Adventure Racing: City Chase World Championships - Race Report

Monday, October 16, 2006 - 12:41 PM

Toronto was well-represented last week in Chicago...how was your weekend in comparison???






Jay and Bill showing off their 1st place medals in Toronto, August 2006. That's Jay on the left...

This past weekend, my friend Bill Wells and I took part in the City Chase World
Championship in Chicago. We were both very disappointed with our final placing
(9th), but the race was not without its highlights, which included trapeze, night
golf, skinny dipping in Lake Michigan and jumping out of a plane from 13,000 ft.

Oh, do I have your attention now?

Before the race, a bombshell was dropped on us when we were told that unlike
previous championship races, this race would be virtually continuous from start to
finish, over approximately 36 hours. Bill and I figured that such a race would
favour endurance athletes such as us.

We were then each subjected to a full body search to ensure that we were carrying
nothing more than clothing and a small, standard-issue backpack. Cell phones, money,
maps, pens, paper, and plastic bags were all prohibited. The race started out in fairly predictable fashion, both in terms of the activity it involved (a scavenger hunt), and our team strategy (run like hell from the moment the race begins and figure out a route sometime after the fact). From the start of the race in Millennium Park, we went first to the Stained Glass Museum at the Navy Pier, followed by the Water Tower, Uno's Pizzeria (where we spent 2 minutes assembling one of their famous deep dish pizzas), an office tower at the corner of Michigan and Wacker (the former site of Fort Dearborn), and Soldier Field.

We spent way too much time asking people for directions, and took the subway to
Soldier Field, when it would have made the most sense to run there first. At each of
these stations, we received valuable items, including a map of Chicago, an aluminum
blanket, a head lamp and $30.00 in spending money.

We then proceeded to the "Big Bean" in Grant Park to complete the scavenger hunt (by which point we were in 9th place) and receive our next clue, which was to go to the North Avenue Beach. There, we had to use only our hands to dig up a 25 sq. ft.
section of the beach looking for a key. Once a team found a key, they had to run to
the other end of the beach, whereupon one team member needed to wade 50 ft. into
Lake Michigan to touch a buoy.

Some teams lucked out and only dug for a few minutes before finding a key. We
weren't so lucky, and had to keep digging for 60 minutes before being allowed to
jump in the lake. However, since we never found a key, both of us had to touch the
buoy. As we didn't want to get our clothes wet, Bill and I both elected to go in
the water naked. I fell a couple of times trying to run towards the buoy, and even
attempted swimming at one point, before realizing how ridiculously cold the water
was (it had snowed in Chicago the day before, when a new daily low had been set).

Upon emerging from the frigid waters of Lake Michigan, we then had to make our way
to Winnetka, a suburb 5 miles north of the northernmost "L Train" station. The smart
teams took a "Metra" commuter train from downtown Chicago right to Winnetka, whereas Bill and I elected to run the five miles, saving on train fare, but probably costing us another hour on the leaders.

Before leaving the beach, Bill and I had to choose which of us would be "going up".
I figured this may well be referring to a climb up the Sears Tower, so I volunteered, whereupon they wrote a big "X" on my cheek. After finally arriving in Winnetka, we discovered that the Chasepoint actually involved doing some acrobatics
on the trapeze. After a five minute training course, I climbed up a 20 ft. ladder,
swung through the air hanging upside down, and grabbed for dear life the forearms of
an acrobat on the other side of the net. I got it on my first attempt. Good thing,
as teams had to keep trying until they successfully completed this task, and one
competitor dislocated his shoulder during an unsuccessful attempt.

We were next given a couple of rickety one speed bikes and told to ride them all the
way back downtown, a good 30 kilometre ride. It didn't help that we hadn't eaten or
consumed liquids in hours. Fortunately, there were a few water fountains along the
route. We then went to the Randolph St. train station, where we were told to make our way to a certain address in Harvey, in the south side of Chicago. It would be a vast understatement to say that Harvey is not the safest neighbourhood around. In fact, it has a well-deserved reputation for being the Compton of Chicago. As luck would have it, Bill and I arrived in Harvey just as it was getting dark.

We ended up on the same train as the ladies from Team Calgary, whom we ended up
collaborating with for the rest of the race. Their boundless enthusiasm suddenly
made the race seem a lot more fun. They were also very adept at charming total
strangers into giving them free food, which they generously shared with us.
Meanwhile, we carried their backpack most of the time. They saddled us with the
nickname "Jay and Silent Bill".

After wandering around for some time in Harvey, we finally found the address we were looking for, a house being built for Habitat for Humanity. There was a large mound of dirt deposited in front of the house, and our primary task was to fill up
wheelbarrows with dirt and deposit the dirt all across the front and side lawn. Our
work was being evaluated, with hard working teams being possibly rewarded with time
bonuses, and lazy teams being penalized accordingly. I worked myself into the ground
for the next hour, and while I don't think we earned a time bonus, I did earn myself
a very sore back from all that heavy lifting to which I wasn't accustomed!

By the time we and Team Calgary were done, it was close to 8:00 p.m., and the race
officials, fearing for our safety, tailed us in a vehicle as we made our way on foot
back to the train station. I became somewhat concerned when I found out that the
vehicle in question contained the luggage (including money, credit cards and
passports) of all race participants, meaning if this car had been jacked (not a
far-fetched scenario in this neighbourhood), we would've all been in big trouble.

In any event, we made it back downtown without incident, in front of a hotel on
Michigan Avenue. There, we discovered that we would have to eat the deep dish pizza we had hastily assembled just hours earlier. We couldn't leave until we had
completely devoured the pizza, although we could enlist the help of one other
person. In one of the few instances of good luck that we had in this race, we
happened to encounter a young man who claimed not to have eaten in three days, and gladly consumed four pieces of pizza, with Bill and I each consuming another three
pieces. That force feeding was such a nauseating experience, the mere thought of
eating deep dish pizza now makes me feel queasy.

