The Great Urban Race: Running, Racing and Scavenging in Minneapolis

I blogged last week about my entry in the upcoming Great Urban Race, which came to Minneapolis this Saturday. Teams of two competed in an Amazing Race style event, which involved solving clues, running around downtown Minneapolis, and taking on physical challenges.

The course was around seven miles long, taking us around Cedar-Riverside, Uptown, the Walker Art Center, Loring Park, and around downtown Minneapolis. We were the 35th out of 125 teams to cross the finish line, but we lost time and dropped several places for missing out one clue.

Fun things about the Great Urban Race

• The teams competing in costumes. Two teams of "Presidential Racers", one for Obama and one for McCain, some 1970s retro teams with tight running shorts, and my favorites, the team dressed as sock monkeys.
• One challenge was to find a mystery pizza restaurant, which turned out to be Golooney's in Uptown. Yum!
• We had to find a location used in the movie Fargo, and discovered just how many people in Minneapolis had never seen the movie Fargo or couldn't remember any of the local places used. That included us, so am now feeling slightly ashamed, since it was mostly filmed here in Minnesota.
• Not getting as injured as in the Urban Assault Ride last week. Managed to bang my head jumping over a construction barricade in downtown Minneapolis, but this time there was no blood.
• Having fun running around Minneapolis, and reminding myself just how many cool things there are in the city.

The championship Great Urban Race, with a grand prize of $10,000, will be held in Las Vegas in November.

The Great Urban Race will be coming to cities across the US again, beginning in early 2009. Locations include the Twin Cities, Madison and Chicago. We had a great time, and plan to sign up for next year!

The Great Urban Race Website