We went into the race with no anticipation of winning (top teams do it in 2.5 of the allowed 6 hours), but instead made our goal to complete the required 10 Chase Points by the 4pm finish time. This makes for a much more relaxed and fun race for two competitive people.
It was a beautiful day, the boys were with their grandparents and AJ and I were ready for some adventure.
After the Zumba-like warm up that AJ hated, they announced the riddle to lead us to our clue sheet. We spent about 40 minutes sitting on the sidewalk working out the riddles. Longer than many other teams, but shorter than others. This year's clue sheet was done in brain teasers so it took a little longer to work out.
Once we had most of them figured out, we picked the one that sounded the most fun (which is basically our whole strategy) and headed out with our TTC passes in hand.
Chase Point #1 - Escape Room
We forgot to take a picture of this one, but it was easily my favourite. I haven't done a full escape room before but this made me want to go soon. It was a medical room and we had to find files and match files with injuries and blood types to open a lock. It was a pretty quick Chase Point #1.
Chase Point #2 - Zorb Wars
Stop #2 was a bit of a walk to a park. We were so excited to see the zorbs because we thought there would be water involved and the sun was beating down. Alas, no water, but still a fun challenge. Us vs another team to try and knock off small balls velcroed to the zorb. And we won so we didn't have to clean up.
At this point, we didn't really have a game plan so we sat down for a snack and to map out where we would go the rest of the day. We forgot our plan from the last race to have a paper map with us, but AJ used his iPhone to map each address into quadrants so we'd at least pick ones in the same area. This little stop was a good choice and gave us a plan for the rest of the day.
Chase Point #3 - Cheerleading Routine
Routine is a bit of a stretch. One partner had to stand on the other partner's knee and hold for 5 seconds. I tried first because that's what the girl is supposed to do, but apparently I have the world's worst balance. So we switched and AJ nailed it immediately.
Chase Point #4 - Box Hockey
This was surprisingly one of the most physically difficult challenges. Those sticks are super bendy and the other guy just held his stick in front of the holes so there was nowhere to go. We ended up there so long, the judges just gave us a mercy point.
Chase Point #5 - Boot Toss
We accidentally found this one by following another team from box hockey, but we'll take what we can get. AJ tossed 3 boots into a can for the point.
Chase Point #6 - Surf Workout
Another really fun one! We followed the instructor through an ab workout on surfboards. Nama-surf.
Chase Point #7 - Goodlife Puzzle
Goodlife usually has a fun and challenge point, but this one was a bit disappointing. Move the weights to the other side moving one at a time and not having a larger weight on top of a smaller one. Took AJ about 10 seconds. (Though he hammed it up for the photo)
Chase Point #8 - Trumpet Playing
Forgot to take a photo again, but be glad there's no video. I said I was going to do this point no matter what it was and I ended up having to play a note on a trumpet for 5 seconds. I played something that could maybe be called a note, or several terrible notes. But I got the job done. Of course, AJ played trumpet in high school, but he was kind enough to let me embarrass myself.
Chase Point #9 - Art Match
Next we went to an art school. We were given 10 photos of artists and had to match them with their paintings. I knew half of them for sure and the others were a guess. The staff member was very generous with hints.
Chase Point #10 - Fun With Flags
After accidentally taking the long route, we made it to a park where we had to use flag signals to spell a phrase. It took us a few minutes to figure it out but we got it.
We were at our 10 points at about 1:45, but I had already seen the tweets that winners passed the finish line around 12:30. So we could have headed back but decided to keep going and see how many we could do. (There is something called the Enduro Challenge, where the team with most Chase Points gets a prize. The winner this time got 20.)
Chase Point #11 - Paint A Masterpiece
As it turns out, our last two points were not as exciting as we hoped. For #11 we had to copy a painting, mixing the colour to match.
Chase Point #12 - Arm Trivia
Next we had to answer 5 trivia questions at an art store by writing the answers across both our arms. The marker pens we were supposed to use did not work well so we ended up just telling the staff the answers.
Now it was 3:20 and we decided to head back. You have to be at the finish line by 4pm to have your ranking count. Plus, we were sweaty and ready to be done. I got 3 times my step goal for the day and covered 14km even with our TTC pass.
We made it back just before 4 and ended up in 300 and something place out of about 500 teams. So we made our goal with 12 Chase Points, didn't fight and had a fun day together. See you next year City Chase!
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