Cindy Lou: GUR

What is GUR? Great Urban Race. There are a few of these events in different cities around the US, even one in Canada. Teams of two get together to solve 12 clues in whichever city you are participating in. First through third place get money and a free entry to the national championships in Las Vegas. And fourth through twenty-fifth get entries but need to pay for the national championships. Everyone else gets a great memory of what they did.

We could only use our legs or public transportation which in Madison means only buses. Luckily, we could use our phones as well to either call someone or use the internet which my smart phone came in handy. Clues can be done in any order and you can skip one clue to do. Each clue done had to have either a photo, a flyer or stamp (sometimes a combo) as proof we did the clue. Madison's GUR took place starting at Noon at the Essen Haus and also ended there. We had five hours to finish the course.

So the morning of, I had packed us a small backpack filled with two water bottles, two gatorade bottles, protein bars (which we never ate), maps, Advil (in case we weren't feeling well), money and our phones including an extra battery for Joshua's phone. We were so excited for the race. Unfortunately, Joshua had injured his ankle the night before so my partner was a gimp but he wanted to go through with it, pain and all. What a trooper! We had to have a themed "costume" but I'm not a fan of overly doing it so we just wore our Old Chicago I Heart Beer t-shirts, which we got a lot of compliments on from GUR participants and non-participants.

At the Essen Haus, we got registered and got our bib numbers and t-shirts. There were so many people there! And dressed up so creatively! Right before noon, they handed out the envelope that contained all the clues and at noon, we all tore open the envelope.

Joshua and I, like many many others, went aside to solve out our clues then figured out which clues to do first and so on. There was one clue that we couldn't figure out right away so we left it, hoping to call someone. Of course the first two people I called didn't pick up. Then I called my work, Old Chicago, hoping a gang of people were there to help us figure out the clue. Even though it was lunch time, someone there who I thinking wasn't working wrote down our clue to figure out. So off to the first place while they figure out the clue for us.

Getting to our first clue was not easy...I got turned around in a neighborhood that I was not familiar with. I knew something like that was going to happen! I feel as though we lost a half hour wandering around.

Our first clue was about 2 miles away and it was to help the animals (local dogs and cats). We had to purchase a treat, toy or food item and then donate to an address that was given to us. Once we donated it, we got a temporary tattoo of 'Dane County Humane Society' which I volunteered to be the subject, since I was the less sweaty one. The line was so long since I think it was the first clue that everyone decided to do first since it was the closest to the starting point.

The second clue we did was around the same neighborhood and again, we wandered a bit. We had to go to the coordinates that were listed on the clue sheet, to a Mexican restaurant. My smart phone was not so smart and gave me the wrong street. Boo! We had run past a Mexican restaurant but thought nothing of it til we were on the wrong street. Backtrack to the restaurant we did see. At the restaurant, one person (thank goodness) had to eat an entire pepper, which ended up being a huge jalapeno pepper. Hands down, Joshua was going to do this one since I am the biggest sissy when it comes to spicy foods and he loves spicy foods. He took it down like a champ and then drank a ton of water.

The third clue we did was about 2 miles away at a park. On our clue sheet, there was a search word box. The remaining letters would spell out where we had to go which was the park. Along the way, Joshua threw up A LOT from the pepper. So glad I didn't have to do it. So we had to go to the softball field in the park and we both had to spin around 8 times with our head touching the handle, then run around the bases. Whoa, I almost did throw up then. I didn't even do the 8 times but I don't think anyone was watching.

The fourth clue was in the same park but a half mile away. There we played "Object Freeze". They gave us an ordinary everyday object that we had to use in a non-traditional way. Our object was a watering can. Joshua used it as a purse. I used it as a hat. Then Joshua used it as a shovel. It was kinda fun. But now I know slightly how hard it is for improv people. Kudos to you guys.

The fifth clue we had to answer questions on the clue sheet and the circled letters pointed us to the right place. We had to know the last name of the Mayor of Madison (which I can spell and say correctly thanks to the Mayor's Report show that I have been doing for a few years with him...Cieslewicz), the first building on UW's campus, Madison's nickname, WI's state animal, City known as the Bratwurst Capital of the World, and WI's state tree. I had to look up half of them cause I had no idea but now I do. The clue led us to a bar near the campus which was another 2 miles away. There one of us had to throw a ping pong ball into any of the three fish bowls. Kinda like beer pong. Joshua missed his first three shots and had to wait to try again but then successfully made the shot on the first try of the second round! They gave us a card to note the completion but the clue was not done just yet.

On the card, it said we had to pretend to pump air into someone's tire. Easy enough. Stopped at a parked car and Joshua pretended to pump air. It must've been a sight to see for those who didn't know what event was going on!

We then headed down the street for the sixth clue. One of us had to perform a circus activity which we didn't know ahead of time. Looked up as we were jogging towards it and I say 'Thank goodness!' because what I saw was juggling. Back in the day during downtimes in tennis, I would goof around and try to juggle tennis balls. I'm not an expert but at least I can do a few rotations. I was not successful the first time around with bean bags. Joshua suggested I try with tennis balls. Bingo! I had to juggle a total of 8 times (not rotations but balls) without messing up. Took a few minutes but we were out of there before any of the teams that were there before us. I was so happy to really contribute to the race, because Joshua wouldn't have been able to do that.

