Foothills Stadium, home of the Vipers baseball team, is right next door to McMahon Stadium.

We walked over (legs were dead by this point in the day) and met a guy with a hat.
"Reach into the hat" he says.
We pull out a picture of a green baseball. He tells us we must now run through the stands looking for 5 pictures that match this green baseball. There will be a number on each picture.

Once we have all 5, add the numbers up and bring the total back to the hat guy. If we are correct, we get our stamp. If we are wrong, we have to start the challenge all over.

It turns out that there were a few other colors as well, and not easy to be found. Steve and I covered the whole stadium and somehow only found 4 green pictures. wtf???? How did we miss one?

Back through the stadium we started. Keep in mind there were other teams there as well, just as frustrated and tired. It was at this point that some of the comraderie behind City Chase kicked in as teams with the same color started looking together.

These two Chasers had green as well. They had some of the numbers and we had some, but together we had all 5. In thanks for helping with the missing numbers, we let them checkout of the stadium first.

This challenge wasn't that funny or thrilling at the time. For two out of shape, extremely tired guys, it was really just frustrating and tiring lol.

The next clue from here led us to the University of Calgary Volleyball Dome..........(we have one of those???)

McMahon Stadium

The cricket was finally gone and we were on our way to the next challenge. We met a large number of chasers on this train, and we all compared notes.....it may be a competition but nothing says we cant be friendly.
We hopped off the train at McMahon Stadium.

Fortunately Steve saw another group running toward the big digital sign in the parking lot or we would have lost a lot of time going to the stadium itself. I swear that the parking lot is bigger than the building, given how far we had to run to get to the sign.

There we found a kiddie pool

It was covered with a tarp

Steve and I agreed that he would do this challenge. The volunteers produced a tub of honey.

I had to then rub said honey on Steve's bare leg, ensuring to cover as much of his shin as possible. (I wasn't going any higher...)

The tarp was pulled back to reveal the kiddie pool was full of white feathers. Steve was instructed to hop in and find two marbles the same colour. (The City Chase people have a thing for marbles apparently)

Amazingly, Steve was able to hop in and find the marbles in less than 10 seconds and I had to make him go back in to get a picture. The feathers stayed on his legs for the rest of the day, despite it raining.

Off to the next challenge, which fortunately did not involve getting on a train. All we had to do was run across the huge parking lot we were in to the Vipers ball diamond...







Dog City Day Care

Now, you would assume that the next clue, in leading us to a place called Dog City Daycare, would have something to do with dogs.
We were very wrong about that. There was not a single dog in sight anywhere. This is the first challenge that actually pushed my limits a little. (Steve was happy about that after the whole diving board incident)

Dog city daycare is located next to bookers Crab Shack, downtown Calgary. We walked / ran close to 15 blocks to get there. (next time more transit, less foot travel...our chafing inner thighs will thank us.)

Once we got there, a small wait ensued as there were chasers ahead of us. Once it was our turn, We were told that one of us was going to have to reach into the bucket of maggots..........wtf!!!!!!

I admit to being thoroughly grossed out at this point. We agreed on a Rock, Paper, Scissors game, best 2 of 3. We tied the first round, and Steve won the second. This is where I was informed that I had just lost 2 as the tie in effect was a win for each of us........Damn!!!!  Into the maggots to find a marble I go :(.  We were told the color of marble would dictate what steve had to do. It would be one of the following:

Across the bare stomach

Also across the bare stomach

Hold one of these guys (and they were pretty big)

I honestly dont remember what color I pulled, but Steve got the boa constrictor. I think to myself:

"sweet, I will get a picture of this!"

No dice....

Do you know what a cricket is?

This is a cricket

These little buggers are hard to catch.......and then to my horror......eat. The whole time Steve is playing with his snake, I am chasing this stupid cricket around a cardboard box. When I finally caught it, I popped it in my mouth, chewed once and swallowed.

Big mistake.......always chew your food properly, lest it comes back up on you. And this little bugger was trying. I could feel it moving in my throat the whole 3 blocks to the c-train station. It was there that I found my savior!

The Hot Dog Vendor

A hotdog and a bottle of water washed the little bugger down!

