REACH Hi-Liters Route + Report

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1704848

Capitol Hill Street Scramble.
12.7 miles, 610 points. 1st place Corporate Division, 3 hours on foot

Wow, a major success... I don't know where to start.

I didn't really have any expectations for this event, since I didn't know what how my ankle would feel (tore two ligaments six weeks ago). This made the planning period very difficult, because I really didn't know what we should do. My initial plan was to head clockwise to the north, through the arboretum (never been), and swing south and pick up the 50-pointer at Seattle Running Club. If we were feeling good, then we'd add the next "rung" south (35 & 43), and if we were feeling great, one more "rung" south (46 & 53). We ended up hitting both rungs, but we had to cut our "clean up" short, leaving 70 points on the course. (We could have scored 30 points higher with our general plan and distance if we'd have known earlier that we'd be skipping most of our "clean up", but hey, it worked out pretty well as it was.)

Start to 15: We were at the back of the pack to start, and we tried to pass some people in the street. I got chewed out by one of the construction flag people for "going around a flagger". DON'T EVER GO AROUND A FLAGGER! ESPECIALLY ON SMALL RESIDENTIAL STREET WHERE NOBODY DRIVES WHILE WEARING A HI-VIS SHIRT AND SOCKS. THE WORLD WILL COME TO AN END!

15 to 26: Capitol Hill has some really neat old buildings. I don't know if this was worth the effort to get 20 points. Meh.

26 to 57: First hill climb was OK for my ankle. Lost 30 seconds near 57, as it seemed like we were going into someone's yard. I backed up a bit to re-analyze.

57 to 32: Gina had to take off a layer of clothes because we were going faster than she thought we would. We diagonaled through Volunteer Park through an access Nick and I found two years ago. Saw the Nerds going opposite us here.

32 to 21: Diagonal through the park in another direction.

21 to 44: There's a trail that pretty much connects these two checkpoints exactly, but it wasn't mapped, and we figured that we wouldn't trust it (Nick and I had some trouble here two years ago), since Eric usually maps every trail that would potentially be useful. We ran around on the road, which was ok, but added 25% distance.

44 to 58: The Nerds were just ahead of us here, going the same direction. I'm curious about their route to see what they did. We lost some time within the circle, as I didn't expect an informational sign to be that secluded from the road. I navigated through the arboretum perfectly to line us up... and then we went north of the greenhouses and around!

58 to 31: Took the gravel road, and then the main road. Gina guessed "master" and I guessed "dedicated", but we were both wrong. It was "friendly".

31 to 47: We cut a corner through a Shell station. As in, literally between pumps. It was funny. Gina got distracted by a chocolate store, but she soon after corrected me on my block counting. The neighborhood around 47 reminds me of the "old west" neighborhood of Lawrence, KS.

47 to 23: Slugfest! Three old VW vans on this leg! The bench was a pretty lame checkpoint item compared to the items at the house one block south. A living palm tree and Asian-temple inspired waterbaths (or something).

23 to 33: Had we known, 23-24-45-22 would have been about the same distance as 23-33-22, but oh well.

33 to 22: Up the hill! Saw Catherine and Arianna here mesmerized with their "magic staff". It was weird.

22 to 35: Block counting!

35 to 46: I love the diagonals. We cut through the baseball diamond at Garfield High.

46 to 53: Back past the south side of Garfield, and then avoided some climb by heading south. Some dance activity going at a park there... 53 was near where a control was at the N&D two years ago, I think...

53 to 43: The "money" leg, as I called it. It was late in the race, we were feeling fatigued, it was a long leg, and had lots of potential stops at red lights, so we had to focus. Oh, did I mention I love diagonals? Boren St rocks! Oh, we cut through a McDonald's drive through because it gave us a mini diagonal.

43 to 54: A car stopped as it drove past us and asked us for directions to Seattle U. Good thing we had a map with us (and they were really close!). We figured it was a dad and daughter making a campus visit.

54 to 12: Through the park...

12 to 25: Micro-efficiency is worth something. First we cut through another drive-thru, and then we saw a solo guy ahead of us a ways here, but he wasn't paying attention to addresses or the type of restaurant he was looking for. We ran up to the checkpoint, answered, and kept going without ever stopping because we knew exactly what we were looking for and where the address would be ahead of time!

25 to 14: A gamble, considering how much time we had left. Again, never stopped.

14 to finish: A sprint down the hill. I was in with 13 seconds to spare. Gina was in with 6 seconds to spare.