For the seventh clue, we backtracked down the street and went further down the street from where we came from. On our clue sheet, we first had to unscramble letters to know where to go. Easy enough since I do those from the newspapers at least 3 times a week, plus I had the jumble aid website on my phone in case it was too hard to figure out right away. We go to the retail store and we had to watch a video to answer three questions about the video. We only had two attempts to answer them all correctly. We got two of the three correctly right away but had caught the wrong answer for the third question. Listened more carefully and got the third one correct to get our sticker and move on.

Clue number eight...right on the clue sheet gave an address and told us what we'd be doing. Go to the pizza place and do the classic over-the-head pizza twirl. Thank goodness Joshua's a chef and does this from time to time at work. We watched a team before us and let's just say, I wouldn't order a pizza from them. Joshua's pizza throw was perfect as I expected it to be. Done and done!

Clue number nine gave us some difficulty. We had to figure out the restaurant that claims 'We're serious about fun food' where one of us had to feed the other a treat and take a pic of it. I inputted the slogan wrong and got Domino's. Boy, did the guy at Domino's look at us weird. Sat down, took the time to re-input it into my phone's internet and got the right answer. Luckily, we had not passed it by on any of our runs. The real restaurant Bluephies was the farthest away along with another clue that we opted to skip.

We were about three miles away. Looked at a bus schedule and yes!, a bus was coming in 10 minutes that would take us right to the restaurant. Seemed like everyone else had the same idea. Although the bus was empty where we got on, it got super crowded along the way, filled with GUR people. Nevertheless, we all made it to the destination and some people went to the clue we opted to skip and some like us went to the restaurant. Joshua took a pic of him feeding me a dessert. Even though I'm on a runner's diet right now, that tasted so good and I have no idea what I even ate.

After clue nine, we wanted to head back to the finish line. The bus that took us to the restaurant was not coming for 40 minutes. So we mapped it out and saw we were a mile away from a street where buses go by on. A mile later, still no busses for another half hour. Joshua then decided we should head to another busy street where busses go on. Weekends suck since busses don't run as frequently. As we were walking to the next street, I was looking up the routes that would go by. Crap! Next bus should be there in 3 minutes and we were a good 5 blocks away. Joshua ignored his ankle, I ignored how my legs were on fire and we started sprinting because we didn't want to miss the bus. When we got to the bus stop, the bus came 30 seconds later. Thank goodness we sprinted although it hurt badly to do so.

What about clue ten and eleven since there were twelve clues and we could only skip one?

Those clues we did along the way throughout the race.

Clue ten on our sheet had a tic-tac-toe box with things we had to do and we had to do three to make a tic-tac-toe. I took a picture of Joshua honking a stranger's car horn, then one of him shaking a dog's paw (those kids were so excited we picked their dog) and then we were going to take a pic of us pretending to dive into a fountain that was next to the juggling act but it was turned off!!! How cruel! I couldn't think of another fountain so we opted to do some of the other tic-tac-toe boxes that would include one of the two we already did. So we took a picture of Joshua and a random guy who had two or more visible tattoos. He had two right next to each other on his arm. Thanks stranger! Then we purchased an apple at Cosi because we had produce a piece of fruit at the finish line besides a banana since they had bananas out at the finish line as food for us racers. TIC-TAC-TOE DONE!

Clue eleven was the clue we had problems figuring out and that's when I called Old Chicago. They got back to me pretty quickly after I had called them. They are so smart! Thanks guys! It was a riddle which stated a guy liked BALLOONS, BOOKS, WEEDS, SWIMMING, LETTERS, NOODLES, APPLES and COFFEE but NOT PARTIES, READING, FLOWERS, WATER, WORDS, PASTA SAUCE, PLUMS OR TEA. We had to take a pic of us in front of a street sign that the guy WOULD like based on the riddle. How the heat and the pressure can get to us. We could not figure it out and didn't really want to spend the time trying. Looking back and knowing the answer, I'm like DUH!!! Did you figure it out? The answer is, the guy likes double letters so we had to find a street sign with double letters and we passed by a ton of those.

So back on the bus, I say to Joshua, let's get everything organized. I wanted to have everything together so it would be easy to show the judges at the finish line. Luckily we did a check because somewhere along the way, I misplaced one of the flyers we needed. Shoot!!! Do we go back a mile and do the juggling thing again or take the 30 minute penalty for missing a clue? Take the 30 minute penalty. When we got off the bus, we still had a few blocks to walk and as we neared, we passed by two girls who were finished. Lightbulb! I asked Joshua if we should ask them for their flyer since they finished. We both hesitated but then I decided to. I had to run a block or two to catch up to them and asked them. Thankfully, they felt sympathetic because they had lost one of their clues and would've loved to have someone help them out so they gave me the flyer that was needed. Thank you strangers!!! No 30 minute penalty.

We finished the race and got no penalties thanks to those girls. We have no idea how we placed since they have account for the penalties and there's too much going on for them to do that right away. The results come out three days from when I posted this so I'll update this when I find out.

We had a great time minus some fatigue and injuries, and I think we'll be doing this again next year if we have nothing going on. There were some low points like when Joshua and I were yelling at each other or when he was throwing up but there were a lot of high points especially being able to spend time and do this with Joshua. I am so proud of Joshua for pushing through. He was hurting afterwards and probably will be for the next few weeks for running on his sprained ankle. We learned a lot and know some things we'd change next time we would participate. Next year GUR!

Here are the pics from the race: