I do some pretty silly and wacky things... but by choice. I get pretty nervous about being expected to do a random, unknown silly and wacky thing! So things that involve obstacles or challenges kind of make me anxious, especially when I have a team depending on me. So even though I LOVE NW Personal Training, and Sherri McMillan, and the Clark County Food Bank, I was still kind of nervous about signing up for the second annual Summer Solstice Urban Adventure Run! So I grabbed my BFF's Cari and Mechell (who wouldn't yell at me!) and formed Team Lipgloss, costumed as a Wonder Woman trio! Because if you're Wonder Woman, you can conquer any challenge, right?!
Race name: Summer Solstice Urban Adventure Race
Date/time: Saturday, June 21st, 2014 @ 5pm
Registration/price: $30-50 per person
Location: start/finish at NW Personal Training (various locations in downtown Vancouver, WA)
Events offered: Adventure race; costume contest
Number of runners: 180
Beneficiary: Clark County Food Bank
Race name: Summer Solstice Urban Adventure Race
Date/time: Saturday, June 21st, 2014 @ 5pm
Registration/price: $30-50 per person
Location: start/finish at NW Personal Training (various locations in downtown Vancouver, WA)
Events offered: Adventure race; costume contest
Number of runners: 180
Beneficiary: Clark County Food Bank
Lookin' good!
Packet pickup: Two days (including the day of the race) at NWPT.
Swag (t-shirts): There are goody bags and then there are GOODY BAGS. NWPT did an awesome job getting all sorts of awesome deals to local vendors (including a free cupcake coupon!!!), a toothbrush, a PowerBar, and some chapstick! A black tech tee was also included in the race entry.
Parking: There's a nice parking lot just across the street.
Bag check: No bag check, but parking was so close that bag check wasn't necessary.
Course: It was a complete SURPRISE--find out where to go as you solve clues at each of the 15 locations! Participants could choose to do as many or as few challenges as they wanted. There was a 5 minute penalty for skipping an obstacle, and a 3 minute penalty if you couldn't guess the next location and needed help. But really, it was just about having fun! GPS and google were allowed, and photos at each location were encouraged!
The race: The event started off with a costume contest (lots of awesome costumes!!!), and then the race began when envelopes of clues were thrown in the air and grabbed by participants! It was a pretty warm evening, which made it a little uncomfortable for some costumed runners. There was one gross challenge (eating ranch flavored meal worms! I was ready to take the penalty, but Mechell took one for the team and ate them! EWWWW), some physical challenges (carrying 5 gallon bottles of water up and down stairs, rock climbing), and some mental challenges (trivia, finding certain items). We did all fifteen locations/challenges!
Post-race: Rice bowls, smoothies, ice cream, beer and cider were available for purchase post race--the proceeds went to the CCFB as well! The live music by Dance Machine was awesome, and tons of prizes were raffled off (mostly PowerBars and PowerBar gels, and a few donated items from local businesses).
Photos: Tons of photos are being shared on the NWPT Facebook page! The Columbian also has a photo album on their website, as well as an article about the event (Team Lipgloss gets a shout out in the very first paragraph!) Scroll down for a gallery of my photos of the event :) If it looks like we were having insane amounts of fun... it's because we were!!!
Results: The winners of the race finished in 1 hour and 15 minutes! That's crazy. It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes and covered about six miles. While we didn't win anything, we all had so much fun and laughed so hard. We are absolutely doing this event again next year! I love that this event is so community-focused, and has an emphasis on having fun while exercising. We're already thinking about team costumes, clever team names and slogans, and familiarizing ourselves with downtown Vancouver!!!
Swag (t-shirts): There are goody bags and then there are GOODY BAGS. NWPT did an awesome job getting all sorts of awesome deals to local vendors (including a free cupcake coupon!!!), a toothbrush, a PowerBar, and some chapstick! A black tech tee was also included in the race entry.
Parking: There's a nice parking lot just across the street.
Bag check: No bag check, but parking was so close that bag check wasn't necessary.
Course: It was a complete SURPRISE--find out where to go as you solve clues at each of the 15 locations! Participants could choose to do as many or as few challenges as they wanted. There was a 5 minute penalty for skipping an obstacle, and a 3 minute penalty if you couldn't guess the next location and needed help. But really, it was just about having fun! GPS and google were allowed, and photos at each location were encouraged!
The race: The event started off with a costume contest (lots of awesome costumes!!!), and then the race began when envelopes of clues were thrown in the air and grabbed by participants! It was a pretty warm evening, which made it a little uncomfortable for some costumed runners. There was one gross challenge (eating ranch flavored meal worms! I was ready to take the penalty, but Mechell took one for the team and ate them! EWWWW), some physical challenges (carrying 5 gallon bottles of water up and down stairs, rock climbing), and some mental challenges (trivia, finding certain items). We did all fifteen locations/challenges!
Post-race: Rice bowls, smoothies, ice cream, beer and cider were available for purchase post race--the proceeds went to the CCFB as well! The live music by Dance Machine was awesome, and tons of prizes were raffled off (mostly PowerBars and PowerBar gels, and a few donated items from local businesses).
Photos: Tons of photos are being shared on the NWPT Facebook page! The Columbian also has a photo album on their website, as well as an article about the event (Team Lipgloss gets a shout out in the very first paragraph!) Scroll down for a gallery of my photos of the event :) If it looks like we were having insane amounts of fun... it's because we were!!!
Results: The winners of the race finished in 1 hour and 15 minutes! That's crazy. It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes and covered about six miles. While we didn't win anything, we all had so much fun and laughed so hard. We are absolutely doing this event again next year! I love that this event is so community-focused, and has an emphasis on having fun while exercising. We're already thinking about team costumes, clever team names and slogans, and familiarizing ourselves with downtown Vancouver!!!
