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Team Ottawa Feedback I'm disappointed that we didn't perform better, but that's because you guys did a great job of messing with our minds ...lulling us into a stupor with the bowl-a-thon, then the forced death march to the clubhouse, and when a critical transit decision had to be made, we chose the worst possible option and executed it even worse, which killed all chances of a comeback. I hope Brent wants redemption, because this race was all about "opportunity lost" and we were probably as bad as any team in not taking advantage of the chances staring us in the face. e.g. taking our bikes on the "L" from Linden Station would have made a lot of sense. e.g. taking the Addison bus from Lakeshore to the blue line (an option not available to teams who left before 6AM) on the way to the paddle would have shaved off an hour of travel time e.g. writing down "Gaonas" instead of "Gronas" might have averted us from running around the Lincoln Park zoo looking for a gorilla with the same misspelled name Well it was a wonderful experience, and I appreciate all that you guys have done and keep doing to make the race bigger and better each year. If there's anything I can do to help in any way then let me know! Bill |
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Narrative recap provided by Jay Brecher of Team Toronto 3 This past weekend, my friend Bill Wells and I took part in the first ever City Chase World Championship in Chicago. We were both very disappointed with our final placing (9th), but the race was filled with highlights which included trapeze, night golf, skinny dipping in Lake Michigan and jumping out of a plane from 13,000 ft. Oh, do I have your attention now? Before the race, a bombshell was dropped on us when we were told that unlike previous championship races, this race would be virtually continuous from start to finish, over approximately 36 hours. Bill and I figured that such a race would favour endurance athletes such as us. We were then each subjected to a full body search to ensure that we were carrying nothing more than clothing and a small, standard-issue backpack. Cell phones, money, maps, pens, paper, and plastic bags were all prohibited. The race started out in fairly predictable fashion, both in terms of the activity it involved (a scavenger hunt), and our team strategy (run like hell from the moment the race begins and figure out a route sometime after the fact). From the start of the race in Millennium Park, we went first to the Stained Glass Museum at the Navy Pier, followed by the Water Tower, Pizzeria Uno's (where we spent 2 minutes assembling one of their famous deep dish pizzas), an office tower at the corner of Michigan and Wacker (the former site of Fort Dearborn), and Soldier Field. We spent way too much time asking people for directions, and took the subway to Soldier Field, when it would have made the most sense to run there first. At each of these stations, we received valuable items, including a map of Chicago, an aluminum blanket, a head lamp and $30.00 in spending money. We then proceeded to the "Big Bean" in Grant Park to complete the scavenger hunt (by which point we were in 9th place) and receive our next clue, which was to go to the North Avenue Beach. There, we had to use only our hands to dig up a 25 sq. ft. section of the beach looking for a key. Once a team found a key, they had to run to the other end of the beach, whereupon one team member needed to wade 50 ft. into Lake Michigan, dive below a buoy and successfully open a padlock which held the clue to the next challenge. Some teams lucked out and only dug for a few minutes before finding a key. We weren't so lucky, and had to keep digging for a full 60 minutes before being allowed to jump in the lake. However, since we never found a key, both of us had to endure the cold water and simply touch the buoy. As we didn't want to get out clothes well, Bill and I both elected to go in the water naked. I fell a couple of times trying to run towards the buoy, and even attempted swimming at one point, before realizing how ridiculously cold the water was (it had snowed in Chicago the day before, when a new daily low had been set). Upon emerging from the frigid waters of Lake Michigan, we then had to make our way to Winnetka, a suburb 5 miles north of the northernmost "L Train" station. The smart teams took a "Metra" commuter train from downtown Chicago right to Winnetka, whereas Bill and I elected to run the five miles, saving on train fare, but probably costing us another hour on the leaders. Before leaving the beach, Bill and I had to choose which of us would be "going up". I figured this may well be referring to a climb up the Sears Tower, so I volunteered, whereupon they wrote a big "X" on my cheek. After finally arriving in Winnetka, we discovered that the ChasePoint actually