Off and racing...

The racing highlight of the year for me came around and was run yesterday. I look forward to this race so much I was all grins and goose bumps before the race even started. It's the Maximum Adventure Urban Max. The task: Teams of 2 have to solve cryptic clues to find a number of checkpoints around the city and surrounding suburbs. A number of these checkpoints have challenges that have to be performed to be eligible to claim it as completed. Places on this race are limited and this year there were 350 teams taking part. It was a cool damp day, but I had no idea how wet I was going to get when the start signal was given.

We plotted our route and were off to our first choice. Half way there we realised that checkpoint didn't open until 10:30am so we changed our route and went to our next closest checkpoint. It was located at a swimming pool near Central Station and it was our first challenge. In the pool were a hundred yellow ducks. We had to find the one duck with "72" written under it. Hmmmm, hadn't planned for a swim so what else could I do but strip down to the jocks and dive right in. *Note to self: Underwear does not stay where it should when you dive into a pool. So after a quick save of my shame I was madly looking for the little yellow duck. That found we were wet and off and really into this race.

Some highlights:
Looking for a John Howard look alike at Taylor Square.
A great view of the city from Mrs Macquaries Chair.
A visit to the Art Gallery.
It started raining about now...
A visit to the State Library.
Finding the oldest public toilet in Sydney.
Mapping the planets and their correct orbits at the Observatory.
Correctly setting up a camp site in the middle of a city park.
Visiting numerous exhibits in the Aus. Maritime Museum trying to find the answers to 10 quiz questions.

But the biggest highlight:
3rd!

Yep, 3rd place in the male category! I knocked almost 3 hours off the time it took to do this last year and got a place. Finally I did really well at a race. It's amazing what a bit of training has done for me in 12 months. We were at the finish so fast that we had time to go home, shower and return to the prize ceremony to accept our prize all clean and relaxed. I think the course was also a lot easier this year so that helped complete the race in a good time. Below is the route we chose.