Well this is now the second race I have done with Dannel, and this one was to qualify for the finals in New Orleans and a shot at $10000. That's almost enough money to retire and great motivation to kick a lot of ass. I am by leaps and bounds in better shape and can run alot further, and lost about 7 pounds since I started doing this. This is coming from a guy that goes to the gym ALOT. Again, coming off of a night with not much sleep, Dannel wakes me up at about 930 for a noon race here in Seattle. You know me, I like to cut things a little close and 2.5 hours is not cutting it close! We even had well over an hour to spare so we scoped things out a bit including a visit to Whole Foods, which was to be one of our clues. I had creme brulee french toast, the breakfast of champs, and perhaps the worst energy drink I have ever tasted. We still had over an hour to kill at the coffee shop so I worked on some fantasy football, and was totally amused at how irritated Dannel was with all the people in costume, including pirates, dr. seuss characters, and two pink panthers complete with whiskers drawn on their faces. I offered Dannel a hundred dollars if he would paint whiskers on his face. There were a TON more teams than there were in Portland, perhaps 300 in all. After we got our clues, Hans copied them and we were off. Every last drop of extra energy I had was spent on the first leg, considering we had to run straight up hill. It was like the streets of San Francisco, but running. We had to learn how to do sign language from a random guy in a coffee shop, do the rumba?, and donate three cans of tuna to charity all while hauling ass. We were way ahead of schedule and the first people to do the first three checkpoints. We then took the long run over to where the stadiums are, did a few more checkpoints and had to make it to Pike Place by 130 for the picture up at the top. We did three more challenges, and headed BACK to the stadium area for two more challenges, both of which cost us valuable time. We got on a bus all the way down third which dropped us off by the Space Needle at our original location, and we see two jokers dressed like pirates heading towards the finish. It became an all out sprint and with pulled muscle and shoelace untied we left them in the dust. Now there were a few teams inside already, and we figure we finish in the top ten which more than qualifies us for New Orleans. We may even be top five but we will know by Tuesday. If it werent for having to wait ten minutes for the clock picture, and another ten minutes in line to do sharades, we may have won the whole thing. Once again, so close, yet so far away. Buca De Beppo never tasted as good as it did after the race and I am not sore today!!!
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