The Chase (was) on!

Another City Chase come and gone. One of my favourite events to do annually. This year, my partner was Matt again (reunited after a successful 2010) but I didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to do the August Chase so I wasn't able to have a team "That's What She Said" reunion with Whitey.

For those of you who don't know what City Chase is, it's like the Amazing Race and puzzle/scavenger hunt type event that is a fun, crazy, urban, non-linear course adventure. There are about 30 clues to choose from (some are mandatory, some have later start times, some end early, etc.) and chasers have 6 hours to complete 10 (that include the mandatory ones). Usually, the winning team finishes in 2-3 hours while many people don't complete the requisite 10 in the 6. There were 600 teams this year, for a total of 1,200 participants.

Matt and I (the GoKart Stumblers, renamed White Banana as our rap group) completed the 10 required checkpoints (and did not go beyond and do EnduroChase, where chasers continue beyond 10 to see how many they can get) in 3:50:00. We thought we'd only done 'ok' because our time wasn't great considering it was a good 45 minutes off our 2010 time. But when we crossed the finish line, we found out we were in 26th place - which was ridiculously surprising and GOOD!

So while there were a ton of different clues and check points to choose from, and that Jer, who should seriously consider a job with CSIS, mapped out for us and got us all strategized by doing our research and figuring out where we should go, here is what Matt and I ended up doing:

-Hard Rock Cafe: 8 mile style, Matt and I had to write a rap with some required words and have a battle against another team. We (clearly) won and took the prize while the other team had to write out all the lyrics to a Beastie Boys song.
-East end of town: Matt had to do my make-up as a hillbilly. I couldn't get the latex on my teeth off afterwards and had a black tooth for most of the morning.
-Monarch Park: Frisbee golf. We rocked it.
-Greenwood Park: Palmolive + plastic bags/tarps + big hill + water = BEST WATERSLIDE EVER. Screw the other sporty stuff we did for 2 check points here. Matt and I did the hill twice.
-Ran with soggy shoes and soaked pants to the EMS station at Eastern and Knox. Decided to be firefighters instead of saving a baby.
-To Cloud Garden we went for some parcour. We rocked that shit!
-Down to check out the Running Room and passed on that one (the eating of the meal worm and touching of repticles or arachnids is soooo 2011).
-Went and TRXed at the Goodlife at Union.
-Did some carabiner rope puzzle at the water and a block away, did some blindfolded kayaking.
-Crossed the finish line and decided to beat the crap out of each other with some American Gladiator style jousting.

14km later, with a belly full of Halibut burrito and beer, I am home.

Soaked but SOOOO happy that we did water slides twice!

Best two out of three...

VICTORY!

Success and can't wait to do it again next year!