As if our weekend wasn’t hectic enough, I (Jeff) was able to participate in The Great Urban Race in downtown Seattle this weekend along with five other family members.
This is something that people travel a great distance to participate in but we had not even heard of until Friday morning. Of course, that never stops us and late Friday night when Dad’s condition seemed to be fairly stable, we went ahead and signed up online.
The race was in downtown Seattle itself so if we ever needed to, we could easily be at the hospital within a matter of minutes anyhow.
From their website, the race is descrbed as...
The Great Urban Race is a one-of-a-kind urban adventure. Teams of two solve clues and complete challenges while navigating city streets, using public transit, and laughing all the way.
It's an adventure, scavenger hunt, and wandering party - all rolled into one fun day!
All this, and a $10,000 Grand Prize at the Championships in Las Vegas!
The race started at noon on Saturday near the base of the Space Needle and there were a couple of hundret people at least there and ready to go.
Some participants were in outlandish costumes and seemed to be there for the fun while others were hard-core runner types obviously there for a win. We fell somewhere between the two, not thinking that we could match up with the runner-types speed-wise but certain that we could match brains with pretty much anyone (we don’t lack confidence in that area).
The plan was for all of our three family teams (Brian & Jacki, Karen & Jacob and Pam & Me) to work together throughout the race and that is what we did, taking off very quickly upon being given our packet of instructions and requirements.
Judy and Jack were designated as our phone support sitting in front of a computer with internet access beside dad’s hospital bed helping to solve puzzles and providing vital public transportation info.
We got off to a very good start snapping required photos of us pumping gasoline for strangers and slidding down the big inflatable slide at the Seattle Cener Fun Forest.
Unfortunately though shortly after that, Pam while reading instructions and jogging at the same time, took a misstep and badly sprained her ankle. We nearly had to put her down right there (think Eight Belles) but she fought through it and got back with us limping along for the next several miles like a trooper as her ankle swole larger and larger.
We ended up back and forth all over the city hitting all of our marks and taking all necessary photos to complete the requirements. We ended up finishing the race but not in the time we had hoped. Here were the results for our three teams...
111th - Vander Hoeven Machine 2 (2:58:21)
Karen Lutz and Jacob Sirrine
112th - Vander Hoeven Machine 3 (2:58:32)
Jacki Keenan and Brian Lutz
113th - Vander Hoeven Machine 1 (2:58:46)
Pamela Sirrine and Jeffrey Vander Hoeven
(full resuts here)
We were of course exhausted by the end of the race and Pam is now walking on crutches but this was a blast overall. We’ll definitely watch for this to come back next year better prepared and looking to trim quite a bit of time.
We were of course exhausted by the end of the race and Pam is now walking on crutches but this was a blast overall. We’ll definitely watch for this to come back next year better prepared and looking to trim quite a bit of time.
Valerie, who did the family-type duties while I particated has forbidden me from having any more fun without her but c'mon is it ever REALLY fun without Valerie anyhow?
3 comments:
I so want to do this next time. Make sure you let me know when you find out when the next one is. And no, nothing is ever fun without Val....
Can your family adopt ours? You guys always have fun!
Not only did Pam hurt her ankle but it turns out my sore throat was actually strep. Considering our severe handicaps we did pretty good.
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