2007: Year of "Moderate" Action: Bell City Chase

Here is the post for the Bell City Chase.

Let me tell you it was and it wasn't as good of a time as I thought it migh tbe. Vance and I entered as the super duo "I Need New Pants"! We started out getting to the start line quite a bit too early. we were anticipating the race, but we had no idea what was in store for us, and I really mean that. We didn't have a single clue as to where we were going what we were doing first.

We had strategized the day before that we would try and make a plan to get a quick one over first then head out a long ways and work our way back to the centre. What we didn't anticipate was the first task that gave a a big hiccup to start the race with.

After the "thanks to the sponsors" speil, by the race director, he let us know that the first of 10 tasks we had to complete was a scavenger hunt. We had to collect 10 of the 15 items that he gave to us, and then we would get the sheet that would give us clues to the other 9 checkpoints that we had to hit before we could finish.

In the scavenger hunt we had to find 10 of 15 Items. these Items were:

A ball with your team number written on it
a 2 cent stamp
the name of thwe race directors son (which he said in the opening speech)
a coin that had on it a digit the same as the last digit of your team number
a piece of pasta
a picture of Ralph Klein
the number of steps on the curling club entrance
a sketch of the "family of man" (which happened to be statues in downtown calgary)
the number that is written on the south side of the centre street bridge
a race participant with the same name as you
a non-participant that was wearing Tighty-Whiteys
A live animal that was at least over 1" long
pencil shavings
the number of days since the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup
Shave one eybrow

(I am quite impressed with myself that I remebered all of those.)

Vance and I headed out, in a hurry, going nowhere. We were running down to the river, we were in the hotel, as soon as I chilled out a bit, we were going pretty good. We were talking to other teams, and getting info, but by the time we got all the pieces we were well behind. We passed alot of teams on the way out that were sitting down and planning the route they wanted to take. I thought we should do that, but not there, we should get one out of the way and then plan while we were on a long train ride somewhere. I am not sure if I communicated that really well or not, but that is sort of what we did. With some debate about what the clues meant and where would be our best chance of getting to without getting caught in line ups, we decided after a short run session that we shoudl climb the Calgary Tower. We started with a Furious pace, which became slower and slower until we were dragging our asses at the top. We climbed all 802 stairs. The plan was to catch the train next... anywhere.

We didn't have a great plan, but we figured we would go north to where one of the mandatory checkstops were, but the train coming was headed south, and we decided not to wait, so we jumped on and headed for chinook mall. We got there and it was an eating task. Where you rolled the die and 1 through 6 determined what you ate. I rolled 6; which was a green sludge that was liquified from all the disturbing things they had there to eat. This included meal worms, crickets, dried cat food, some type of green duck egg, A pizza(which was actually tinned cat food on a pie plate with dried cat food on top) and this green sludge. I decided I didn't want to look at that stuff twice, so I grabbed it, and almost directly after asking what was in it, I changed my mind and told them I didn't want to know. I grabbed it and tilted 'er back. The trick was that it didn't all come out of the styrofoam cup because it was too thick. So i had to go back to it 3 times to get it all down. That was easy. Vance however didn't do as good. He rolled a 1 which was the "pizza". it was alot of food for being really sick. Vance struggled alot, so i poked fun at him alot, and tried to help him out with some scacastic humour. I don't think he appreciated it as much as I thought he would. I went and got him some water from orange julius so that he could mix what ever it was that he was eating with alot of water... he drank alot of water. He was blowing half of the water i gave him around the mall when his gag reflex kicked in. Well i was proud of him when he finished. it cost us some time, but nothing we couldn't recover from.

We ran off to catch the train again, this time we decided that we didn't want to go any further south and there were 2 more checkpoints going north. so we headed back towards the centre. We got off in a couple of stops to run to ranchmans where we were to ride the mechanical bull. we stood in a short line there, maybe 10 minutes tops, and the task was to ride the bull, and if you got bucked off, one of your team members had to eat an onion -- with horseradish on it. Dude, it smelled no good. Everyone infront of us got bucked off, there was only one girl that didn't that we saw. I went First and I squeezed that cow with everything I had and I had cow burns on the inside of my calfs from gripping it so tight, but I made it. And I think I shamed Vance into focusing on riding the bull and not getting bucked off. And Vance made it too! we got our cards punched and we were out of there! the girl said she thought we were the first team for both members to make it through the Bull! We were feeling pretty good about that, and we thought maybe we made sonme time on some other teams. We were hoping to catch the "Express vehicle" at that checkpoint, but it looked like our timing was off, so we Ran back to the train.

next stop "Talisman Centre" where there was Field hockey. This is where Vances Bladder cost us the race! (well not really). Vance urinated, and we ran down for some Field hockey, we missed our first shot and it hit the back boards, so he had to repeat. we worked the give and go and it was magic! So Another punch card and we were sailing. We half ran half walked back to the train stop and that was our downfall. we missed the train by less than 1 minute! which means we had to wit for the next one a full 15 minutes.

We went to Sunridge Mall where one of the mandatory check points were, and had to take some pictures in the mall with camera phones "product placement" at it's finest. that was simple, but to get to the next stop was more difficult. The next one required a Bus that took at least 10 minutes to get to where we wanted to catch it, and then the bus ride was probably another 10 minutes to the destination. We made it out there to where we were to be playing skyball (which is 4 trampolenes, 2 offensive and 2 defensive with a goal at each end) we had to score once and we were out of there... it was pretty simple, but it was poorly marked where we had to go. We had to go back and ask twice.

While we waited for the bus to take us back, we finished the soduku that we had to finish to get to another checkpoint. On the bus ride back we found another checkpoint that we didn't know existed, which saved out hides... maybe...

It was paintball, we had to run through some hoops, hula-hoop a bit, then shoot a cone with a pint ball gun. And if Both team members missed, one had to get shot with the paintball. Vance was through first, and lined it up and missed the cone. I laid down with the gun, and took my sweet time. Lined it up for a goot 20 seconds or so before I shot, and nailed it... Bailed Vance out again. I asked the Dude if I could shoot Vance anyways. He said no, and didn't really think it was funny.

We were a long ways from the Train station, but the Bus we just got off wasn't going to be back for 30 minutes, so we decided to run it. We Ran for a bit, but had to walk due to fatigue. We chatted with a couple for awile on the walk down, adn when we finally got to the train staion the train was just pulling up. We sprinted to try and catch it but we failed. The lack of hustle foiled us once again. another 15 minute wait. By this hour, time was running out. There was a six hour cap on the race, and we had 2 more checkpoints to get.

There was 2 more downtown that we could get to, and they were on the close side of downtown. The one we just had to hand in our Soduku and get a clue for another checkpoint, which we knew where it was anyways, but you have to do this particular one in order.

then off to the art gallery, where the ladies were very uncoorperative an were refusing to tell us what we had to do to get the right answer. We eventually got it with some painful stabs in the dark and ran to finish the Race.

We did complete it which is better than most teams did. We finished 157th or soemthing like that. I wouldn't say we were disappointed with the result, it isn't like it is the olympics or anything, but we thought that with a little extra hustle we could have taken 30 to 40 minutes off of the time. My lungs were suffering bad, due to the pollens and crap in the spring air.

We will do better next year!