At this point we took the train north, a good little bit of rest on our way to McMahon Stadium.........

Impact boxing!

Leaving the Talisman Center was an experience in itself. It was lightly raining, slightly windy and we were in soaked street clothes (who knew we should have brought a towel.....I mean it's not like we got one at the pool lol). Steve and I decided that it's only about 14 blocks to the next clue location, so we may as well walk it. Waiting for the last train took way too long!

It was all great for the first few blocks. We were wet and it was raining. No big deal! That was.....until the chaffing started. By the time we got to the boxing clue, my inner thighs were brutally raw. It was like I had taken fine grit sandpaper to them for the duration of the walk. (I think Steve was bad as well. I didn't really want to ask how is inner thighs were though). So now my thighs were burning and my shins were like hot needles were being shoved through them. Then we arrived at Impact Boxing........

Welcome to boot camp!!!!

From the moment we took the stairs down to where the ring was, someone was enthusiastically yelling at us.

"DROP YOUR GEAR!!!!"

"GET YOUR HEAD GEAR ON!!!!"

"GROIN PROTECTOR ON!!!!"

"BOXING GLOVES ON!!!!"

"MOVE IT, MOVE IT, MOVE IT!!!!"

Now, if you have never seen any of the equipment mentioned, here's what they look like:

So nice and sweaty as we weren't the first to use them

Ever try to put the second one on by yourself......you want to use your teeth but there is a definate eeww factor there

Keep in mind that these are not as one size fits all as they say they are.......voice octave changes are very likely!

So once we had our gear on, we were sent to see the lady in charge of the skipping section. It's only for a minute, grab one of the skipping ropes.......what they dont tell you is that the ropes are color coded for length. Steve and I both felt like we were using my daughters skipping rope they were so short.  To top that off, the lady running this tells us that the minute is based on her judgement how well we were doing at that moment. She kept threatening to start us over if we didn't pick up the pace!

So once we managed to do 4 minutes of our one minute of skipping, we got sent over to the heavy bag.

He we are supposed to follow the instructions of the girl running this section. She tells us that we are to hit light or hard for a minute, depending on her instructions. So she starts off with hard. 10 seconds later she tells us to hit soft. Another 10 seconds and we are back to hard..........and this is where she forgot about us.

Another group of chasers had made it to this station and she proceeded to give them instructions, leaving us to hit the bag with all our strength for close to what seemed like 20 minutes (it was only really closer to 2 minutes, but felt waaaay longer).

From here we were sent on to the speed bag.

There was no Rocky moment with these things. The movies make it look so easy hitting a speed bag with rhythm. I think in the minute we were supposed to hit the bag, Steve and I connected 10 times combined.

Then we were at the last station. Keep in mind that the volunteers at the challenge were yelling at us boot camp style the whole time. The last thing we had to do was hit a tethered bag......how hard could it be.

Looks easy when you are a pro.......we weren't even amateurs. I think I threw my back out trying to hit this thing once it started moving. I was able to build up a rhythm on this once I figured out how it was going to move. Steve......not so much. This challenge nearly put him down for the 10 count.

Once we got out of the sweaty boxing gear (again...eeewww), we were off to Dog City Day Care....

Talisman Center

So when the train finally arrived, we decided to take it only a few stops and get off at Erlton. From there it would only be a couple of blocks to the Talisman Center.

Once we arrived, Steve and I ended up in a line of about 14 chasers. We were all instructed to take off shoes, bags, shirts and and cotton underwear if you had it. We met a nice couple of ladies who were a few challenges ahead of us who gave us some tips on the places they had been.

Then it was our turn to go down to the diving area.

Steve and I were first hosed down, both sides, with a garden hose and nozzle spraying a hard jet of icy hell at us. Then it was time to roll the dice........literally!

5 and a 3 is what we rolled. As it turns out, this meant we had to go off the 3 meter and 5 meter diving boards. I opted to take the higher one as I found out Steve has a bit of a heights thing. He still almost drowned! Apparently, breathing in as you hit the water is a bad thing lol. Then he got disoriented and did not know which way was up.......but he was still able to get up and out on his own. Dying would have really put a damper on the day!

