City Chase is a unique urban adventure that requires participants to exhibit teamwork, resourcefulness, determination and the ability to make decisions on the fly as they search for ChasePoint challenges scattered in unknown locations throughout the city. The challenges are designed to test mind, body and spirit. To conquer this urban event, two-person teams run, walk and use public transit to navigate their way throughout the city, while calling family and friends for help, accessing the Internet and even employing assistance of total strangers.I found an ad on Facebook a few months ago and checked out their website. http://www.citychaseusa.com/
I forwarded it to Mike and together we decided to enter. We were pretty excited to have a fun adventure while exploring Seattle. We then solicitated all of our friends to join us, but to no avail. You all missed some fun times. City Chase was a lot of fun and we plan to go at it again next year. Here are photos from the day and some descriptions of our challenges.
Here we are at the start line at Westlake Park which is in the middle of downtown Seattle, on August 9th, 2008.
You can see Mike in the upper right corner. We are receiving clues that will help us for the first task. We had to complete a small scavenger hunt in order to receive our clue sheet.
Here's the clue sheet with it's cryptic clues to different "chase point" locations around Seattle.
After deciphering the clue sheet and plotting out our map we decided to head down to Pike's Place Market for our first chase point. We had to choose between tasting coffee and eating raw fish.
Since we aren't coffee drinkers...the fish won out. We had to roll a die and then eat something based on the roll. Mike rolled a 2 and we only had to eat one fish as a team. He knew I would have a hard time so he took on the whole fish himself. In all my 13 years of knowing Mike I have never seen him gag while eating food. I guess there's a first for everything. He gagged four times, but managed to keep it down. The flavor of that fish remained with him for the rest of the day, as did the scales that were stuck in his teeth. Go Mike!
Our next chase point was to take pictures of people doing different activities in the Market: sharing a food item, dancing the can-can, drinking coffee, making a human pyramid, and kissing a fish.
After we were done at the Market we ran/walked across town to the Library for the Blind. We had a braille word search that Mike rocked at. This was pretty easy and a nice cool place to relax for a few minutes.
We weren't at all familiar with the bus routes, so once again, we hiked it across town. All uphill after we left the Market. Our next destination was REI. They have a great store in Seattle with a GIANT climbing wall. Our challenge there was to text message each other trivia questions and answers from things you could find at REI. This one was fairly easy but fun. I kind of wish we could have taken on the climbing wall instead.
Here we are at the start line at Westlake Park which is in the middle of downtown Seattle, on August 9th, 2008.
You can see Mike in the upper right corner. We are receiving clues that will help us for the first task. We had to complete a small scavenger hunt in order to receive our clue sheet.Here's the clue sheet with it's cryptic clues to different "chase point" locations around Seattle.
After deciphering the clue sheet and plotting out our map we decided to head down to Pike's Place Market for our first chase point. We had to choose between tasting coffee and eating raw fish.
Since we aren't coffee drinkers...the fish won out. We had to roll a die and then eat something based on the roll. Mike rolled a 2 and we only had to eat one fish as a team. He knew I would have a hard time so he took on the whole fish himself. In all my 13 years of knowing Mike I have never seen him gag while eating food. I guess there's a first for everything. He gagged four times, but managed to keep it down. The flavor of that fish remained with him for the rest of the day, as did the scales that were stuck in his teeth. Go Mike!
Our next chase point was to take pictures of people doing different activities in the Market: sharing a food item, dancing the can-can, drinking coffee, making a human pyramid, and kissing a fish.
After we were done at the Market we ran/walked across town to the Library for the Blind. We had a braille word search that Mike rocked at. This was pretty easy and a nice cool place to relax for a few minutes. We weren't at all familiar with the bus routes, so once again, we hiked it across town. All uphill after we left the Market. Our next destination was REI. They have a great store in Seattle with a GIANT climbing wall. Our challenge there was to text message each other trivia questions and answers from things you could find at REI. This one was fairly easy but fun. I kind of wish we could have taken on the climbing wall instead. 
After we left REI we figured we would head up yet another hill to Volunteer Park for a drill seargant challenge. The park was much farther away than we figured. A bus would have been really handy right about then.
The day started out cool so we were dressed for warmth, but after the long walk up the steep hills we stopped for a much needed break to change clothes.
As we got closer to the park we realized we were right by another "chase point" at an art academy. We had the interesting opportunity to draw a nude model. Mike was really glad we didn't have to draw the guy...instead we got the wierd "Capitol Hill chick". 
After we finally made it to Volunteer Park, going the long way around of course, we stopped to have our picture taken with the Space Needle in the back ground. The first girl I made the mistake of asking told me she was on a lunch break and she would mind taking the 15 seconds to snap a photo of us. Fortunately there was a nice couple sitting a few feet away that took our picture. 
Our challenge here was to go through a series of excerices that are designed to make you feel like first: this isn't so bad. Second: I'm getting a little tired. And third: how many more times? Finally: Ok, yeah. Now I am really tired.
It reminded me of the good old days of track and soccer warm-ups. Fun!We finally found a bus to take us to the University of Washington campus. It would have been a very long walk without that bus. So it was a very much appreciated rest.
We had originally planned to go straight to the practice fields where the next chase point was, but we took a detour to go to Kaplan for a test. Super fun. Reminded me of why I am thankfully done with school and taking tests. Ugh! We then walked a very long walk across campus, about a mile or so, down to the stadium and all the practice fields for the circus school challenge. We were bitterly disappointed when we showed up and the circus school had shut down a 1/2 before because of the rain(that had stopped) for fear of it ruining their equipment. It was the one chase point I had been looking forward to. We heard from other racers that they had to walk across a small tight-rope, walk a distance on stilts, juggle balls, and climb up a rope. My circus dreams will have to wait until another day. :( We were able to get passed off for this chase point and turn in our trivia answers for another chase point. Which meant we had completed all of our requirements. Time to head for the finish line. These girls knew where to find the right bus so we tagged along with them. 
We were pretty tired by this point so we didn't "run" to the finish line like we probably should have, but we did make it under the alotted time when the race was officially closed. At least 2/5ths of the teams did not make it back by 4:00 pm.
Here we are in front of Jillian's Billiards at the finish line with the "cheerleaders" that yelled and screamed as we came down the sidewalk. Awesome!
We hung out for a while and had some cold soda and appetizers before we headed home.
By the way, the orange balloon was carried for the entire race for the chance to win a prize. We both had to carry them across the finish line in order to qualify. Mike's balloon vanished on our second long walk across UW campus. Bummer!
We were pretty tired by this point so we didn't "run" to the finish line like we probably should have, but we did make it under the alotted time when the race was officially closed. At least 2/5ths of the teams did not make it back by 4:00 pm.
Here we are in front of Jillian's Billiards at the finish line with the "cheerleaders" that yelled and screamed as we came down the sidewalk. Awesome! We hung out for a while and had some cold soda and appetizers before we headed home.
By the way, the orange balloon was carried for the entire race for the chance to win a prize. We both had to carry them across the finish line in order to qualify. Mike's balloon vanished on our second long walk across UW campus. Bummer! We had a really good time and later Mike figured we walked/ran/hiked almost 7 miles all over Seattle. I was sore for 2 days, but it was totally worth it.
