Having dreaded the event since its humble beginnings, Lynette still booked the day off so that she could participate in the event; like it or not, she was going through with it. I had repeatedly told her, however, that it wasn't that bad, but only received the not so subtle glare from her. Alas the day of reckoning finally arrived on June 24th, the first of two city chases happening in Toronto.
Lynette arrived bright and early at my place at 8am and we walked over to the distillery district, taking our time to make pitstops at both Starbucks and Shoppers.
We arrived just in time, leaving perhaps 10 minutes to spare before the race was to commence. There was a good crowd there, so while they were warming up, Lynette and I started to set up our bibs and our raceshirts.
Once the race started, I attempted to run and retrieve the cluesheet, but unfortunately wasn't able to get it on the first try. All those who couldn't get the cluesheet on the first try were told to go eastward 500 meters (just around the corner) to get it. I guess they do this to reduce congestion? I'm not sure if it was all that effective because there were a lot of people there as well.
Finally we figured out at least 8 of the clues, the remaining we would work on as we travelled.
Taking our time, we walked to our very first stop: It was by the Regent Park Recreation Centre. I was a bit nervous as I saw it was one of those stations where you had to eat something. That was never a good thing lol.
It turned out, however, the first station wasn't so bad!
#Station 1
One partner had to eat a jellybean, but the other partner had a choice of eating: hot pepper, pickled ginger, or kimchi.
Considering that I eat all of them on a daily basis, it wasn't a real challenge for me. I chose the kimchi lol, while my friend ate a jellybean.
After we had done this, we moved on to the next one. Before getting there, we stopped by yonge and dundas to grab some coffee from Starbucks. While my friend stood in line to get our iced drinks, I worked on a sudoku puzzle on the clue sheet. By the time she had come back with the drinks, I had managed to finish it; now we had 9 locations uncovered! As we walked towards our mapped destination (my friend is a wiz with it! She is a walking GPS!), we again made a stop over; for a cheese tart at Uncle Tetu's. I had never had it before, but it was really good! Very satisfying :D You can tell that this wasn't quite the city chase, more along the lines of a city stroll, but as long as we were having fun, that was the most important thing.
We walked for a bit, but couldn't find the next location. Bumping into another team of city chasers, we traded information and ironically, the place were were looking for was literally in front of us; a Goodlife!
Thanking the two participants, we entered the building to meet our next challenge.
#Station 2
For this station, we had to pick a healthy food item from the board and then guess the number of calories it contained. If we got it wrong, then we would have to do 20 jumping jacks and 20 sit-ups. I picked a vegetable barley rice soup.... and I guessed the calories incorrectly. Mind you, you had only a leeway of being 50 calories off. lol so we were punished to do the exercises.
#Station 3
Feeling a bit tired after doing the exercises, we slowly made our way to our third location, this one was near OCAD. When we arrived, I couldn't help but grin ear to ear. It was absolutely a delight, well, for me more than for my friend. I saw Rickshaws being pulled by other city chasers, with one partner sitting, the other one pulling it all around the block.
I had always wanted to ride in one or even pull one. My friend, however, insisted on pulling it since she didn't have that much confidence in my strength to pull it (lol she's not wrong on that - I have been known to have notoriously weak in upper arm strength).
As we went around the block, I felt bad for my friend, but at the same time, I was loving the fact I was finally trying out a rickshaw. I asked several times if she wanted to trade (it was a long block), but she resisted, and told me just chill, she'll pull me this time and reiterated that she was definitely stronger than me haha. We finished the challenge, I got the hole punch on my bib and we were off to the next one. My poor friend was exhausted. But she was right, if I had to pull, I think it may have taken longer since I would have needed more breaks in between.
#Station 4
The next station was a difficult one - this one you had a choice to eat a worm, cricket or to wear goggles and hairnet and lie under a apparatus where crickets would cover sit on top of the goggles. You need to remain with these crickets in close proximity for 45 seconds.
I could never imagine 45 seconds of being so close to bugs... so eating a bug was the way to go LOL. It was pretty gross, but honestly, the act of eating it wasn't as bad as I thought. It went down easily, though I downed a lot of water afterwards. Like a lot. hahaha.
#Station 5
The next one we had to travel a bit for it (and we got completely lost wandering around). When we finally found it, we took a picture with the Inukshuk at the park before going to our challenge.
The task at hand was that one partner was to shoot a (blunted) arrow and the other partner had to catch it. My friend immediately volunteered to shoot it! hahaha She said she always wanted to shoot one, so I didn't mind doing the catching.
It took a while, lol sometimes the arrow would fly too far or not far at all. But after perhaps 10 tries, I finally got it. Victory!!
#Station 6
We wandered lost for a while to find this place, but it was also at an open field area. This one we had to wear a bubble suit and score a goal against an opposing city chase team. The loser would need to do 20 burpies! My friend and I worked hard at this one, and I had never seen her as motivated as she was then to win. Suffice to say, after one very good kick from me towards the opposing team's goal post, my friend did the rest. Playing soccer could have been her second career hahaha. We won, so no burpies for us.
#Station 7
This one was interesting, where we had to fill an 1 litre sodapop container half way with water and then use a bike pump to shoot it up through the air. One partner would do the pumping of the air, and the other would catch it. After we finished this station we went off to find the location of the "longitude and lattitude" coordinates. This one I had no idea where we were headed and it was only by inference that it was a coordinate... and it turned out we were right!
#Station 8
We arrived at the designated coordinates and there were these two elder ladies there and a bunch of items on the ground. There was a spinning wheel where we were told to spin and then whatever it landed on, we had to guess the price of it - Marshall's price. My friend spun it, and it landed on a pair of shoes. Right off the bat, my friend called it for $50, and it was right on the dot. The ladies were shocked, as I was too, but I shouldn't have been. Lynette was a pro when it came to shopping hahaha. With that station done, we only had 2 more to go!
#Station 9
This location was interesting, one partner had to be an anchor while the other partner fetched five balls from a circle about 3 meters away, in order to form the colours of the rainbow. The two partners were attached with a rubber band that allowed some leeway to stretch. The funny thing about this challenge was that only one of us had to do it, but we didn't realize it, and we both did the challenge lol. Oh well, more calories burned!
#Station 10
This location was our last one, and it was probably the easiest one, but it was fun still. Each partner dressed up in a gladiator suit and knocked the hat off of the other partner and vice versa. Once my friend and I finished this, we made our way back to the distillery district to the finish line.
After finishing our food, we parted ways, exhaustedly, but thoroughly entertained. Lynette admitted it was pretty fun, but she still said she wouldn't do it again, haha, simply because it wasn't her type of thing to do for enjoyment. I understood her viewpoint, but I told her, yeah, no more bets. Because if she loses another one, this city chase was back on the table :D
Mmmmm good food after a long day!
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