Seven of Diamonds: Will run for beer
Outside running distance: 14.94 miles
Actual area covered: 4 blocks
The route my Garmin Forerunner captured:
Sometimes running in circles can be enormous fun. I spent yesterday having a blast playing with Jeff, Jen, and Chris on our Puzzle Safari VIII: Puzzles in Toyland team, Seven of Diamonds. (The Seven of Diamonds refers to the beer card in bridge.) We had a phenomenal finish and came in 4th out of 70 teams, up from 18th last year! Five points more and we would have cracked the top three.
Where else except Puzzle Safari is it so useful to be a nerd who runs slowly but with good endurance? I was the team's primary runner, handing off to Jeff for about a half hour at the end of each half so that he could sprint in the final stamps. While I was running, Jeff, Jen & Chris rocked out a ton of puzzle solving. I only helped solve 3-4 puzzles during the event because they were so efficient solving that they didn't need me in the room.
I'm curious how much additional mileage I ran indoors, but of course the GPS can't track that. I know I spent a fair amount of time in at least two large garages, wandering around trying to find a particular area that was clued by something like "SW corner" (it's easy to lose track of which direction is which after going underground).
The stamps had more variety in where they were hidden this year than last, I think, which made it more entertaining to be a runner. I don't like losing a huge amount of time looking for a stamp, but I really liked poking around garages as well as outdoors (especially when it was clear that I was in the RIGHT spot outdoors -- kudos to the cluing team for that) for the stamps instead of just going to conference rooms or offices. There was also a side puzzle where I had to look for slips of paper in the lobbies of the buildings, which made the running more entertaining as well.
Next year, I want to follow a 20-miler training plan working up to the event. I hit the wall twice yesterday -- once around 9.25 miles when I came in for my first break. I hadn't carried enough gels with me and got hungry on the course. When I started getting hungry, I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before I crashed, so I called Jeff to tell him it was time to hand off. The second time was around when I finished at 15 miles. I hit the point where even though I was telling my legs to run, they were ignoring me. I haven't done any long distance runs since the Vancouver marathon, so I'm not surprised I lost my endurance before completing.
Afterwards, we went out to Matador with our team and Drew and Jason, two of our friends who work hard to make such an incredible event. I'm already dreaming of next year's event. SO much fun.
Actual area covered: 4 blocks
The route my Garmin Forerunner captured:
Sometimes running in circles can be enormous fun. I spent yesterday having a blast playing with Jeff, Jen, and Chris on our Puzzle Safari VIII: Puzzles in Toyland team, Seven of Diamonds. (The Seven of Diamonds refers to the beer card in bridge.) We had a phenomenal finish and came in 4th out of 70 teams, up from 18th last year! Five points more and we would have cracked the top three.
Where else except Puzzle Safari is it so useful to be a nerd who runs slowly but with good endurance? I was the team's primary runner, handing off to Jeff for about a half hour at the end of each half so that he could sprint in the final stamps. While I was running, Jeff, Jen & Chris rocked out a ton of puzzle solving. I only helped solve 3-4 puzzles during the event because they were so efficient solving that they didn't need me in the room.
I'm curious how much additional mileage I ran indoors, but of course the GPS can't track that. I know I spent a fair amount of time in at least two large garages, wandering around trying to find a particular area that was clued by something like "SW corner" (it's easy to lose track of which direction is which after going underground).
The stamps had more variety in where they were hidden this year than last, I think, which made it more entertaining to be a runner. I don't like losing a huge amount of time looking for a stamp, but I really liked poking around garages as well as outdoors (especially when it was clear that I was in the RIGHT spot outdoors -- kudos to the cluing team for that) for the stamps instead of just going to conference rooms or offices. There was also a side puzzle where I had to look for slips of paper in the lobbies of the buildings, which made the running more entertaining as well.
Next year, I want to follow a 20-miler training plan working up to the event. I hit the wall twice yesterday -- once around 9.25 miles when I came in for my first break. I hadn't carried enough gels with me and got hungry on the course. When I started getting hungry, I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before I crashed, so I called Jeff to tell him it was time to hand off. The second time was around when I finished at 15 miles. I hit the point where even though I was telling my legs to run, they were ignoring me. I haven't done any long distance runs since the Vancouver marathon, so I'm not surprised I lost my endurance before completing.
Afterwards, we went out to Matador with our team and Drew and Jason, two of our friends who work hard to make such an incredible event. I'm already dreaming of next year's event. SO much fun.