I, on the other hand, had no problems. Up the stairs, onto the diving platform, walk off the edge, hold breath, swim to edge. Easy right?

Well, there is some perspective that needs to be shown. The pictures should help say it.

What it looks like from even 5 meters

How we must have looked to everybody when we got up on the platform

How we imagined we would look going off the diving boards

Reality!

After we got out of the water, it was time to get our stuff and head to the next challenge point. As far as we had it figured, Impact Boxing was our next destination!





Long & McQuade!!!!!

Rain pouring down on us, we made it to Long & Mcquade!
Fortunately, we didn't have to wait outside, but man was it packed inside! There were a few actual customers, but most of the people were chasers.

As we entered, Steve and I got sent to one of 4 possible mini-challenges here. Apparently they based it upon what order you came into the store and if they were backed up. We totally lucked out and didn't have to do karaoke (very long drawn out process). Instead we got sent to the guitar room with a requirement to sketch 4 guitars on the list given to us.
This was by far the easiest challenge of the day! Since nobody was looking for works of art, the 4 guitars were drawn in about 45 seconds. In the words of many of the girls Steve and I know......woot woot!
We figured at this point we are way ahead of the game........and then we had to get our stamp.

I forgot to mention at the beginning, this wonderful idea that City Chase had, where the challenge volunteers had blackberries, and they would scan the barcode on your race placard at the completion of each challenge. It was a great idea until the blackberries started acting up. The 2 minutes it took to complete the challenge got added onto a 10 minute wait to get stamped. (Did I mention that it was in a cramped hallway as well?  Thought I should since I was in whining mode lol)

Out the back door! That would be how we exited Long & Mcquade after getting through the blackberry ordeal. Steve and I found a back alley shortcut back to the c-train station that saved us from having to cross the tracks again. We tried to run.....then jog......then I was wimpering too loudly about my shins, so we walked.

My shins did appreciate the nearly 20 minute wait for the next train.......

The First Challenge

As you found out last week, we made it to the C-train. We took the train to the Chinook Station, which took about 15 minutes. We kept working on the clues while traveling. My sister Mellisa Abrey (who is going to be competing against us this year), was our phone support and was working the computer hard at home to help us with the clues. (Yes this is allowed, one of the few things in City Chase that is lol)

As we got off the train, the rain started coming down hard again. From where we were, it was going to be about 3 blocks to Long and McQuade. We started into the downpour. We started across the street and noticed a bunch of chasers standing outside one of the small strip malls.

Snap decision time!!!!

We proceeded to get in line behind the 4 chasers in line outside the building, which housed the store "Fairs Fair". Talking to those in the line, we found out that we would need to find a book by title alone in this cramped and packed book store. We waited another 5 minutes in the rain and decided this was taking too much time. Off to Long and Mcquade we go!!!

We ran/jogged/ walked down Center Street on our way to the music store, surrounded by a multitude of other chasers. Halfway down the block, we discovered a parkour facility that was one of the challenges.

For those who don't know, parkour is the ultimate in urban gymnastics. So two big, out of shape guys were going to do gymnastics as our first challenge.......great.
This challenge involved completing a number of mini challenges, each counting for a certain number of points for which we needed 15 before they would punch our race card.

1) We had to 2 foot hop across 18" square platforms spaced about 3 feet apart. We had to go around 3 times without falling off. (Yes this was as awkward as it sounds, but gave us 3 points)
2) Crawling among a set of jungle gym pipes to touch a piece of colored tape, without touching the ground. (we rocked at this one. I surprised a few people with my agility, and Steve followed suit. 7 points here)
3) Rope Climb, sounds easy right. My feet barely left the ground as I struggled to haul my fat butt up the rope. I gave up after a few seconds and looked to Steve to see if he wanted to try. He chuckled, turned and walked away. (no points here)
4) Tumbling....this was easy. I got 3 points for falling gracefully.
5) Steve needed 2 points, so he decided to crawl along a narrow wall. 4 points for all the way across, 2 for halfway. Do you think Steve went all the way across......not even close! The moment he hit the halfway mark, we were getting our stamp and shoes and bailing out the back door.

Off to Long and McQuade!!!!

(I know, I know.....I keep saying that, but we really are going there next!)

(I promise)