Well, in my home town we have this races called The Urban Adventure Games (UAG). The best part about this race was the fact that yes, it is a race, BUT only 5% or so of the people in that race are actually there to win! Most of the people are there to have fun!
People were so nice and were willing to help other races out and even let them go ahead of them. No one was pushy and everyone cared about the other racers!
You start on foot, run to your bike, then bike all over South Bend, IN and even in to Mishawaka, IN. As you are going through this there are challenges that you have to over come... that you can see in the map.
I did this race with my brother and we had a giant slip and slide to do, we had to stand on a surfboard and paddle in to the river and back, there was rafting on the East Race, swimming, zip lines, mental challenges and anything you can think of!
It was an absolute BLAST, so much fun! The only downside is that I am VERY sore! Its almost 2 days after it and I am still in pain! hah!
I was in the Family/ Junior division. I raced with my brother Wil. He is my half brother and is 15 years old.
I picked him up at 6 in the morning and headed in to South Bend. Once we got in to down town you could feel the excitement in the air. This was the 5th year they have done this race but the first year that I was able to be part of it.
The first thing that you have to do is take your bikes to the staging area. It is a secured parking garage that only racers and the race officials are able to get in to. Once we did that we walked over to the former College Football Hall Of Fame (which has moved and is now called the Gridiron)
Once we got there it was about 630 am. It was like a big party! There was a DJ playing music and everyone doing their last minuet things to get ready for the fun day ahead.
At about 7 am there was a rules meeting that everyone had to attend. It was a quick meeting that went over the rules once last time and answered any questions that people had. Like phones, You CAN have more than one BUT they are only used to take pictures and for emergencies.
Once that happened we were given our race maps and 30 min to come up with a strategy to run the race. Up to that point we have NO idea where anything is located so your pretty much SOL for that. (see the map picture to get an idea of where we were going) We decided to do it in sections. We would do one big loop getting all the check points in each section then moving on to the next section and so on. (see the numbers by the check point names)
Now we had to wait. We were the last wave to go. The elite group started at 8am, open started at 8:10am and we started at 8:15am. I have to say I have never had that much fun at a starting line. I have done races before and at the starting line no one talks and they all just look forward. We were all joking and laughing and even messing with the race director and she was making jokes back! That made the race so much better!
Here is a video of the Elite group starting their race!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLBnpL7ygw8
Once we started someone knew of a short cut down and alleyway to our bikes and we all followed. Man was that crazy! there was about 100 people running down an alley that was filled with dumpsters and everything! Thank god no one got trampled. Well, We grabbed our bikes and headed out to our first check point.
We started by doing the south part of the South Bend check points. Our first one was the Farmers Market. We got there one member had to count ducks that were moving in a pool and the other had to go in shopping. We had to get apples, beans, celery and some thing else that I cant remember right now. Once we got done we had to run to a table and get checked and we were good. All of the food was donated to the homeless shelter.
We then went to the YMCA where there was painting and archery, and I will apologize for being horrible at it even though that is my hunting preference! Wil had to do that one! :(
Then we moved on to IUSB were there was a matching game that we had to do. It was pretty easy so we blasted through that one!
Next for us was the Potawatomi Zoo area ones. There is a community pool and Wil jumped in and had to get 36 cents. He destroyed that one! We then biked to the zoo and had to walk to the far back corner and find a zoo person, get our hand stamped, and walk back to the entrance to move on.
Then we moved on to the Adams High School ones. There was there here. One was at the tennis courts were we had to play badmittion where we had to hit it back and forth 4 times in a row (we destroyed it), Then went to the pool where we were in an inflatable raft and had to paddle the pool. (see pic below) and then we had to go to the softball field where we had this huge pair of underwear and we had to put 10 dodgeballs in it and run the field.
Next we were able to move on to the River Walk in Mishawaka which was the best part! There was 3 more to do here.Our first one we were on these paddle boards and we had to paddle in to the St Joe River and had to come back around a bouie. I had to stay on my knees. ( I have HORRIBLE balance) (see pic below)
Then our next one was a marine low crawl. There were marines that were screaming at you, and dumping water on you, but We FLEW though that one. Tore the heck out of our knees but it took only a few seconds. Then we were off to the one that we were waiting for! THE ZIP LINE! This is the check point that made the race so popular. Up till then there was nothing like that around here. Once it was announced that it was going to be in the race that is when people started flocking to the race. Below is the video of me going on it! Yes, I took my phone over the river on a zip line haha.
I don't know if you can hear the guy in the vid he says "Ok im gonna tell you when were gonna go" then he says it one more time and then says "No I wont" he waits a few seconds and pushes me off!
After that we noticed that it was 11am already! Time sure does fly when you are having run. The check points cut off at noon. Once noon hits you can not get in line for anymore check points. We had about a 3-5 mile bike ride back to South Bend so we knew that we had only a few more check points that we were going to be able to do. We hustled it back to South Bend.
Once we got back we had to do an elliptical bicycle around a parking lot. ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS TO RIDE EVER! Here is a pic of one. You use your hands to peddle and your feet and body to turn.
We then moved on to the slip'n'slide. This is where I made my mistake of the race. I rand and jumped on it but the ground was not as forgiving as I thought it would be. I have a huge bruise on my butt now! haha! but i slid down and was covered in dish soap! But hey! as least I smelt better!
At this time it was 1145 so we had time for maybe 2 more. We went to St Joe High School and had to do an course that involved hula hoops, jump ropes, soccer balls and tennis balls while wearing a mask that you could hardly see out of! I learned I can not do a hula hoop AT ALL. I had everyone laughing!
We RACED to our last check point of the day which was at Madison Center (not sure what they call it today) We had to make a name tag by taring out pictures of a magazine that defined who we are! We were the last ones to make it to that one. As we were leaving it was 12:05pm so we had to head back to the finish line.
That was probably the worst bike ride of them all. We were BEAT. I mean we had ridden bikes for at least 15-20 miles went up hills, down hills, running all around, doing all kinds of things. But we made it and you know what was awesome! The people there were cheering and high fiveing us like we had won the whole race! It was amazing! I had almost no more energy and I felt like I was the grand champion!
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat I would! I will be doing it every single year! I have not had that much fun in a single day in YEARS!!! Am I sore?? Yes! Am I chafed?? Yes! Am I excited for next year? You bet your butt!
Did I mention the after party with free beer for those who are 21 and older? No, well its there!
Did I learn anything?
Yes, TRAIN! TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN! I am training for a marathon so that helped me a little but I should have done a lot more which I will be doing I would say you should ride your bike a lot and make sure you do hills. That's what drained me. I used a mountain bike which helped be cut corners a little but a road bike would have been faster!
I CAN NOT WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR!
I will post more pictures from the race including some vids as I have more time!
Hopefully next year I will see you at the race! I know for sure that I will be there!
You can check them out here: http://urbanadventuregames.com/
