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Fried brains and Urban Dare
Jul. 18th, 2010 08:06 amYesterday Jennifer and her husband Jonathan took part in Urban Dare in Denver. It's part scavenger hunt, part one-day Amazing Race. Josh and I were on call as the on demand research team, something racing organizers encourage.
As the race was about to start, Josh and I settled in front of our laptops, opened up an IM session so we could share info and privately bet on how long they'd be able to keep up with the race in the 100 degree heat.
At noon local time they were off. Jennifer called Josh with the list of clues, and he IM'ed half to me. I looked mine up, carefully triangulating locations with the starting point of the race, since the race course is supposed to be no more than 5 miles of traveling. I then called Jennifer with my answers. Josh followed with his.
Later Jennifer called back to request updates--giving me one new clue to look up and requesting cross streets on a couple locations. She reported that the first location they'd gone to was missing the Urban Dare official who was supposed to run the challenge, so they'd have to backtrack.
A little over three hours into the race, I got a final call from Jennifer, trying to track down which park was closest to a specific address. She sounded hot and tired but reported they'd stopped in at a pub (one of the clue locations) and had ice tea to cool off.
And then nothing. Silence. I texted Jennifer, but no response. Josh and I periodically IM'ed each other, but there were no status updates. I was a bit worried but assumed they'd either finished or quit the race, and Jennifer had either forgotten to call or was planning on calling when she got back home. I IM'ed Josh my theory that she and Jonathan had been eaten by Denver's Big Blue Bear.
Around five hours after I'd lost contact, the phone rang. It was Jennifer, about to be discharged from the E.R. On their way to the final location, she'd abruptly had enough. Being Jennifer she went from "I am hot and uncomfortable" to "Strangers look at me and offer to call 911 for an ambulance" in about 2.3 seconds. Her husband wisely took her to the E.R. where she was treated, kept for observation for a few hours and then released. She called to let me know that she was okay, and that all in all she'd had a fun time.
Josh is planning on running the race when it's in New York in September. Let's hope he has a cooler day.
As the race was about to start, Josh and I settled in front of our laptops, opened up an IM session so we could share info and privately bet on how long they'd be able to keep up with the race in the 100 degree heat.
At noon local time they were off. Jennifer called Josh with the list of clues, and he IM'ed half to me. I looked mine up, carefully triangulating locations with the starting point of the race, since the race course is supposed to be no more than 5 miles of traveling. I then called Jennifer with my answers. Josh followed with his.
Later Jennifer called back to request updates--giving me one new clue to look up and requesting cross streets on a couple locations. She reported that the first location they'd gone to was missing the Urban Dare official who was supposed to run the challenge, so they'd have to backtrack.
A little over three hours into the race, I got a final call from Jennifer, trying to track down which park was closest to a specific address. She sounded hot and tired but reported they'd stopped in at a pub (one of the clue locations) and had ice tea to cool off.
And then nothing. Silence. I texted Jennifer, but no response. Josh and I periodically IM'ed each other, but there were no status updates. I was a bit worried but assumed they'd either finished or quit the race, and Jennifer had either forgotten to call or was planning on calling when she got back home. I IM'ed Josh my theory that she and Jonathan had been eaten by Denver's Big Blue Bear.
Around five hours after I'd lost contact, the phone rang. It was Jennifer, about to be discharged from the E.R. On their way to the final location, she'd abruptly had enough. Being Jennifer she went from "I am hot and uncomfortable" to "Strangers look at me and offer to call 911 for an ambulance" in about 2.3 seconds. Her husband wisely took her to the E.R. where she was treated, kept for observation for a few hours and then released. She called to let me know that she was okay, and that all in all she'd had a fun time.
Josh is planning on running the race when it's in New York in September. Let's hope he has a cooler day.