GR Urban Adventure Race…July 2011

This summer, my friend Amanda and I participated in the very first Grand Rapids Urban Adventure Race. Basically, teams of two ran and biked all over Grand Rapids, finding checkpoints and completing challenges along the way. Teams had four hours to complete as many checkpoints as possible, and we had low expectations about getting anywhere near to finishing, because well, we just didn’t know what in the world we were getting ourselves into.

The first thing I had to do was to put my bike in the corral until we were ready to complete the bike portion of the race…

And then off I went to find Amanda. There was quite a crowd, considering it was the first race of this kind in GR.

We waited around for a while…which was good, because I needed all that time to examine all the people wandering around me and figure out how the Camelbak that I borrowed worked. It’s not rocket science, but it’s not exactly obvious how you hook it up. On a side note, I have never seen so many Camelbaks in one place in my whole entire life. It was like a Camelbak convention.

Then came the “briefing” and (drum roll please) handing out the maps. We received two maps – one for the on-foot portion and one for the bike portion. Thankfully, the downtown on-foot portion was pretty self-explanatory, but the topographical map for biking was like looking at Greek. I kind of panicked a little bit, because I am HORRIBLE with maps, but then Amanda grabbed it, flipping it this way and that, and seemed to look like she knew what she was doing, so that was…encouraging.

We strategized…and highlighted…and scribbled notes…but basically said, “Let’s head that way” along with most of the other female teams. You could choose to do either the on-foot or bike portion first, but not simultaneously. We opted for the on-foot first, which turned out to be a very good idea.

Our very first stop was at the newspaper stand outside of San Chez to find a hidden clue, thinking that we could then work it into our route. After a few passes, we found the “ad” that told us to go to Calder Plaza…easy peasy. Then we headed up the first of many hills for the day (didn’t quite realize how hilly downtown GR is) and started collecting checkpoints. Each stop had a “punch” with a different pattern, so that you can’t just punch all of them at the same place and then go have breakfast before going to the finish line.

The first challenge was one of the toughest, located at the Higher Ground rock climbing facility. We had to “boulder” around a room, which doesn’t require any harnessing. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that it is any easier, so Amanda and I propped each other up as we slowly moved around the room. I have very little upper arm strength, so my arms were definitely wobbling by the time we were done – plus, I forgot my sunglasses there when we left – not cool.

About halfway through the first leg of the race, we found ourselves over by the JW Marriott, and decided to take a pit stop at the Starbucks inside. Coffee, a banana, a bathroom break…can’t beat it!

We needed the extra sustenance though, as we climbed to the top of a parking garage, climbed down by the Grand River to get a checkpoint, delivered a bus ticket to Degage, and finally made our way back to our bikes. We were already beat, and we still had two more hours to go!!

Bikes. Oh, the bikes. I don’t ride bikes very often, and never for fitness reasons, so it was immediately clear to me that I was going to struggle. But we kept going, up and down hills, around curves, and into the park where they were doing an Angry Birds checkpoint. Have you ever launched eggs out of a slingshot and tried to hit a huge picture of a pig before? Not me…until that very day.

We also ended up on a network of trails that was full of racers. This made it difficult to get lost, which was fine by me.

But the real killer was John Ball Park…there is this gigantic hill that we had to walk our bikes up and then they sent us off into the woods with a rough map and our compass. We might still be there wandering around if we didn’t come across some helpful teams that pointed us in the right direction. The checkpoints were down ravines, perched by water, and well…not sure where the other ones were because we had to dash back into town to be back in time for the end of the race. I thought we weren’t going to make it, but Amanda was pretty confident. She was right…

Here we are…at the end…a little tired out…

…and here’s my lunch, which we ate shortly thereafter. I was starving!!

It was a blast, and I’m about to head downtown for our second race. Actually…I should probably be there already, but I just had to put this up.

And here’s our journey…in a series of short, slightly embarrassing video clips…enjoy!