by: a.brain
Last Saturday I spent the day running around Washington DC. Not just doing the "tourist" running around thing, but actually RUNNING around DC.
Me and my boy did an Urban Challenge, and it was AWESOME. There are two parts to the Urban Challenege:
1. The Trivia Quiz - which consists of 30 multiple choice questions flashed up on screens in a room (our room was a bar in the basement of the Grand Hyatt in Downtown DC) while the players conferred amongst their team mate and then fill in the bubble on a scan-tron card.
2. Part Deux is the race itself. This is where the REAL FUN happens. The trivia quiz is just there to weed out the stupid people, which apparently included me and the GENIUS running partner of mine, and to determine which group you start with when you go. There were I think - 8 groups that went off on Saturday with many teams in each group. We went off SEVENTH, walked right outside and jumped on the little bus, put our helmets on, and off we went to the playgorund with the low swings. Not, really (but close) - we actually were sent an email on the Verizon phone (they sponsor the event) that told us we would start on clue number 3 and work our way around from there.
It is very important to note that the only way to determine if you and your teammate have been to the correct locations and IN THE CORRECT order is by taking photos and saving them to your gallery with the LG VX6000. Verizon provides the phones for all the Urban Challenge events, and just to note...Urban Challenge donates all proceeds to a very worthy cause ,Big Brothers Big Sisters. So in my mind this is a win -win scenario.
Our first clue was a reference to a type of Portuguese folk music that was popular over 100 years ago with college-age students. That also holds the same name as a type of guitar. Fado - is the style of music, guitar, and turns out a restaurant near Chinatown. We ran over there, snapped a photo and ran to where we thought the next clue would be...
Folks let me tell you the RACE was on. It was non-stop action from that moment on. I can't remember having more FUN during a race - you gotta try it. Me and running bro are doing KC on September 18th...see you there.
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