by Barrie
Sierra Adventure Sports always puts on a fun race
, and while this was an urban scavenger dash, not a “true” Adventure Race, it was LOTS of fun. Steve Moore and I teamed up for the umpteenth time and scoured the city weeks ahead of time to figure out where they might take us. We figured they would use Old town (not 
), Balboa Park (only 1 CP 
), maybe Little Italy (1 CP 
) and downtown (lots of CP’s 
). We also learned all the trolley stops and times between stations, plus all the new bus routes and drop-off’s – but did not need them.- Team Equinox
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The race started at noon with a single clue given at 11:59, telling us to go to William H Davis Museum. Hugh? Fortunately you can Google that and it was 1 block away so when the horn sounded we dashed for the clue sheet. You had to visit 11 of 12 checkpoints, where you mostly took a photograph to prove you were there. But there were challenges, a detour and we had to bring a napkin back from one restaurant.
We had a good group of research people and the first thing we did was photograph the clue sheet and email it to George who printed it and had Jill, David, Ann and Jo solving clues as we teamed with Kristine and Kathryn to figure what we could in the park. K&K was one team in the race and were a separate team but worked together to solve the clues before we figured the route to take
.- Research team
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All those plans of assigning clues to individuals so we were not working on the same clue at the same time seemed to evaporate as the excitement of being “in the race” took over. If you are interested here are the clues – how would you have done
1.. You’ll need to suspend your fear of heights as you cross Kate Sessions Canyon on Historical Site No. 116. [Picture of both teammates]
2.. Picture both teammates with Brighamia insignis, found in this well known building (a picture of the Botanical Building in Balboa Park was part of the clue).
3.. This man purchased 960 acres in the San Diego Bay area in 1867 for only $266. A hotel and plaza are named after him. Picture one teammate with his bronze likeness.
4.. Picture one of you posing with a mannequin. (The kind you find in a department store).
5.. Alfred Eisenstaedt earned fame with his two dimensional portrayal. Seward Johnson did it in three dimensions. Find it. [Picture of both teammates]
6.. Discover Nature at Seaport Village and picture one teammate as a Surfing Monkey. You’ll know your there by his distinctive blue and white striped bodysuit.
7.. You’ll have to lead your teammate through this exercise at Invictus Fitness. The challenge must be completed between 12:30 and 3:30.
8.. To find this next stop, you must first access YELP.com. One reviewer wrote this about it “I like to call it the Edward Scissorhands house. It was late at night and all I saw was the greenery, and, alas looking up, is the grandiose wonderland.” Find this lush spot and picture one teammate with what you find there.
9.. At some point during the race you must either take a picture of both members with an Arizona license plate, or both team members and someone in a military uniform.
10.. “New York style pies and Florentine inspired pastas”. Bring a takeout menu back to the finish.
11.. N irtrgnevna Zrkvpna rngrel. Find this and you’ll find your next challenge. Challenge must be completed between 12:30 and 3:30.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M (letter above equals letter below, and vice versa)
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
12.. Picture one of you with the commemorative brick for Mr. Padre’s 2,500 th recorded hit. Found in the Park at the Park.
Okay, you are on the clock.
GO!! It took us about 15-20 minutes to figure it out, but remember we had help, so get with your friends and start using Google, Bing, Ask and Yelp, and see how fast you are!!From the clue sheet, without any computer we really only knew the location of: #2 (the picture showed it in Balboa Park – but what is a “Brighamia insignis”). We knew #3, as had read enough history of San Diego, and we knew where the statue was too. #4 and #8 we figured we just had to be opportunistic and looking. #6 we were told was at Seaport Village, and #12 we were told was at Park at the Park, and we knew where both those places were, so it would be just a short “search” to find the specific location. When Kristine solved #11, Steve immediately knew that David knew the location as he had been asking to go to the restaurant. So basically we had solved 7 of the 12 locations in short shrift.
The phone line was burning up as we traded clues and ideas with the computer geeks, and we found half a dozen gymnasiums in the city. Steve and I had wandered past one of them a week ago, so that helped (and it was on the way from Seaport Village to Little Italy, where we guessed #11 would be). I wrote an address for #11 as 845 India Street (so we figured it was in Little Italy).
A pattern was emerging as to the layout of the checkpoints and when we felt we had them pretty well placed we took pause and made our plan. It was to forego CP12 (remember we only had to get 11 checkpoints - but keep it in our pocket as the backup checkpoint since it was close to the finish). The plan was CP6 – Seaport Village, CP5 – along the Embarcardero, CP7 – the Invictus gym, CP10 – the restaurant in Little Italy. Then some hill work as we jogged up Bankers Hill to CP1 on the Spruce Street bridge. Somewhere before or after that was CP8 – Edward Scissorhands (we had Yelp’ed it and had a photo of the trimmed bushes, but were unsure the optimum way to get to it). From there cross Balboa Park and get CP2, then down Park Blvd to CP11 then to Horton Plaza for CP3.