We next had to proceed to the Manhattan Building for a walking tour of some of
Chicago's most notable architecture. It was an interesting but stressful tour, as we
had to take detailed notes for a quiz we would be given the next day. Each wrong
answer would result in a five minute time penalty. Despite having only one working
pen and writing our notes on a dilapidated map, we managed to get all five questions
right.

The next stop was the Discovery Centre, where we had 45 minutes to complete 40 pages of SAT questions. We were told that the team with the lowest score on the test would be eliminated from the race, so we knew the stakes were high. For most of the test, I took the foolish approach of answering every question sequentially, rather than looking for the easy ones. In particular, the English section of the test (which I
didn't get to until about 30 minutes into the test) was generally much easier than
the Math section, at least for someone who hadn't done long division in almost 20
years.

After completing our SATs, we went to Lucky Strike Bowlerama, where we had to bowl
(10 pin) against other teams, with teammates alternating every frame, until the team
reach 800 points. If teams had less than 800 points at 2:00 a.m. (when the bowling
alley closed), then they were assessed time penalties. We then were told to go to the Marovitz Waveland Golf Course, but were given incorrect information by the race organizers as to its location, such that it took us over an hour to get there. Near the clubhouse, a "tent" of sorts was set up, which all remaining competitors had to cram into. I used my blanket as a pillow, and was freezing cold as a result, and unable to sleep. At least I was wearing a nifty black cardigan that I picked up on Michigan Avenue earlier that evening (and when I say "picked up", I mean that quite literally!).

At 5:30 a.m., we had to get up for our 5:40 a.m. tee time to play four holes of
night golf, alternating shots and playing with only three clubs and a glow in the
dark ball. I had never played golf before, and couldn't even get the ball airborne.
Bill's a good player, but had the misfortune of hitting three sand traps. We
probably averaged 5-6 strokes just getting the ball out of each sand trap. We ended
up 16 shots over par (with 8 strokes being par), with each shot over par being a one
minute penalty.

We next had to get to the Des Plains River, near the airport, and were told that the
last team to get there would be eliminated. We were still collaborating with Team
Calgary, and knew that Team Ottawa (which included 2004 City Chase Champion Bill
Jarvis), with about a half hour head start, was the only team we had a chance of
catching. We devised a risky strategy to leapfrog Ottawa by running between subways lines, rather than taking the train all the way down to the loop and back up to the airport. Unfortunately, when we got to the river, we discovered we were on the wrong side of the river, with the nearest pedestrian crossing being at least a mile away.

Therefore, we decided to jump a fence, climb onto the Interstate highway (which had
no shoulder on the bridge), cross the bridge and hop the fence on the other side. We
did so and beat Ottawa there by about 10 minutes, so we were still in the hunt!

We next had to lower a canoe into the Des Plains River, and paddle for 22 kilometres
to our next destination, Brookfield, on the south side of town. We were very careful
getting into the canoe, as it was very muddy and slippery, which had caused one of
the members of Team Vancouver to fall into the water and suffer hypothermia. Thanks to Bill's experience as a canoeist, we were able to complete this task in fairly
good time (approximately two and a half hours).

We next had to go to the Brookfield Zoo, where we were given the task of using
coin-operated "mold-a-ramas" to get plastic moldings of five different kinds of
animals located throughout the zoo, including elephants and alligators. Finally, we were driven 40 miles west of Chicago to Hinckley, Illinois, a place dominated by cornfields as far as the eye can see, for the next challenge. It was only when I read the sign "Sky Diving, 2 Miles" that I realized what they had in store for us.

It was there that we received the disappointing news that we had been eliminated
from the race because we had fallen out of the top six. Calgary was brought back
from elimination by virtue of having received the most votes from other team earlier
in the day, when each team was asked to rank all other teams in order of preference.
What I had anticipated would be an online vote took this form instead.

Though no longer in the race, Bill and I were given the option to skydive from 13,000 ft., and we both went for it. Of course, we were very securely fastened by
harness to a parachute instructor, who ensured that we opened the parachute
properly, and at the proper altitude. What I didn't find out until after the dive
was that the 27 mph wind was just 3 mph from being too strong for skydiving to be
permitted. As it was, a gust of wind caused me to veer off course, and land halfway
up the airplane runway on my instructor's back, while Chicagoland employees
scrambled to detach the parachute, lest we be dragged right onto the Interstate.

The scariest part of the whole skydiving experience was leaning out the edge of the
plane, just before jumping (although I did get some sense of the danger involved
when they made me fill out a waiver booklet, for which I had to initial no few than
24 paragraphs, absolving Chicagoland and its assigns from any and all liability that
might otherwise arise from my injury or death). The most exhilarating part was the
free fall, which lasted for 60 seconds but seemed much longer, while I was traveling
at such an incredible speed that it's difficult to adequately convey in words. The
sky dive was definitely the highlight of my City Chase Championship weekend.

After that, we took the long ride back to Chicago, the race for us now being over.
There was only one stage left in the race, a photo scavenger hunt that involved
taking 12 out of 20 pictures of such things as a team member seated in a limo, both
team members playing musical instruments, and ten people arranged from tallest to
shortest. I was disappointed not to have been permitted to finish the race, but at
least I didn't miss out on any of the really fun stuff.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about my experience in Chicago. On the one hand, I
appreciated the breath and variety of mental and physical challenges they threw at
us, which made the race a lot different than what I was expecting. On the other
hand, I went there to win, not to finish ninth. I guess that means I have some
unfinished business to take care of next year.


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