpful in navigating us to it based on our current location. There one of us had to stick our face in a pile of Whipped Cream to find gum and then proceed to blow a bubble. Wes had no problem volunteering me for it. Once again- no picture.


We had completed them all. However, there was 10 minute bonus clue: Get your picture with the item shown here. 

and Mom had already found the address of it's location so we went after it. Since we had the address, I thought this would be an easy challenge. This is when I found out that my cell phone navigation isn't the best when on foot. Once again Whitney was key into navigating us directly there.

Officially Finished! All we had to do was get back to Dan McGuinness to get our official time. Too bad the statue, which would have taking 10 min. off our time took us 15 min. to find. Oh well! When it was all done, we had fun. It was frustrating as hell, but really exciting to do something different. We'll do it again next year, but since the winning team finished in 1:21:38 and we finished in 141 with a time of 2:50:24 (that's with time penalties for missed clues and 12 min. bonus time)there's really no hope in winning so we'll make it interesting. Amanda and I will team up against Wes and Patrick and we'll see who wins out of our two teams. I'm looking forward to it already. Amanda and I will totally DOMINATE!!! Wes and I  at least didn't finish last. There were 56 other teams behind us. Don't worry to do the math about how many teams were in this because there were quite a few ties so it messes up the numbers. Next year it's on with new clues, new challenges, new partners, new phone-a-friends and a better game plan for a much better race. At least the proceeds go to a great cause. Look for an Urban Dare in your town!


http://www.urbandare.com/


If it's gonna happen sometime...
   Then why not now!

I'm not dead! (I might feel that way though)

Hello old friends...it’s been a while. I’ve been super MIA. Well at least in the blogging world. In real life I’ve been still completely occupied by wedding season (yes it’s still that season for Wes and I) as well as training for my first (and only) ½ marathon. Exciting, exciting and completely exhausting.

Since Justyne and Dustin’s Wedding I’ve thrown Wes a 30^th birthday party full of moon pies, Vienna sausages, beef jerky, pork rinds, RC cola, trash can punch, keg, football and a 200X20 ft. slip n’ slide.

Then I got the pleasure of joining one of my oldest friends for her bachelorette party down in New Orleans. Nola may have had the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina but it took them no time to get back to the familiar smell of beer, piss and vomit on the streets. By no means is Harrahs a friend of mine, nor were they wanting to keep me there (it showed with the lack of drinks they brought my way). I kept my promise to Wes and stayed away from hand grenades. I only wish I would have stayed away from other things like nasty whore shots, smoking, and stuffing my face full of food in order to ward off the results of too much Fat Tire. All and all, it was a great time meeting new people, reuniting with old acquaintances and  torturing Jessica with the rituals that can only be done once during your bachelorette weekend.

And then there's the training...

Ten weeks dedicated to running five out of seven days and strengthening the other two all to run 13.1 miles on October 3rd. Throughout the training, part of me thought 'hey i'm already running 13...I might as well double it and go ahead and run the full thing'. My endurance was there for sure. Miles 1-3 were my weakness and then after mile 3, my heart rate slowed and my breathing returned to normal and then it was a day in the park. I really boring day in the park, but easy none the less. Running is not a passion of mine and will never be. I don't enjoy it, I just wanted to accomplish this. My mind, my endurance, my determination (stubborness) was all in it. My body, however had plans of it's own. As the weeks passed and my long run became more and more, I begin to feel intense pain in parts of my body I had forgotten about. I was aging more and more each mile I logged. The worst at first was my hips. I thought they were protesting and no long letting my legs move back in forth. I began a glucosamine regimen and my Chiropractor gave me stretches but nothing helped. Then my knee (which a was finally leaving me alone) decided to join in on the party. Still I kept it up. The week before the race, I hurt but I was feeling confident in myself. I ran 12 miles in 2 hours. I was sure I'd be able to tack on another one and even cut back on time. I wanted to push to finish the whole thing in 2 hours or less. I now know I peaked too early.

The race was in Findlay, OH. I ran with my college girlfriend Danielle and her sister, as well as some of her sister's friends. It was 40 degrees that morning. So cold, I thought my bones were frozen. The race started our fine. I hate crowds. I'm soooo not a group runner, so when it started, I did as I always do (like a rookie) and ran hard to get away. I finished the first mile in 7:45. It was way too fast so I put the breaks on and found the 4 hour full marathon pacer and ran behind trying to keep up. All was fine, I was making great time keeping around a 9 mile pace. Around mile 5 my knee started to ache, but I pushed it beside and continued. 

Mile 6, Danielle caught and passed me after she spent the weeks before totally hustling me saying she wasn't even sure if she'd run it because her feet hurt so bad. She ran like a horse galloping along taking in the sights. It annoyed me a little because she had no care in the world and I'm a girl on a mission, but hey if your better, your better. There's nothing I can do about it. 

In between mile 6 and 7 we had to do a turn around and I noticed I was as far behind Danielle as I imagined. So then I was determined to catch up. My belly had different out come. Right after the turn around I hit the port-a-potty fast. I thought I might poop my pants. Crisis was over come and I continue. This time with a 40 mph head wind. Wes, the lovely person he is, decided to laugh and joke with me that the wind blew his hat off just standing. News flash: it's not so funny to laugh about a strong head wind to a person who has to run 5 miles into it. At the next mile marker I had to hit the john again. Not my best day. That head wind was awful. I could feel my whole body pushing but felt as if I was going NO WHERE! It hurt. My knee, my hips, my confidence were all failing me. By mile 10, I had already resorted to running stiff legged on my right side (Forrest Gump style). 

I spent the rest of the race balling crying and explaining to passer-byers that I was all right and didn't need help. At that point I knew I was never going to get my ideal time, I just wanted finish. After mile 12 when a volunteer told me to go left to run the full or stay straight to finish the half, I wanted to hit her. "DO I LOOK LIKE I'M DOING THIS WHOLE DAMN THING AGAIN" is what i wanted to say but I managed a smile and trucked on. I thought I was in last place. I saw no one around me and I was so disappointed. When I saw Wes I buried my face in his chest and cried. I was happy to finish but was sad that after ten weeks of getting ready for this, it was out of my hands. My body doesn't want me to be a runner.

Danielle finished in about 2:08:88

Jessie (Danielle's sister) 2:08:95

Here I come...the straggler!

2:23:78 is what the clock said but in the pain of it all I forgot to turn my watch off. I remembered after I sat down with a nurse and she was wrapping it so I believe I finished in about 2:20. Still super disappointing, but after all that I still want those three minutes to now count.

I wish I could say that I plan on running another one so that I can prove to myself I can do better, but it's highly unlikely. For the weeks after my right knee was black & blue. I was completely swollen through my knee, calf, ankle and foot. So much so, that Wes had to help my out of my boots. Still, I wake up stiff and swollen and I hurt to walk down stairs or after I've sat down for too long. I don't know what caused so much pain since I haven't been to the doctor. I figure if I can walk, it must not be that bad. I have a 10K in November and I promised Wes that if my knee bruised bad again that I'd get it checked out. I don't see why it matters since I only hurt when I run and I am retiring my running shoes after the Calloway Garden Run in November. I'm happy I finished but I'm still disappointed with the results. However, you can't fight fate and as I say:

If it's gonna happen sometime...

    Then why not now?