Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Great Urban Race 2012

On Saturday, August 4th 2012... I assembled a team and embarked on the annual "Great Urban Race", which was currently on the New York City stop of their national tour. Team Terry McFly was up & ready for the challenges and tasks that awaited us scattered all over our big city.. The Great Urban Race is a competition where teams of 2 - 4 people solve 12 clues and participate in mental & physical challenges while discovering the city. I found out about the event from my amazing friends at GM Northeast.





Team Terry McFly consisted of myself, Dez FlyKickz (of IamFlyKickz.com) & Latasha (co-founder & former host of Dopefiles.com)


The winner of CBS's hit show The Amazing Race was on hand to give all of us tips on how to win these types of enduring competitions.


We received our challenges and got to work immediately, researching and strategizing our great excursion throughout the city, the only thing we forgot to bring was a paper map to draw on.


Check out a close up of some of these ridiculously confusing questions that we had to endure lol.


After all the strategizing and planning it was time to go, Team Terry McFly joined our amazingly stylish shoes together in order to activate our Super Powers!



The challenges did not have to be done in any specific order, I will list them in semi-chronicle order here on the blog in order to explain them to you easier.

Challenge #1 required us to travel to the area where the New York Public Library archives are housed and then meet with a representative from the Bear Naked snack brand. Of course the words weren't that descriptive and obvious but I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Once we met with the rep he handed us a pedometer which required us to take between 150 and 175 steps and then take a photo of the pedometer and the entire team as proof. The photo below is the photo from our challenge:


Challenge #5 required us to find a midtown restaurant that was known for it's extensive menu of tater-tots. After we arrived at the location we then had to find the Great Urban Race representative and complete the task. The task was to drop a golf ball on top of a capped bottle with the golf ball remaining on top of the bottle and the cap falling off. Flykickz got this in 2 tries, I couldn't believe it. She was amazing! I think it was the super powers from our combined sneakers that made her become Wonder Woman. Here is the photo below that we were required to take as proof of the task completion:


Challenge #6 required us to solve this ridiculous riddle pertaining to Marge Simpson, Barney, & Paul Revere. We then had to take that and do some math equations in order to find the name of a popular NYC costume store, which we also had to find the address for. This task ended up being a waste of our time because that challenge was not happening! LOL! The challenge was for 1 teammate to eat a live worm. I would've eaten the worm if it was a win or lose situation but this was not one of those situations so we decided to pass. I did take a pic of the worm (which is posted below) for all of you that would like to see what was on the dinner menu.


Challenge #8 asked us to find a store in the city that sold wacky gadgets and gifts. The clue was a picture of a pie added to a guy on a horse with the word RANGER subtracted, this is the clue that is pictured above in the detailed task list image by the way. Once we finally found the store, I had to tattoo an animal on my finger and then find something inside the store that mimics the animal tattooed on my hand and snap a team photo of it. Here is our qualifying photo that we had to submit as proof of completion:


Challenge #10 had all kinds of quirky tasks, we were required to do only 3 of the tasks. The tasks were set up on a tic tac toe board and we had to choose 3 that lined up to create tic tac toe. One of the tasks was to take a photo of 2 strangers wearing yankees attire. Mind you all of our team had to be in the photo so we also had to find a stanger to take the photo. All I can say is that this lead to one interesting train ride, check out the photo below:


Another one of our tasks for Challenge #10 was to take a photo of the entire team standing in front of a Gyro cart, so once again we had to find a stranger willing to take our photo. Here's the pic from that challenge:


Challenge #12 required us to travel to a parking lot in Manhattan and search a Chevrolet vehicle for clues, write them down, and then snap a photo of the entire team in front of that Chevrolet vehicle. Here's our picture from the challenge:


The entire race was scheduled to start 12pm and end at 5pm. All contestants were required to check in at 5pm in order to qualify. I am proud to say that Team Terry McFly finished the competition on time, we may have fainted and rolled across that finished line but WE DID IT! ...and we have some cool medals to prove it!





I had an AMAZING time at the Great Urban Race NYC 2012, it was a new experience and I would definitely do it all over again. It may be enduring but it will help you build up your mind & body and discover the city like never before.

On our way home, we managed to get on the same subway as the 2nd place winners, The Norwegian Mafia. They were kind enough to share with me their story of how they did it and also they answered the important question we all wanted to know, which is "Who ate the worm?!!! ...the guy in the middle did!


For more details on the competition and to view official scores or find out where the next event takes place, visit www.GreatUrbanRace.com ...also make sure you're following me on Twitter & Instagram to enjoy the live feeds as I embark on my fashionably random journeys.

6 comments:

  1. Hey there... wondering which clue it was that you skipped if it wasn't the worm. And how the heck you managed to complete 11 others considering Clue #3 directed you to the wrong address and Clue #4 to the wrong street. I'm impressed that you were able to do it, but extremely frustrated that it was technically impossible to complete this race.

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    1. Errr... poor typing (and thinking) on that comment, I think I'm still recovering... Obviously that first sentence can be ignored.

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    2. LOL hey CT, we never made it to Clue number 3...but clue 4 was pretty easy if you just google Drama bookstore and copy the address. Clue 3 and 9 was difficult for us.

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  2. Cool, thanks so much for posting this. We had such a blast and we are 95% sure we will go to Nationals in Vegas :) Thanks for featuring us :)

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    Replies
    1. No problem Cassandra, make sure you keep me posted on the team's success. If you have a twitter, follow me and I'll follow back so we can stay connected

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  3. Eww I would have skipped the worm too!

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