involved doing some acrobatics on the trapeze. After a five minute training course, I climbed up a 20 ft. ladder, swung through the air hanging upside down, and grabbed for dear life the forearms of an acrobat on the other side of the net. I got it on my first attempt. Good thing, as teams had to keep trying until they successfully completed this task, and one competitor dislocated his shoulder during an unsuccessful attempt. We were next given a couple of rickety one speed beach cruiser bikes and told to ride them all the way back downtown, a good 30 kilometre ride. It didn't help that we hadn't eaten or consumed liquids in hours. Fortunately, there were a few water fountains along the route. We then went to the Randolph St. train station, where we were told to make our way to a certain address in Harvey, in the south side of Chicago. It would be a vast understatement to say that Harvey is not the safest neighbourhood around. In fact, it has a well-deserved reputation for being the Compton of Chicago. As luck would have it, Bill and I arrived in Harvey just as it was getting dark. We ended up on the same train as the ladies from Team Calgary, whom we ended up collaborating with for the rest of the race. Their boundless enthusiasm suddenly made the race seem a lot more fun. They were also very adept at charming total strangers into giving them free food, which they generously shared with us. Meanwhile, we carried their backpack most of the time. They saddled us with the nickname "Jay and Silent Bill". After wandering around for some time in Harvey, we finally found the address we were looking for, a house being built for Habitat for Humanity. There was a large mound of dirt deposited in front of the house, and our primary task was to fill up wheelbarrows with dirt and deposit the dirt all across the front and side lawn. Our work was being evaluated, with hard working teams being possibly rewarded with time bonuses, and lazy teams being penalized accordingly. I worked myself into the ground for the next hour, and while I don't think we earned a time bonus, I did earn myself a very sore back from all that heavy lifting to which I wasn't accustomed! By the time we and Team Calgary were done, it was close to 8:00 p.m., and the race officials, fearing for our safety, tailed us in a vehicle as we made our way on foot back to the train station. In any event, we made it back downtown without incident, in front of a hotel on Michigan Avenue. There, we discovered that we would have to eat the deep dish pizza we had hastily assembled just hours earlier. We couldn't leave until we had completely devoured the pizza, although we could enlist the help of one other person. In one of the few instances of good luck that we had in this race, we happened to encounter a young man who claimed not to have eaten in three days, and gladly consumed four pieces of pizza, with Bill and I each consuming another three pieces. That force feeding was such a nauseating experience, the mere thought of eating deep dish pizza now makes me feel queasy. We next had to proceed to the Manhattan Building for a walking tour of some of Chicago's most notable architecture. It was an interesting but stressful tour, as we had to remember detailed information for a quiz we would be given the next day. Each wrong answer would result in a five minute time penalty. Despite having only one working pen and writing random notes on a dilapidated map, we somehow managed to get all five questions right. The next stop was the Discovery Centre, where we had 45 minutes to complete 40 pages of SAT questions. We were told that the team with the lowest score on the test would be eliminated from the race, so we knew the stakes were high. For most of the test, I took the foolish approach of answering every question sequentially, rather than looking for the easy ones. In particular, the English section of the test (which I didn't get to until about 30 minutes into the test) was generally much easier than the Math section, at least for someone who hadn't done long division in almost 20 years. After completing our SATs, we went to Lucky Strike Bowlerama, where we had to bowl (10 pin), with teammates alternating shots, until the team reached 800 points. If teams had less than 800 points at 2:00 a.m. (when the bowling alley closed), then they were assessed time penalties. We then were told to go to the Marovitz Waveland Golf Course, which seemed strange given the time of day. Near the clubhouse, a "tent" of sorts was set up, which all of the remaining competitors crammed into. As a group we were provided with several blankets and pillows to try and keep warm. The slumber party didn't quite do the trick … I was freezing cold as a result, and unable to sleep. At least I was wearing a nifty black cardigan that I picked up on Michigan Avenue earlier that evening (and when I say "picked up", I mean