Do any of y’all live near a Road Runner Sports? I think there is only one in Colorado and it happens to be by my house, so it has become my go-to location for running shoes because they have a sweet return policy. Anyway, I had heard about their Thursday night Adventure Runs via Heidi, but hadn’t quite pulled the trigger. However, I was at Crossfit last week and one of my coaches mentioned they would be setting up a booth at the run. I took it as a sign, called up this Heidi (yes, all of my friends have the same name!), and we made plans to check it out.
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| Blurry iPhone photo for the win! |
We arrived around 5:15 to check in and get ourselves sorted. Because darkness is settling early now (and there are crazies running around my beloved state), the organizers ensured that all participants had brought either a head lamp or reflective gear. Lesson #1: if you run in a hat, don’t bring your head lamp. The bill renders the light fairly worthless! Rookie mistake.
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| Yay for neon shoes! Heidi was trying out her Mizunos while I was in my beloved Pure Cadence |
We checked out a few sponsor booths, one of which was Big Horn Crossfit. Each booth we spoke with gave us a few tickets that we stuck in a bag. Heidi and I literally had no idea what we were doing, but we kinda figured the tickets were important. Critical thinking at its finest!
Promptly at 6pm, all of the runners gathered around an area and the course map was revealed. Check it out:
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| Don’t knock the iPhone photo. One day I’ll upgrade and it’ll have a flash even! |
Basically, there were stations set up at various locations which you had to discover via your smartphone. Once you figured out where the locations were, you had to run to these locations to get more tickets. It is totally up to runners to decide which check points they feel like finding, and a lot of it is based on each individual’s physical condition. Some of the check points were literally 50 feet away and these were logically popular amongst families with children. Other check points were 2 miles away. In short, runners had to plan accordingly in order to ensure that they would be back at Road Runner Sports by 7pm. Heidi and I definitely pulled the “let’s start running and follow everyone until we figure out what the hell is going on” technique. Very effective!
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| Rockin’ the Reebok #GetAfterIt shirt and RealFlex capris. Think they’ll ask me to be a model for them? |
Heidi and I managed to get to all of the checkpoints but three and still returned to the store just before 7pm. We could have squeezed out one more but I wasn’t sure I knew how to get us back, and we didn’t want to miss the deadline. Lesson #2: learn my neighborhood streets a bit better!
After returning to Road Runner Sports, we split our tickets in half and put them in a big box for the raffle. Everyone gathered around the announcer while he dug through the box of tickets and called out dozens of winners for various prizes. Y’all, I am seriously impressed that this event is free! Tons of Asics shoes were given out, along with baked goods, compression gear, Polar heart rate monitors, gift cards to restaurants and clothing stores, and Big Horn Crossfit even gave out free weeks to the box. There were tons of prizes considering no one had paid a dime to participate!
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| No, it isn’t strange that Heidi is posing next to bassinets. |
Heidi wasn’t lucky enough to win anything, but I managed to score a bundt cake (random!), a gift card to a nearby bar/restaurant, and two free weeks to Big Horn. Actually, I technically won a giftcard to a childrens clothing store, but a nice man traded with me when he heard me ask Heidi, “What the heck am I going to do with kids clothes?!” This turned out to be a total win because Heidi and I promtly headed over to the bar and stuffed our face with nachos and beer. SUCCESS.
In short, the Adventure Run was a lot of fun and totally worth the time! We ended up running 4.3 miles during the “race”, so it is a fun and unique way to get some miles in. Plus, the sponsors change every month, so you’ll always stand a chance of winning some sweet gear!