The Race

Ok, so last year we did the same race. The Mitsubishi Motors City Chase all over Ottawa.
Last year we were fifth.
This year? Er....Let me explain.
This year it was held at the Museum of Civilization. Which meant of course, that regardless of where you had to go, you had to run at least three kilometers first. Which is fine for runners, and my rockstar hubby. Not moi.
So they split us up in to two parts. One part, two hundred people, ran to the statue of Maurice Richard, the other half down to the water.
So we ran down to the water. It took about five minutes, downhill. Then we saw two people in yellow shirts (crew) and realized we had to build a tower out of seven rocks that was two feet high. Which was easy. Except that there were two hundred people there doing the same thing. And only one person giving the check to go. We waited fifteen minutes for ours to get looked at. I sang 'Hey beeeooootiful laaaaaady!' at the top of my voice for awhile, but it didn't work.
We then ran up a hill to receive our clues.
Rockstar hubby had to pee and was not focused at all. And the clue sheet didn't look too good.
We first ran to Jacques Cartier park, where we joined another team to walk on skiis around an obstacle course. Then I had to wear a helmet, with a cup attached and RSH had to throw balls at me to get them in.
Then we had to run. All the way to the Art Gallery. Uphill. We got behind it and there was the challenge. I had to 'golf' very heavy balls to a number. RSH then had to use stilts to walk the length. Thankfully, he grew up on stilts (???) and did brilliantly. Then we had to run to William Street. it was already 26C.
We had to use a Blackberry to video: 15 seconds of us playing leapfrog, 15 seconds of me singing with another person, 15 seconds of me tickling someone's foot, a tatoo below the waist, 15 seconds of me sharing food with another person. We did that quickly and efficiently.
Then we had to walk to the busstation and wait for the 7 bus to take us to Carleton U. That took 10 minutes. Then we boarded and worked on our trivia sheet during the twenty minute bus ride. It was about 3 miles, but I needed the rest and to refuel.
We got there and ran to the park where it was very busy. We had to run 'suicides' and then rsh had to shoot four cans down with a paintball gun. He got two. So I got to shoot him in the back and he was given five more shots. With the cans down, we took off again.
We ran down to the glebe, to the Running Room where we handed in our trivia sheet. The lady there was incredibly rude and said we failed. No check point. Then we had to convince five strangers to buy cans of iced tea. That was hard. Let me tell you how pissy people are in the Glebe. Woo!
Then we caught a bus up to Bank and Gladstone (which was only a fifteen minute run, but you have to understand that my body was tightening up, two hours had gone by, and I was exhausted). Then we ran into the Whalebone. I threw a die, and I got a four. We went inside and I had to eat four raw oysters.
Dude.
I can barely swallow eggs.
RSH opened them and I cleaned them with water and as each was placed at the back of my throat, I would gag, then swallow immediately. It tasted like slimey salt. It was gross.
Then we had to run to Elgin to find Jack Purcell Park. We were to bowl while blindfolded, but the line-up was incredible and the people at the front had already been waiting fifteen minutes. We decided to leave.
We ran up Elgin and decided to wait for the number 3. We had to go to Coventry to the baseball Stadium. That was far. The bus came every half hour. We had three check points to go. We had to choose.
We waited.
We got there, with many others on the bus, and realized we could not just go in because there was a HUGE thing going on with muscle cars and women not wearing much, so we had to go AROUND. I was starting to shiver. It was 30C. We had to run around the stadium, down the hill and inside.
I had to catch a ball that rsh would hit with a bat. I did. Then we had to run up the stands to another guy to get another check. Then we had to run back down to the field, all the way around the stadium, and to the bus stop.
I was exhausted. My head pounded and I was shivering at this point. My eyes felt like they were closing on their own.
We had to wait half an hour for the bus.
We got on and sat down. I ate more, drank more (this is where I tell you I had 4 litres of water in three hours, but it did nothing) and then I got the stomach cramps. RSH wanted me to quit and I said no. Just one more checkpoint.
We got off downtown, ran to Sussex and then to a bunch of cars. We had to grab three strangers, pull them into a car and we all had to sing at the top of our voices for thirty seconds to a song on the radio. We did.
Then we had to run all the way back to the Museum.
It took twenty minutes. Uphill.
We got there at 4 1/2 hours, we were number 166.

I was devastated.

It was definitely a runners' race, and we had planned poorly.

Ah, well, there's always next year.