We all met at a park in Aurora at 8 a.m.; the race started at 9. Each team got T-shirts, GPS tracking devices in their cars so race officials could monitor all the teams, and then each team had a photo taken with Savannah, the sweet and adorable girl for whom the race is named.
And Brian and I had our picture taken with Porter, our friends' baby for whom we were racing:
Group shot of all 9 teams:
A few minutes before the start of the race, the first-place fundraising team was announced. It was ... drumroll please ... TEAM HOWELL! I was jumping up and down, a-whoopin' and a-hollerin' like I had just won the lottery or something. Brian and I officially raised $2,385! We got a 5-minute head start and were the first ones to start the race. But we quickly learned that in an all-day race, 5 minutes isn't much.At each stop along the way, we had to look for race volunteers in red T-shirts, who gave us envelopes that looked like this:
With clues inside each one that looked like this:
And since this was in fact a race, we ran to our locations the minute we got out of the car (and sometimes I even started running before Brian even stopped the car).Location #1
We had to drive to CentreHills Golf Course in Aurora, where we had to choose Drive It or Putt It. Brian did Drive It, and had to drive a golf ball past the 150m mark. I did Putt It, and had to putt a hole-in-one from the designated spot on the practice green. We each had 5 attempts at the task, with a 10-minute penalty for each task not completed in 5 tries. Brian made his, I did not. So we waited 1o minutes. Like I said, so much for our head start.
Location #2
We had to drive downtown Denver to the Denver Rescue Mission, where we had to prepare 2 food boxes as instructed, packing them according to the food list given to us. When the DRM staff were satisfied with our boxes, they gave us the next clue. We were instructed to go upstairs to the chapel and unscramble the letters given to us to reveal the Denver Rescue Mission's mission statement.
Location #3
We had to drive to Elitch Gardens Theme Park, also downtown Denver. We were given a parking pass, and had to park and then find the volunteer near the gate. The clue we received there had 2 admission tickets to Elitch Gardens, as well as a clue with the choice of "Wild Ride or Take Your Time?" We had to decide, and do, as a team, either the XLR8R bungee jump ride (the wild ride) or the Ferris Wheel, Shipwreck Falls and the Tea Cups. Brian has an insane fear of heights, and I could not for the life of me convince him to do XLR8R. So we did the 3 slower rides, during which Brian confessed that was his first time ever even on a ferris wheel! Seriously, he has a major height thing, so as you can see there was no way he was going to do the wild ride. To try to make up time for choosing the slower option, we totally smooth talked ourselves to the front of the lines and got the ride operators to shorten the rides a bit. Gotta play the game, right? Volunteers punched a card for each ride we completed. Fortunately for us, Shipwreck Falls was not operating, so we got out of that one. A quick stop at the penny puncher machine and we were through with Elitch Gardens.
Location #4
We had to drive to Heritage Square in Golden, and run to the bottom of the alpine slide. The clue given there had two tickets for the alpine slide, and we were instructed to take the chairlift up and ride the alpine slide down. This was one of my favorite tasks.
Location #5
We had to find Clear Creek Surgery Center in Wheat Ridge. Because we weren't supposed to use phones, etc., to find places, we stopped at a pay phone and found the address in a phone book. Once there, we were given a clue instructing us to don surgical caps, masks, and shoe covers. We were then gowned and gloved, ready to suture. We couldn't contaminate the field by touching anything; if so, we had to start over. We then watched a demonstration of suturing and each of us had to use the suture thread, needle drivers and forceps to sew two squares of fabric together, while remaining sterile. Stitches had to be straight and even, and volunteers judged the quality of the suturing. (As a note, all team squares are going to be sewn together by Dr. Rebecca Knight into a quilted wall hanging with the words "Savannah is a Radiant Light of Hope" embroidered in the center. She will present the finished quilt to Savannah's parents once it is completed.)
Location #6
We had to drive to the Denver Zoo. To start with, finding a parking place at noon on a hot and busy Saturday proved challenging enough. Once we finally found a spot, we ran all through the parking lot and into the zoo, and had to find the volunteers near the giraffes. We were then given a clue that said we had to complete 4 tasks in a treasure hunt around the zoo. For each task, we had to take a picture with our digital camera and then show the volunteers stationed at the giraffes in order to advance to the next task. Task #1 was to take a picture of ourselves riding either the carousel or the train. At that moment I realized I had forgotten our camera in the car, and Brian (bless his heart) ran all the way back to the car to get it, but that certainly cost us some valuable time. Can't believe I am posting this hideous picture of us on the carousel.
Once we got the ride picture, we had to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the volunteers near the giraffes. Task #2 was to take a picture near the measuring board with the polar bear.