Steve took off at warp speed as we raced across roads, wove in and out of folks walking their dogs and enjoying the last moments before the rain was due to fall, and all too quickly passed the monkey at Seaport Village. In fact we think we went past it twice before realizing it was at the “Discovery Nature” STORE. So now our crew was telling us to hold back the adrenaline and slow down just a bit.
Along the embarcardero I slowed us as I could not keep Steve’s pace, so we alternately jogged and walked. We had a tourist take our photo at “The Kiss” (and he took a video, but it did show is at the landmark). We then found Invictus on Columbia Street and after a drink from the fountain and a few seconds to bring down the pulse, we read the clue. One person had to walk about 30 ft across a boxed off area while blindfolded. Spread in the box were small cones and if a cone was touched you had to start over. Steve started blindfolded and my directions were “right foot forward” – he took a mini-step, I learned. “Full step forward with the left foot” – well done. “Right foot forward” – ooh close to a cone, but still okay. “Full step with left foot.. (too close to cone), NOOO shorten it a bit
” – Steve has trouble with balance and he barely touches the cone – Start over. We talked before he started the second run and I learned to think the instruction fully, then tell him, rather than trying to adjust mid-stride and have him get unbalanced. While we were doing this challenge Kathryn and Kristine arrived and our competitiveness with them had the heart rate higher, plus they got ahead of us when I stuttered and the foot touched the cone. But second run was clean and we were out of there trying to ditch K&K as fast as we could.- Smiling with the Competition
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We had some confusion as we worked our way into Little Italy. The crew told us the restaurant was between Fir and Grape, but I had an address of 845 India and we were in the 1300 block and the numbers were going up. Maybe it was 845 S India not 845 N India. But that never made sense with the Fir-Grape location either. Steve was trying to get clarity as we got to Fir and were in the 1900 block. The address was actually 1845 (so that was mistake 1) and it was between Elm and Fir (mistake 2). Plus we actually had the name wrong – must have been the phone connection! But we found it and were on our way to the bridge.
Here we had more confusion as we were climbing hills, walking slowly, figuring our way to the other side of the freeway (not all streets go through), and also wondering if it was better to go to CP8 before CP1 or after. We got to the First Street Bridge which is a Historic Landmark (there was just news about it s re-opening after renovation) and I had that confused with the Spruce Street Bridge which is 2 blocks further up the hill. Fortunately a local jogger told us this was Maple Canyon and Kate Sessions Canyon was up the road. Whew! Dodged a bullet there as we would have otherwise spent 10 minutes looking for the historic marker. When we got to historic marker 116 we had no idea how to get to CP8 as we never had a map on us of that part of town. But we figured about 4 block over to Union, and 3 blocks up to Vine so that was about 7 blocks of hills to get CP8. It took 2 seconds to nix getting CP8 as the Tony Gwynn clue was only about 5 blocks from the finish line and on flat ground (wow were we ever lucky skipping this CP, when we located it on the map after the race was over, it was way, way, way out of the way, and in a huge maze of streets that we know nothing about).
From Spruce Street we knew the route to the Botanical House and along the way reviewed what we had completed and what we still had to do. That got us looking for Arizona plates and going through Balboa Park found a car. At the Botanical House we were attempting to run in a very crowded area looking for the plant or someone for help. He spotted us first and yelled “If you stop running, I’ll show you the plant”. Sounded like a deal to us because (a) he was a big fella and (b) he yelled really loud so we knew we were not as discrete as we thought we were.
From there we ran down to CP11 which we figured was an eating challenge, and we also changed our plan as we now had to visit Petco Park. The eating challenge was cool with both of us, it was to eat a pickled hard-boiled egg. The flavor was no problem, however, the dry yolk was hard to swallow and we had no water with us, but Steve popped a Monster he had, and we used that to wash down the food.
Finding the brick was no problem and then on our way to the Horton Statue we found a shop on Fifth with a mannequin in the window and I took a picture of Steve so quickly we never gave the sales people time to tell us to get out of their display area.
- Cool tats
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On the way to the finish Steve finally looked at the time and if we could get to the end in 5 minutes we would break 2 hours. No matter how much you are hurting a goal like that is all the carrot I need to pick up the feet. We finished in 1 hour 55 and after getting our breath back realized we were first back to Last Resort. Our goal was to do well, first place was pretty good.
- Back Door
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We hung out for the next few hours as the other contestants finished and listened to all the stories of who had done good things and who had messed up. The atmosphere was gala and everyone was really open to chatting about their experience. It was a very fun and challenging race. I happened to have my GPS with and it showed we did 8.07 miles. I guess winter is over and I better get in shape for summer or at least get in shape to run with Steve.
Thanks to Rick and Jill from Sierra Adventure Sports for putting on the race. As always, a huge thanks to the race volunteers, and to our crew who kept us on course and confirmed our “guesses” as we located checkpoints. Scavenger Dashes are in 17 cities this year and anyone who wants a fun 4 hours of running around their city should definitely enter the race. You will be surprised at how much you can learn about your city, and how much you do not know. It’s lots of fun and if that is your goal you will not be disappointed.
