Urban Dare - NY's Mini Amazing Race

I celebrated my birthday this year by participating in New York City's Urban Dare Race with Jing! Urban Dare is like a scavenger / photo hunt / trivia game that takes place all over Manhattan (think mini Amazing Race). Janice told me about it a while back (read her blog entry) and it sounded like an awesome event.

In the race, teams of 2 get a sheet of trivia questions that point to certain locations in Manhattan. Winners plan their route very strategically, run/subway/bus everywhere and can finish in 2 hours. We were hoping to aim for 3 hours, but Jing and I teamed up with Janice and Rob and we came in the top 10* out of over 50 teams and finished in ~2 hours and 30 minutes! It definitely wasn't easy though -- Janice and I were sore for DAYS after the race.

During the race, we had to take pictures with certain famous statues (the ones you usually don't notice when you're walking around the city), shake hands with a dog, do a three-legged race in Jackson Square Park (clue was Reggie Jackson), run through Central Park to find someone to do a cartwheel and a group to do a human pyramid, etc etc.! We did this all while running almost 5 miles I think.

*I think they recorded our times wrong because after we finished, Janice and Rob (Sherlock's Homies) were 7th and me and Jing (JJ Does Manhattan) were 8th. On their blog/announcement, Jing and I ended up in 5th place... not sure what happened there.

Look into the race in a city near you! They are going to Chicago (June 12), Seattle (June 19), San Jose (July 24), San Diego by Bike (August 7), San Francisco (September 11) and New York again (September 18), just to name a few! It's pretty fun and I would definitely consider doing it again. Registration is $45 per person if you sign up early and increases to $50 per person the week of the race. They also have a family team option (super cute =P). More info is on Urban Dare's website.

Click "Read More" for photos from our race day!