Then we had to go BACK to the volunteers at the giraffes for task #3, which was to run to the opposite side of the zoo and take a picture of us jumping at the jumping chart near the whatever the heck animal is there.
Then we had to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the volunteers at the giraffes again for task #4, which made us run to the OPPOSITE SIDE of the zoo once again to take a picture with the hippos (the head is in the water behind us, can you see him?)
At some point during the zoo we switched from running to power walking. All the back and forth at the zoo was brutal, definitely pushed us to the edge at one point. It was SO frustrating to see a team running the other direction and know they were a task ahead of you. Ahhh, the sweet spirit of competition. Finally we checked in with giraffe volunteer station one final time and got a clue that brought us out of that blasted zoo...Location #7
... only to find out the next location was City Park, right next to the zoo. With the high volumes of people that day, we opted to just hoof if across City Park, rather than try to drive to the other side and park. Probably another costly mistake, but whatever. So we ran/walked across City Park to the designated clue center. We were then instructed to find volunteers randomly located at 4 spots around City Park - and we had to do them in order, mind you - so we ran around until we find station 1. All the tasks in City Park involved using different methods of non-verbal communication. At station 1, we had to use the Braille key provided us to translate a clue given in Braille; the clue was "the letter U."
At station 2, we had to listen to a Morse Code clue on IPods and translate it using the Morse Code key into a clue. This was EXTREMELY challenging and frustrating. There ended up being a time limit, and once teams reached it (we didn't know this beforehand), then the volunteer was able to give us the rest of the clue. The volunteer told us that every team ahead of us maxed out the time, but that we deciphered more of the clue than the other teams, so I guess that's good. The clue was, "the sum of all the sides of a die."
At station 3, we had to watch a volunteer sign a phrase to us in Sign Language and then using the key provided, translate the phrase. The phrase was "What is another name for Down syndrome?"
At station 4 we did Semaphore, which uses two flags to make signals that can be seen at a distance. Brian was the flagger, and I was the de-coder. We had to get out of earshot from one another, and then Brian used the key to spell out a word that I had to de-code. Each time he signaled a letter, I had to hold up a green flag if I understood it, or a red one if I didn't so he could re-signal. The word he spelled out was "Blackjack."
We then had to figure out what all 4 things had in common, which is "21." (the letter U is the 21st letter; the sum of the sides of a die is 21; another name for Down syndrome is trisomy 21; and 21 is blackjack." We had to give this answer to the volunteer for our next clue.
Location #8
We ran/walked all the way back across City Park to our car, and then had to drive to Dynamite Paintball off of Jewel and E-470. We had to put on masks and use a paintball gun to run around a field and shoot targets with pictures of our previous challenges in the correct order of how we did those challenges. Once we shot all the targets in the right order we got our next clue.
Location #9
We had to drive east of Aurora to the middle of nowhere practically, to Coyle Turf Farms, and go down this muddy road to a grove of trees. Here, a bunch of 3x3 foot squares of dirt had been marked off. We had to choose a square and use shovels to dig until we found a buried pill box with 2 Savannah's Race bracelets in it. This took us FOREVER to find, and my body is sore sore sore from all that digging. We finally found it and got our next clue, which instructed us to drive to the Aurora Sports Park, where we crossed the finish line.
The Finish
We finished 7th out of 9 teams; teams 8 and 9 dropped out before the race ended. No matter. We had the greatest day, despite being incredibly exhausted. It took us almost 7 hours to complete the race.
There was a fun after-race party, where Brian's mom brought the kids to celebrate with us. There was food, games, fun activities, fire truck rides (Connor seems to attract fire trucks wherever we are), treats and more.
And we celebrated what we accomplished. Here we are with Paula and Jeremy Bryant, some old friends who made up the other team who raced for Porter:
And here is my friend Leah, Savannah's Race founder, giving a check to board members of the Mile High Down Syndrome Association for $18,000, the amount raised by our 9 teams. How cool is that???
It is difficult to capture everything we experienced before, during and after the race. We made memories to be cherished forever. Brian and I joked that we packed about a year's worth of dates into one day. I think we made a pretty darn good team, and gave it our all. Brian's already talking about Savannah's Race 2010. I say maybe we should just be volunteers, they looked a lot less tired and sunburned!This race was perfectly planned and orchestrated down to the most minute of details; it ran flawlessly. A huge kudos and hats off to Leah and company for the most incredible job in planning and running this event, and for the amazing things made possible by the funds it raises.
I will be sending out real thank yous, but again wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who supported us in Savannah's Race, monetarily and otherwise. We couldn't have done it without you! I hurt today, but it's that good hurt. And sometimes it just feels good to challenge yourself and go slightly out of your comfort zone, and be a part of something that is bigger than you, and does good for others. I think we accomplished all that and more.
