City Safari

Last weekend some work compatriots and I participated in the 6-hour orienteering event "city safari". We were Team America (World Police). And all woman, all American, all evolutionary biologist team. We were given a map 30 minutes before the race started with "control" points and a list of questions. At each control, scattered throughout the city, you must answer a question like "what color is the mailbox". We ran the 6 hour event, and were given a transit pass for all public transit.

The prologue got us extra points - it was a sprint race just before the big event, with the map handed out a moment before, and the controls scattered for about a kilometer around the start.

Our strategy was to take the ferry out to a peninsula that one of our teammates lived on and knew well. We cleaned out all the controls on that peninsula, then ran back into town, catching buses along the way between the wider spaced control points so we could make it back by the time limit. There's a big time penalty, so strategy-wise it's better to stop early than try to pick up extra points and get back late.

We came in 3rd of 7 women's teams, with about half the score of the world-champions. Not bad for a first run, and I'd definitely do it again! It was key having a team member who knew all the "worm-holes", pedestrian passageways through the neighborhood.

After jogging around 4 or 5 hours, though, our knees were definitely feelin' it the next day. Especially since we mostly ran the down hills.

There were some great moments, like the control that was surrounded by medieval re-enactors. I guess they'd been asked "do we have to run the gauntlet?" one too many times.