that quite literally!). At 5:30 a.m., we had to get up for our 5:40 a.m. tee time to play four holes of night golf, alternating shots and playing with only three clubs and a glow in the dark ball. I had never played golf before, and couldn't even get the ball airborne. Bill's a good player, but had the misfortune of hitting three sand traps. We probably averaged 5-6 strokes just getting the ball out of each sand trap. We ended up 16 shots over par (with 8 strokes being par), with each shot over par being a one minute penalty. We next had to get to the Des Plains River, near the airport, and were told that the last team to get there would be eliminated. We were still collaborating with Team Calgary, and knew that Team Ottawa (which included 2004 City Chase Champion Bill Jarvis), with about a half hour head start, was the only team we had a chance of catching. We devised a risky strategy to leapfrog Ottawa by running between subways lines, rather than taking the train all the way down to the loop and back up to the airport. Unfortunately, when we got to the river, we discovered we were on the wrong side of the river, with the nearest pedestrian crossing being at least a mile away. Therefore, we decided to jump a fence, climb onto the Interstate highway (which had no shoulder on the bridge), cross the bridge and hop the fence on the other side. We did so and beat Ottawa there by about 10 minutes, so we were still in the hunt! We next had to lower a canoe into the Des Plains River, and paddle for 22 kilometres to our next destination, Brookfield, on the south side of town. We were very careful getting into the canoe, as it was very muddy and slippery, which had caused one of the members of Team Vancouver to fall into the water and suffer hypothermia. Thanks to Bill's experience as a canoeist, we were able to complete this task in fairly good time (approximately two and a half hours). We next had to go to the Brookfield Zoo, where we were given the task of using coin-operated "Mold-a-Ramas" to get plastic moldings of five different kinds of animals located throughout the zoo, including elephants, dolphins and koala bears. Finally, we were driven 40 miles west of Chicago to Hinckley, Illinois, a place dominated by cornfields as far as the eye can see, for the next challenge. It was only when I read the sign "Sky Diving, 2 Miles" that I realized what they had in store for us. It was there that we received the disappointing news that we had been eliminated from the race because we had fallen out of the top six. Calgary was brought back from elimination by virtue of having received the most votes from other team earlier in the day, when each team was asked to rank all other teams in order of preference. Though no longer in the race, Bill and I were given the option to skydive from 13,000 ft., and we both went for it. Of course, we were very securely fastened by harness to a parachute instructor, who ensured that we opened the parachute properly, and at the proper altitude. What I didn't find out until after the dive was that the 27 mph wind was just 3 mph from being too strong for skydiving to be permitted. As it was, a gust of wind caused me to veer off course, and land halfway up the airplane runway on my instructor's back, while Chicagoland employees scrambled to detach the parachute, lest we be dragged right onto the Interstate. The scariest part of the whole skydiving experience was leaning out the edge of the plane, just before jumping (although I did get some sense of the danger involved when they made me fill out a waiver booklet, for which I had to initial no few than 24 paragraphs, absolving Chicagoland and its assigns from any and all liability that might otherwise arise from my injury or death). The most exhilarating part was the free fall, which lasted for 60 seconds but seemed much longer, while I was traveling at such an incredible speed that it's difficult to adequately convey in words. The sky dive was definitely the highlight of my City Chase Championship weekend. After that, we took the long ride back to Chicago, the race for us now being over. There was only one stage left in the race, a photo scavenger hunt that involved taking 12 out of 20 pictures of such things as a team member seated in a limo, both team members playing musical instruments, and ten people arranged from tallest to shortest. I was disappointed not to have been permitted to finish the race, but at least I didn't miss out on any of the really fun stuff. Overall, I have mixed feelings about my experience in Chicago. On the one hand, I appreciated the breadth and variety of mental and physical challenges they threw at us, which made the race a lot different and more challenging than what I was expecting. On the other hand, I went there to win, not to finish ninth. I guess that means I have some unfinished business to take care of next year. Jay |
