Twin Cities scavenger hunt goes 'frantic'

BY RICHARD CHIN
Pioneer Press

What do you get when you combine a trivia contest, a 10K run, a scavenger hunt, some competitive bus riding and dozens of digital cameras?

The answer is the Urban Challenge, a central-city adventure race that came to the Twin Cities on Saturday.

Minneapolis-St. Paul was the eighth stop in the race series' 21-city tour around the country, which will culminate in a $50,000 national championship in Las Vegas in November.

The brainchild of Phoenix businessman Kevin McCarthy, the Urban Challenge pits teams of two in a dash to find 12 checkpoints throughout a city identified only by a series of cryptic clues. The Pioneer Press decided to send this intrepid reporter to give it a try.

While on the run, we were allowed to use all sorts of informational resources to help decipher the locations of the checkpoints: a visit to an Internet cafe; a cell-phone call to friends or reference librarians; a sweaty, breathless query to puzzled strangers.

Once we figured out where to go, we had to get there either on foot or by public transit. No cars, taxis, bikes or inline skates allowed. Teammates had to take a picture of themselves or persuade passersby to snap a picture of them at the correct landmark with a digital camera lent to each team by the race organizers. Taking the picture in the wrong place equaled disqualification.

McCarthy developed the prototype for the competition as a birthday game for his 12-year-old daughter. Unlike many athletic competitions, the winners aren't always those with the quickest feet. You also have to have a quick mind and perhaps a good grasp of the bus system and local landmarks.

"I've seen some world-class athletes go down because they've gone to the wrong spot. They do too much running and not enough thinking," McCarthy said.

So far, it's a labor of love for McCarthy -- but he's hoping to get corporate sponsors and perhaps turn it into a television show.

My partner was a friend, Jenny Stohl of St. Paul, a runner and cross-country skier. She's also a lawyer, which I hoped would mean she's cunning and ruthless. Most importantly, she's a regular Metro Transit rider, which would prove invaluable in cutting down the running we would have to do.

The race started with a 30-question trivia contest at race headquarters, Joseph's Bar and Grill just south of the Wabasha Street Bridge in St. Paul. The teams that scored highest would get a head start.

We got 22 out of the 30 questions right, enough to get us in the first wave of about 30 teams entered. But we were immediately stumped by the clue to our first checkpoint, an anagram of the name of a downtown hot spot. After precious minutes of head-scratching, we realized it was the Great Waters brew pub, and we ran there in time to see several teams already taking pictures of themselves.

Next, we had to find an establishment near Mears Park that shares the name with a cocktail and a magazine. Answer: the Cosmopolitan apartment building.

Then a bus ride to Minneapolis, where we were supposed to find a restaurant with the same name as the first name of a Thomas Jefferson slave who was supposedly his lover. We knew it was Sally Hemings, but was her first name spelled Sallie or Sally? We had to find out because there is a restaurant by each spelling in Minneapolis. Jenny phoned her friend, Erica Lepp, who looked up the information on the Internet and put us on the right track to Sally's on the East Bank.

A few checkpoints later, we had no idea how well we were doing, but we began to notice we were continuously crossing paths with a couple in blue, also wearing race bibs. We found ourselves on the same buses with them, both teams using the opportunity to call friends to try to figure out clues. We'd arrive at a checkpoint just as they were leaving or vice versa. This would prove significant later.

Then we had to find two metal snails near the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. A walker told us to turn right. Turned out we had to turn left before we found the little decorative figurines near the walking path along the river. Happily, we also spotted McCarthy's daughter, Katie. At race headquarters, she was pointed out as the "Skip Man," a walking human checkpoint. If you spotted her on the race course and took a photo of her, you got to skip a checkpoint of your choosing.

An easy landmark next: the new Mary Tyler Moore statue on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Then a sculpture by D.O. Freeman. Turned out to be on Fifth Street between near Marquette Avenue. Thanks again, Erica.

Checkpoint 10 was a Lucy statue with the clue stating "Lucy Puts On the Dog ... and the Cats."

We got the Lucy photo after a long steamy run down Grand Avenue. But while we were waiting for a bus to take us back to downtown St. Paul, the couple in blue showed up again.

We both boarded the same bus. Only two more checkpoints to go. We made sure to get a seat next to the door. It was a little tense.

The clue to the 11th checkpoint required competitors to know the address of the British prime minister, work a math equation and name "a large deciduous tree with fragrant compound leaves and drooping catkins, grown worldwide for its shade, wood and nuts." The librarian on the line from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum suggested catalpa, but there's no Catalpa Street in St. Paul.

We decided to use our Skip Man photo to bypass that checkpoint, which turned out to be at Walnut Street in Irvine Park. Instead we headed for checkpoint 12, the "burnt orange catwalk beneath the Wabasha Street Bridge."

That's exactly what the couple in blue did, too. The four of us pounded across the bridge, down the stairs and onto the catwalk. They snapped their pictures and were off. I thought I muffed my shot and took two more to be sure  a fatal mistake in this little duel. We couldn't catch them in the sprint back to Joseph's, which finished about three hours and 11 minutes after the race began.

It turns out our shadows, husband-wife team Terrence and Catherine Lee of Chanhassen, were the first-place finishers, despite starting five minutes behind us in the third wave of racers. Only 20 seconds behind them, we took second place, good enough for an invitation to the championship in Las Vegas.

The Lees, both 28, said they have done marathons, triathlons and adventure races, but they said thinking on the run was especially challenging.

"It was frantic," Catherine Lee said. "Oh my God, it was frantic."

Richard Chin can be reached at rchin@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5560.