Flashback Friday FUN: City Chase!

This Saturday I will be participating in my 5th Toronto City Chase. You can read all about my previous adventures here, here, here and here. My team-mate L has completed City Chase in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. These events are such a good time and clearly we keep going back for more!

After completing the Toronto event together last year [along with 2 of our friends], L and I agreed that we were going to take it a little bit lot more seriously next time – competing as opposed to just participating. That’s not to say there is anything wrong with participating; I have had an absolute blast every single time, and it sure makes for a fun race report when everything is documented on camera.

With the race upon us, we have been doing whatever we can to prepare for a successful day. Of course, there is only so much preparation to be done for an event like this; the general idea stays the same, but we have no idea what could be thrown at us. We’ll get our hands on a clue sheet one way or another, then figure out clues using our knowledge of the city and various resources (internet, phone-a-friend, etc. are allowed and encouraged!) and spend the day running and/or taking public transit all over the city to complete 10 tasks within before the 6 hour deadline. They don’t call it the Urban Adventure Series for nothing, and I have had some crazy experiences.

We’ve been pouring over previous clue sheets, re-familiarizing ourselves with city parks and other locations that are used frequently, marking up maps, lining up our support teams at home who will be ready to Google for us at a moment’s notice and of course getting pumped up!

A truly successful City Chase comes down to luck in a lot of cases. You never know where you’re going to hit line-ups, or a long wait for a Subway or Streetcar ride. Some lucky teams might catch a ride to their next destination if they spot a certain specially marked car (other forms of private transport are prohibited!) and there is also an opportunity to earn “Passing Lane” cards, allowing a team to bypass the line at a Chase Point of their choice.

We’ve raised over $50 [thanks to L] for the featured charity, Right to Play, which will earn us a bonus Chase Point to be collected during the race.

We’ve also entered a contest which could potentially earn us a free Chase Point; we were asked to display the City Chase logo in a creative and original way. Here’s what we came up with:

big thanks to Red for some help on this!

last night’s project 🙂

Whether or not luck is on our side tomorrow, we’re going to work our butts off and see what we can do. But don’t worry, we’ll still have fun in the process.

Stay tuned!