Race Review - CitySolve Urban Race

The CitySolve is not normally the type of race I would do. It's more of a scavenger hunt, with clue solving and some simple challenges thrown in. For us, it filled a niche in our 4 races in one day attempt, so this review needs to be taken in that context. For if we had set out to kill just this race, the outcome would have likely been different.

CitySolve Denver started late in the day at 11:30am. This was also August 10th, which meant we would be running around the arguably hottest (Downtown Denver) part of Colorado during the hottest time of day in the hottest month of summer. Not that I noticed, or anything.

We arrived a few minutes late, catching traffic coming down from Boulder. I picked up the race packets the day before, knowing we might be cutting it close. Annoyingly, even though we had 4 people on our team, we only got 2 race bibs. The race began at a Stoney's Bar and Grill in Capitol Hill with a clue on a big sheet of paper they presumably held up for everyone. Being late, most people were already out and about while I snapped a picture of the first clue. The multiple choice answers each had a corresponding intersection in the immediate area.

4 Colorado natives, none of us had a clue.

The question involved local spectator sports, which none of us follow, so we wasted time trying to call in help and finally just began heading off towards 2 of the intersections that were relatively close to each other. We didn't get far when a guy on a bike road up with a brown paper bag and handed us our clue packet. He said "You guys must of picked the wrong location.", indicating that he had been waiting at a corner up the street for people and now apparently rounding up the stragglers, like ourselves, to get us on the right path.

With the packet in hand, we solved the first clue and headed to the location after Googling the address on our smartphones. Which leads me to the rules of this game. You can use phones, computers, people on the street, whatever to solve the clues. You can use public transportation, like the bus, but you cannot use bikes, cars, cabs, roller-skates, etc. Being runners, we of course, chose to run everywhere (just about).


At the first checkpoint, there was an M&M straw pass game, that Dave and Billy handled quickly. We then decided that solving one clue at a time was a bad idea, as we had no idea the area this chase would cover. So, we sat in the shade for about a half hour or so, figured out the clues to get all the checkpoints and mapped our route. It became clear, at this point, that we would be covering some serious ground. Our path would take us from Capitol Hill, Uptown and then all the way to LoDo and back again.

Checkpoints varied from getting a group picture outside of a landmark, to going inside of certain establishments (bars mostly) and playing and doing a quick challenge. You have to have all your checkpoints verified at the end, so a camera is mandatory. The winners receive $300, 2nd place $100 and I think 3rd gets a $50 gift card or something like that.

Apparently this guy won The Great American Race, or something like that.

While we were running around we bumped into several other teams. A couple were running, but most were walking and more than a few were sitting down to eat at the various checkpoints and/or having a beer. It seemed for most people that this was more of a good excuse to hang out around town, maybe discover a few new spots and make some friends. But some people were out for the prize money and were wasting no time.

We were moving along pretty well and on schedule to complete our journey within about 3 hours, we figured. That's when things fell apart. We were heading back to hit the last couple photo checkpoints near our finish line, when Dave said "Hey, what about the nose?" The Nose. I hate The Nose. The Nose is a goofy 3 diminutional billboard sign, whose location was unknown to us. A web search gave us some cross streets, not far from another checkpoint, but in our haste to get to the finish, we had accidentally skipped it and it was over a mile in the opposite direction.

We were happy, early in the race.

We had some serious soul searching at this point. We were close to the end, but hadn't completed all the checkpoints. He had already run 2 races that day and we were 6 miles into this one. We had no water with us and hadn't eaten for hours. We wanted to give up. In fact, had all but agreed to throw in the towel, but our youngest member, my son Kellan, wouldn't let us. Even though at this point he was barefoot because his shoes were too tight. So we pushed on.

We hit the nearby checkpoints and stopped by the truck to hydrate and get Kellan's shoes changed to his trail runners, which were still wet from the Muddy Buddy, but fit better. We headed back downtown to find the nose. We figured we'd hop on the free mall shuttle, scoot down the 16th Street Mall, run over a couple blocks to The Nose, run back and ride the shuttle back to Capitol Hill. Still unsure of The Nose's location, we showed a picture of it to a guy on the shuttle who immediately said, "Oh yeah, I know that, it's right by the art museum." Dumbfounded, as this was not the way were heading we hopped off the bus and headed to the museum. The Nose was not there.

The Nose is way back there somewhere. We couldn't bear to get closer.

Again, defeated we checked and asked around, but no one knew The Nose. After regrouping, we double checked the web search and confirmed our original destination to be correct (it's surprisingly difficult to get a solid hit on The Nose online). We ambled back towards downtown, again, severely tired and now wondering if we'd even make the event cutoff time. Kellan, once again, nudged us forward and we finally came across The Nose and headed back to Stoney's for the finish.

Our completely ridiculous route.

Dejected, dehydrated, but not defeated, we got our photos checked, signed the book and sat down to eat. We came in a miserable 53rd place, just 5 spots above the NPCs (no picture check) and the DNFs. The ordeal took over 4 hours and we covered over 9 miles in our backtracking, wild goose chase of a race. The winners clocked in just over 1 hour and 5 minutes, which boggles my mind. Because, even if you figured out all the clues, in say, 15 minutes, you'd still would have to cover about 5 miles (with a near perfect route), snapping pictures and playing games along the way, in about 45 minutes. Craziness.

Worst. Results. Ever.

Anyways, aside from the horrendous time we had during this race, I'd imagine most people would enjoy it. Especially those who just sort of tooled around and drank lots of beer. As for me, I don't think I'll be doing any more scavenger hunts anytime soon.