Race All Night!

Pictures are in slide show entered on June 17th. I finally got the pictures on, but can't get them to this entry. So what I have will have to do.

Race All Night is a new adventure here in Utah Valley. Our good friends, Matt and Amy Bowman, were the brains and the brawn behind the whole ordeal. We thought it sounded fun and would be good to support them so we found us another couple to join us on our team and signed up. Lori and Darin Cable were our teammates, and we couldn't have asked for anyone better! They were fun and very helpful in getting us as far as we did.

Summary: Our fine 4 person (2 couples) team The Four Fartleks, (for those of you who don't know, Fartleks is a Norwegian or Swedish word for a running term that has to do with speedwork.), actually led the race at the halfway point. But as Kim lamented...."it's nice to lead at halftime but it's the score at the end of the game that matters". Due to a few glitches, some beyond our control and some not, we did not win the competition, but rather finished 50 points behind ending up in 4th or 5th place.

We're counting it as 6 miles running because we know we ran at least that much. But with all the cross-training we did what with climbing, riding, biking, wallyball, etc, it feels more like we ran 15-20 miles.

So round 1 of the race began around 5pm Friday, May 30th, and finished just before 2am. During that time we did the following:

Went down 100 ft. water slide at 7 peaks.

Ate a shrimp taco at Bajios

Downed a quart of Coldstone Creamery Ice Cream between the 4 of us.

Went bowling in Payson.

Went to Noahs in PG and played wallyball and billiards.

Went to "School of Rock" type music school in AF and learned how to play "Smoke on the Water" as team/band.

Went to a car dealership in Lindon and test drove a Jeep Cherokee to Purple turtle and Discovery Park. Pictures required.

Toured a Parade Of Homes model home valued at 2.5 million dollars looking for little papers with RaceAllNight logos.

When to a history museum in Lehi. Had to solve a DaVinci Code / National Treasure type riddle (Answer = "Find boy weapon maker and ask for the other green meat") which culminated in us eating dried grasshoppers. Eeeewwww! We really did it! I just wish I had a picture of this one!!!

Played arcade games at Trafalga.

Went to UVSC and searched in the dark for stuff hidden in Owlz baseball stadium.

Went to Sundance resort and bike/hiked to theater. Composed team limerick.

Went to BYU and rode pairs-bicycles around campus looking for stuff to take pictures of (sure glad the Cables are BYU alum or we would have been toast for this one).

Went to Center street and ran up and down the street trying to solve a "code" based on words from statue plaques.

Wow! that's alot of stuff and that was just the halfway point. As mentioned we lead at this point. So we attempted to sleep from about 2-4:30 with minimal success . Then we hit the roads again at 5am until 2pm for round 2. Here is what we did Saturday, May 31st:

Hiked to the Y

Canoed on Provo river down by Utah Lake (this is where we really lost our edge as there was a sign we had to locate that had fallen down causing us to waste around 40 minutes!. This caused us to be 1 event shy of the points we would have need to gain the victory. BUMMER! Oh well Every race is an adventure and things don't always go as planned.)

Spent $2 dollars at a garage sale to buy a team mascot (stuffed leopard)

Hit some balls at driving range at Cedar Hills golf course.

Back to Noah's again for more wallyball/billiards

Went to a pearl store in Lehi, learned how to tell the difference between real/fake pearls.

Rafted down the Provo river above Vivian park in rubber rafts.
Went to Krishna temple in SF and walked llamas around an obstacle course.

Went fishing at trout farm in Spring Lake

Went to Lavender Farms in Mona, had to identify Lavandar fragrance among 6 different vials of oils, then climbed rock walls and did paddle boats.

Ate more ice cream at Red Barn in Santaquin.

Went to Art Museum in Springville and had to identify various features of works of art.

Went to Provo Library and had to do research related to Utah Valley and complete test/survey.

Dang this is where we ran out of time. We made a futile attempt with what little time remained (had to return to base by 1:59pm or face penalty) to squeeze in one more event at Sprint store. But alas our "old age" caught up to us and we were not up to the teenager-minded task which was to each send a big long text message to the store clerk. Had to bag this event, thus losing 75 points and thus losing the competition.

Oh well....what the heck! We had a BLAST!!!! This was one of the funnest things we think we've done for quite a while, felt like teenagers again (albeit with a big dose of body aches and pains)!