Pre-Amazing Race

In preparation for our inevitable tour of duty on a future season of the Amazing Race, Speed Racer and I set off last Saturday on the Great Urban Race. Bearing the team name Freshies (trying to do our peeps some justice) and outfitted in all our look-alike ski resort duds, we met up at the starting line.

The race, while not exactly AR style (which really is too bad), required us to find 11 of 12 locations around Boston based on a series of clues. With the help of Mr. Blackberry and phone-a-friend Shane, we were able to solve all but one clue, which was a series of symbols that translated into words. Clearly I will never have a career in cryptology (and then obviously never be the main character in a Dan Brown novel) because I spent 5 minutes working on the puzzle and came to a screeching halt. Speed Racer however solved the puzzle in the blink of an eye.

We headed off to various points around the city - starting with the steaming tea kettle, a plethora of stops in Fenway (word to wise, if you like the batting red sock tshirt - wait a while till they re-stock since about 250 people had one of them on at some point during the day - yuck!).

After a brief hiccup in the Back Bay, we discovered we made excellent sleuths solving a murder mystery before heading off to meet our friend, the 27 pound lobster. Thanks to a rude asian woman to whom we were clearly invisible given that SR asked a question to which she walked right past without acknowledgement, we were spared the humiliation of posing with a brass lobster and got the pleasure (and the clue right) by posing with the live lobster.

Then following a scramble to SR's old hood C'town and hoofing it up the hill (after 2 hours of no food and blazing sun) we tried to be the craftiest of the crafty by making our way back to the finish line via the locks - mocking the team ahead of us who felt it necessary to run, only to learn the last laugh was on us because they made it across the locks before we did and before the locks opened to let 2 dinky boats pass through.

We headed to the finish line, convinced we wouldn't win the race but postive we'd win the Native sunglass challenge - only to discover *sigh* we came in 2nd for that. Our quasi-respectable 75th place would have been more like 60th place had it not been for the damn locks!

But in the end we were sure of 2 things: 1 - it was great preparation and learning experience for our future time on the AR and 2 - the winning team had to have TOTALLY cheated.