Downtown Challenge

Remember when I did the little Easter egg hunt around town? The same store and organizing group had a different challenge this past Thursday. In their Tuesday e-mail, they sent out the clues for Thursday's run, the text of 10 historical signs located around DTR- downtown Raleigh. There are over 32 signs in Raleigh, so knowing which 10 could give you points was key. Oh, as was finding out just WHERE the signs were. And then you had to make the most efficient route as possible to try to max out your options. Ohhh the strategy!

I looked up the clues and sign locations, completely messed up on one of the clues' locations, but still managed to map out a route that hit 8 of the 10 signs and was 5.3 miles. KR agreed to come with me, and since DTR is safe, but not exactly where I'd want to be with just another girl and my running gear, Huck agreed to be our running bodyguard as well. I kept looking at the map on Thursday and managed to cut out .4 miles of running, but keeping all 8 signs. By the way, you had only an hour to do this and get back to the store.

Huck and I loaded the mapmyrun route onto our phones and I had this scrap piece of paper with the turn by turn directions and little stars to remind me that hey, somewhere around here you should be looking for a sign! There were only a few signs that we had all to ourselves, making the process of finding exactly where on the corner our target was super streamlined. Our little trio took pictures at each stop, then figured out where to go next.

KR and Huck are about the same pace, so they ran ahead of me, chatted and every now and then turned around to go "hey, where do we go?!" or "come on!" Lol, I kept up with them pretty well, but I know they had to restrain themselves a bunch with me! In his boredom, Huck ran up a ramp and leaped over the railing at the top of the ramp onto the concrete sidewalk below where his minimalist shoes did jack squat to protect his heel when he landed. He now has a really pretty red bruise not on the heel that hurts, but on the inside of his ankle and chides me to slow down when we walk places together :/

When we got back to the store, 4.83 miles and 55 minutes later, we showed off our pictures for tickets. See the pretty pictures?!

It should be noted that my app never stopped, even when we paused to take pictures, cross the street or figure out just which way to turn and where! A free beer and mass amounts of water  made the pain go away, and I put my tickets in to try to win a foam roller, ice pack, visor or t-shirt/pint glass combination. KR was going for socks and the foam roller, and she did this squeal when they drew for the foam roller first and on her first attempt at the Downtown Challenge, she won the first item! She also won her pair of socks, so she was double happy!

Overall, it was a pretty fun run! Having Huck AND KR run together went very well, which I realized was a gamble since they've only met a few times even though they both hear tons of stories about the other one. Those two swapped notes and realized I can go faster than I have been, so I have this evil feeling I might start getting pushed more soon!

Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd