Amazing Race

We interrupt the previously scheduled posts (and giveaway) to bring you this breaking news.  
On Saturday, I ran a 5K.
Well, it was ALMOST a 5k.
Ok, it FELT like a 5k.  And my body is rebelling as if it was a 5k.  I can hardly walk!
But it was sooooo much fun!!
My special friend, Kim, and I ran in 
The Amazing Race - Los Angeles version.  

It was a fun little race that a company puts together to mimic the real Amazing Race... of which I am a HUGE fan!!  Kim, who only watches the show occasionally (remember that for future reference) and who is turning 40 this summer,  is always up for any type of adventure.  So we signed up to celebrate her 40th and away we went!
Our team name was 'Will Race for Frappuccino'   
Our starting point... this tall totem pole statue in Venice Beach, CA.  Fun Fun!!

Warming up before the race:

Some of the other teams looked a little more athletic than us... but we were by far the cutest dressed!  Too bad there was no award for that.

Our first clue!

RUN!!  Onto the sand, down to the water, gathering clues to a puzzle for a password.

  Then it was up and down Ocean Front Walk...RUNNING!  to a mural 3 blocks away, getting our clue and then RUNNING 4 blocks back to find a random person in a random t-shirt, getting our clue and then RUNNING 3 blocks up to the Venice Canals...

At this point we were huffing and puffing and wondering what in the world we had gotten ourselves into!  We were already exhausted and it was only 10:00 am!!

Luckily at this point we got to RUN to our cars and drive to Marina del Rey.  I had never looked so forward to sitting in a car!  Alas, my weary old body only enjoyed a 5-10 minute drive.  Insert Jill crying here...
But, YAY!!!  Our next clue had us choosing between kayaking and biking!  Ummmm...Seriously??  I would choose biking????  Off to the kayaks we RAN!

So much fun fun fun!  We actually did not even fall in the water... although Kim got pretty wet due to my mad paddling skills :)
RUNNING back to the car and it was off to LAX!  

 A little backstory here.  I tend to want to be prepared so I had maps and maps all laid out a couple days before and I plotted the various routes that I assumed we might take.  No GPS or phones allowed during the race!  Taking into account the rules, and the idea behind the game..  I told Joey I was pretty much positive we would NOT head toward LAX... too much traffic... too many variables.  Hmmmm... I have some mad planning skills I guess.
So, I reorganized all of my LA territory maps, found the one we needed and off we went!

We had to park in a specific lot, jump on a shuttle and head to Terminal 2.  We jumped on, but THEN read the clue where it said we had to have our picture IDs... which were back in the car!  Note to self, never jump on the shuttle before reading the entire clue...  we RAN all the way back to the car, grabbed our IDs and off we went.

To the observatory above the LAX restaurant.  Awesome!

The nice security guard took this picture and then gave us the huge hint that when we needed to return we should board the shuttle at Terminal 6, not Terminal 2.  We ended up avoiding having to circle the entire airport!  Thank you nice security guard
At the top of the observatory deck we found our first roadblock.  One team member completes a challenge.  Now, Kim and I had agreed that I would complete whichever one was NOT an eating challenge and she would handle the eating one if there was one.  So I quickly raised my hand for whatever fate was in store for me as soon as I realized there was no food involved.
After eyeballing what everyone was doing, we both thought you would have to look out at the departing terminals and place the appropriate airline logo on a map of LAX.  No problem!

Ummmm... are you kidding me????  We were way off!  It was a geography challenge.  Now, second to not being able to swallow random foods, I am VERY SERIOUSLY COMPLETELY geography-challenged.  It's like my synapses  short-circuit when it comes to where in the world is _________ (insert any and all countries in the world).

To my dismay you had to place the logo for the various airlines on their destination city... on a VERY VERY vague map.  And did I tell you I am seriously bad at geography??  
OK... deep breath Jill... you can do this...lots of teams still here so just focus and you can make up some time.  OK, Qantas must go on the big chunk of land that is Australia!  YAY for Jill!  Only 13 more to go!

Wait a minute???  Why is Asia on my left???  Don't I have to fly to the right and over New York to get to Japan??????  I am in deep trouble.  
Some of the airlines/countries I had to place:
Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, Nepal, China, Japan, Thailand, Phillipines, Tahiti, Peru, Chile, Mexico...
I kinda wanted to cry...  I felt pretty silly since I was a school teacher for 12 years...molding the minds of the small children in my care.  I'm so sorry random children that I obviously completely failed in the geography department.


Hmmm...On my first attempt I was told that I had everything on the right side of my board correct. East?  West?  I have no idea.  It was the right side.  
I had NOTHING on the Asia side correct.

BUT, I am nothing if not ingenious.  I sweetly asked the ASIAN girl from the team behind me if she might possibly want to work together on our next attempt.  She had not been able to figure out the right side of the board... Score for me!!!  Yippeee!! I gave her my 5 correct answers and she gave me all the rest :) Hee Hee Hee.  I am a master-mind!

Please Please Please Mr. Race Monitor, tell me I am correct!!

Correct!!!!!  We got our next clue and it was off to some random park we had never heard of.  Thank goodness for people on the shuttle and the side of the road who knew the area.  We arrived and RAN to the Japanese garden and had to count a gazillion stones embedded around the beautiful Japanese pond.  

This next picture is of me after I FELL INTO the beautiful Japanese pond.

Luckily it was only one leg, but I was scared to death some alarm would go off because I had contaminated the ceremonial sacred pond of some ancient ceremony.  Nope, no alarms, just Kim cracking up at my mad rock counting skills.  In addition to sore legs and arms, my tummy is sore from laughing so much!

Off to downtown Culver City for our mandatory 20 minute rest stop at the Wizard of Oz Lion statue.  Found it!

Now, when we left the Japanese garden we felt like maybe we were doing pretty well... like in the top 10 for sure.  So, when we checked in and found out we were 18th!!  we were quite deflated.
But, having seen every Amazing Race I just knew we could catch up (maybe).
Off we went RUNNING to find the various silent movie thingamajigs located in various parts of downtown Culver City.  This is the only clue we had as to where they were located.

Then RUNNING to memorize and then recreate a scene from Gone With the Wind in front of the old Culver City Movie studios,  I was Rhett and Kim was Scarlett and we were fabulous!  Mad acting skills!!!

Then rush rush rush to Hollywood to the Fire Station Memorial and Museum.  Awesome place to visit - if we had more time - unfortunately we were in a BIG hurry!  And at this point there had been some type of equalizer because when we arrived most of the other teams had only just been let in.  Yippee for us!!

We zoomed through the scavenger hunt there - although the questions were very tricky and RAN 5 blocks to the corner of Sunset and Vine for our next clue. At this point my legs felt like rubber jelly - yes, there must be such a thing!  We had to find 3 names of silent movie actors on the stars along Vine.  Not an easy task, but we read our clue carefully and we were able to make up some time!  We even passed the team that had been in first all day!  

Off to Thai Town where we were faced with the dreaded food challenge!!  

Oh no, both team members can participate.  Ugh!!  I felt like I should attempt to help so I stuffed a big chunk of spicy noodles in my mouth.  Oh.  My.  Gosh!!!!  Not spicy... FIRE!!!! I was totally gagging (and being very dramatic I'm sure - but I thought I would die!)

I am so not kidding that I felt like someone had poured gasoline in my mouth and lit it on fire.  As evidenced in the above very attractive picture, I almost threw up right in the gutter!  My Super Fantastic Teammate Kim was going to have to take one for the team.   And she did!!!!!!  She finished the entire bowl of disgusting FIRE!

Go Kim!!!

Our next clue gave us the choice of either Thai foot reflexology or memorizing parts of the Thai alphabet.  Kim, whose eyes were pouring tears because she had wiped the FIRE napkin near her eyes, bravely chose the foot reflexology challenge.  Now, remember when I said Kim hasn't seen many Amazing Race episodes?  She obviously missed the one where the real racers were in Thailand and had to endure a 10 minute reflexology massage.  They were writhing in pain and moaning in anguish!  I assumed (incorrectly) that Kim knew it could be extremely painful so I repeatedly told her I would do it as we RAN across the street... since she had eaten the FIRE for me!  But she said, Nope - she would do it!
In she went....

While I waited I remembered that she doesn't watch a lot of Amazing Race and realized that she had not read the entire clue where it mentioned the word "endure" and that you were "not allowed to ask them to stop".  Poor Kim! 
She eventually came out and was a bit confused as to why it had hurt so much.  She thought she was going to get a nice foot massage and she felt like she deserved it after having to take up the slack in the food challenge.  I was dying laughing as we RAN/hobbled back to our car!
Off down the street to a challenge unlocking one of 100 locks from a gate.  

Kim tried first and rocked it  - finding ours within 1 minute!  Woo Hoo - at this point we were ahead of the two or three teams we thought were in the front of the pack.  We found the tiny shop with Buddha eyes from our next clue, 

and RAN back three blocks and up a MILLION stairs to our final challenge.  

Well, we hustled, but didn't quite run.  It was between us and two other teams who made it the top before us, BUT never fear because we have mad memory skills!  Before we left home, Jake reminded me to pay close attention to every challenge because the last task is usually a memory challenge of some sort.  He was so right! We had to put pictures of each of our challenges/stops in order before running to the Finish Line!  We zoomed through it.  The pictures were very vague and some only barely represented what was the challenge!  Very tricky!  But we finished before the other two teams!!  Yippee for us.  First place here we come!!!
We RAN RAN RAN up the hill on our rubbery legs on our way to a championship finish - or so we thought!  As we crested the hill.... we saw 6 other teams waiting at the top cheering for us.  Whaaaat???   Where in the world did they come from???  Wah Wah Wah!!!

So, after a totally fun day, we finished 7th.  Out of twenty teams.  Not too bad. First would have been better though!

But we are so going back next year... and mark my words - We Will Win!!

Thankfully, Race LA only comes around once a year, because I literally had to roll myself out of bed on Sunday.  Every single muscle in my body was aching!  I am pitiful.
I definitely do not have mad endurance skills :)