Jennifer's Joyous Journal

The Austin Subaru Urban Assault

Meredith O was my partner in this most awesome race ever. We had such a blast. This is my new all-time favorite race and I'm committed to doing them every year from here on out. There were obstacle courses, big wheels, rafts, stilts, and puzzles. You can read the entire race report by clicking below. There are a few photo links in there as well. I'll post my pictures as soon as I'm able. HEADS UP FAMILY, you would all enjoy this race. We should make a commitment for all of us to do it next year...There just aren't words to say how much of a blast we had!

The Report

Though the race was run on Sunday, you could say it actually began the previous Wednesday with the bonus quiz. This quiz had 20 obscure questions that required hours and hours of extremely intense internet research on the sponsors of the race. Luckily, through my TDT contacts, I hooked up with others racers who kindly passed on their intel to me. Through there kindness, we were bib number 4.

The race started in the Runtex parking lot. At the starting gun, the first wave (which included me and Meredith) took off running the block and a half to where we racked our bikes. Our first stop was The Rio, a Mexican restaurant where we had to toss 4 bean bags into a target hole about 10-15 feet away. As our turn approached, we decided that Meredith should toss the bags and I would man the target to return any bags that didn't make it. In our excitement, we set up the opposite of our plan so I ended up tossing the bags and Meredith ended up returning those that didn't make it. I was surprisingly good at the bag toss. I would guess it took less than 2 minutes to make our quota so we could grab our bead and go.

About the bead: At each location, after you complete the assigned task, you get a colored bead to put on a chain. At the finish line, they count the beads to see how many challenges and checkpoints you completed.

Our strategy was to head north to the farthest checkpoint, passing the first landmark checkpoint along the way. So from The Rio, we headed up Trinity, through the University on San Jacinto, to Speedway where we cut over to Guadalupe on 32nd St to get to Ozone Bikes. Here we had to earn our bead by going through an obstacle course. We ran around some pylons, walked across a couple of balance beams, and crawled through two tunnels. It fairly easy and mucho fun. We really enjoyed the watermelon and oranges provided by Ozone while standing in line and also talking to the other participants. Several people had blown tubes, but what better place to get a blow out?

After we left Ozone, we cut back to Speedway, then up 9 blocks to make it back to Guadalupe on 41st to get to Hyde Park Gym, the first landmark checkpoint. Here we got our bead and the clue for the next landmark. There was classical music playing on the jukebox at the feet of the guy handing out the beads. The classical music was our clue. I didn't know the piece that was playing, but someone said that it was composed by Mozart. Before the race, we also signed up for Pinger, a voice messaging service and a sponsor of the race. At each landmark checkpoint, we were able to call Pinger and get an additional clue for the next landmark checkpoint. At Hyde Park, we sent a ping to Hank Hill who responded with something about getting coffee and jumping into the river. Of course, our next landmark checkpoint was Mozart's, a coffee house on Lake Austin.

Since we were halfway to the northermost checkpoint and the next landmark was way south of us, we crossed back to Speedway, headed north to 46th where we connected back to Guadalupe. Then North to Denson Dr., through a couple of parking lots to Huntland Dr and our 3rd checkpoint, Austin Suburu. This is where it sucked being the heaviest member of our team. Meredith got to sit in nice cushy, cloth wheelbarrow while I picked her up and wheeled her down around some pylons and back. It was actually fun, but probably more so for Meredith. Our friend from Danskin, Lynn Parks, took some pictures here.

Now it was time to head back down South. We managed to get back to Denson and Guadalupe. I'm not sure how we did it, but we completely missed Speedway and ended up on Duval. Our next checkpoint was PURE Austin, an upscale gym on 5th Street. We decided to cut toward Lamar on 6th where we just happened to pass a guy sitting outside of Buffalo Billards, in front of this art guitar handing out beads. It was the 3rd landmark checkpoint!

Once we reach PURE Austin, we were given a map of the property. On the map, the location of 15 color coded letters were roughly marked. We had to locate all the letters and unscramble the phrase they spelled out. This was probably the most frustrating challenge. Despite begin on brighly colored paper, some of the letters were very hard to find. We ended up teaming with another couple (whom we didn't know) to find all the letters.

Now it was on to Mozart's, the 2nd landmark checkpoint. We briefly glanced at the clues and listened to the Pinger clue, but we already had our bead from the 3rd landmark, so we didn't pay it too much attention. This one would have been a bit more difficult. I knew where the 3rd landmark was and I still couldn't figure out what the clues meant.

After Mozart's, we returned east on Lake Austin Blvd. and crossed the river beneath MoPac on the pedestrian bridge. Then it was to the rowing dock where we got to sit in small, inflatable boats and paddle in the cold, cold, COLD water around a buoy and back. This is the only place the event photographer found us. The event photographer caught us here and here. We both enjoyed this challenge. It was hard, but fun and even though the water was cold it was also refreshing.

After leaving the rowing dock, we tried to book it to Jack and Adams but we were both tired and hungry at this point. Also, according to my watch we technically only had about 25 minutes to hit the final three checkpoints and challenges. In any event, at J&A we got to ride a big wheel course set up in their parking lot. This was by far the most fun challenge. The big wheels went surprisingly fast and would spin out if you applied too much brake pressure. A spectator got a good picture of me on my camera...one day I'll update my photo album.

After J&A, we crossed the street, parked the McDonald's parking lot on the corner and went next door to Bicycle Sport Shop. They had this huge inflatable obstacle course set up and a long line of people waiting their turn. There were two sides to the obstacle course so you got to do it simultaneously with your partner. You had to dive into a hole, climb a wall, crawl under three roller bars, maneuver through a couple of large pylons, climb a bigger wall, then slide down to the exit. It was harder than I thought it was going to be. Since we hit it at the end of the race, I don't think it was holding the air like it was suppose to. Also, once the person behind me started through, I started bouncing around way more than was probably good for me. While standing in line, we were getting really concerned about the time. The 4-hour course deadline was quickly approaching. Luckily, someone mentioned that the deadline was being extended by an hour to account for the longer lines at some of the checkpoints.

After BSS, we meandered through the backstreets to get to the final checkpoint, Jo's Coffee. We probably should have stuck to Barton Springs to Congress Ave., but I thought the backstreets would be less trafficky. I was right, but they were also more hilly and we weren't quite sure which cross street would be the best one to get us to Jo's. We made it to Jo's after some scary moments on Congress, only to be confronged with yet another difficult challenge: stilts. This is something that one should definitely practice.

We both eventually made it throught the short course, we got our bead, and headed back up Congress, turned on Riverside, and returned to Runtex. We re-racked our bikes, ran the block and a half to the finish line, went down the water slide, and turned in our beads. We had done it...and in just 4 hours and 20 minutes. See how much fun Team QTZ had through the brightroom photography here and here.

Posted by jfer at June 27, 2007 10:00 PM