Challenge Nation Nationals

Earlier this year-Stu, Cole and I ran the Salt Lake Challenge Nation race which is an Urban Scavenger Hunt around SLC.  We came in first.  We gained automatic entry into the National stage in Vegas for the chance to win $5000.  
This last weekend was the race.  We flew to Vegas.  My mom drove down a day early to pick up my grandma (they were the babysitters of Hannah) and Cole drove down later Friday night.  
Saturday at noon the race started.  There were about 50 teams from across the US that came to race.  None of the teams were from Vegas.  The Vegas specific race was the next day, so we were all on the same ground...not knowing anything.
We were told ahead of time that this race would cover more ground then the typical race.  The SLC race was 3 miles so we figured double that..6 miles.  Totally do-able.  They said it would take about 2-3 hours to complete. Cole was coming off of running Ragnar as an ultra team the week before and had a foot injury.  Stu was getting back into running and only had about 5 miles under his belt, and I hadn't run more than a mile since the marathon-but 6 miles, we could do that.  We got the clues and took off.  

Right before the race started

Upon reading the clues, we realized..this was going to be hard.  Not knowing the area and realizing the clues were not very 'googable', we knew we were in trouble.  We spent 30 min just trying to figure out the clues.  We wanted to tackle this race like the SLC race and do it in an order, so we didn't have to back track a bunch of times. 
In the end we ended up running a 1/2 marathon. That is 13 miles.  We were so not prepared.  We didn't even think about eating lunch so we were all working on limited fuel.  We found out at the end you could PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION to get to your clues.  (Even if we knew that during the race we had no money so we couldn't use it anyways).  And we ended up coming in 30 out of 50 teams, with a finish time of 3 1/2 hours.
The 1st 5 teams with the correct pictures from the clues automatically go into the 2nd round for $5000.  Once the 5th team arrived an email/twitter went out and we had 1 hour to make it back so we could be in the drawing for a "WILD CARD" slot to be the 6th team racing.  We got the 1 hour message when we were still on the strip and had to run back to Fremont street which was..oh about 4 miles away.  We did make it with about 7 mins to spare, but as soon as that hour was up the race started again.  We were so tired we were hoping our # would not get picked.  We would only have a 10-15 min break.  Where as the top 5 teams have been done for over an hour.  Probably cuz they used public transportation!
In the end the WILD CARD went to team #29 (remember we were #30)  So we bid them good luck and went home to shower and eat.  
Overall, we would have done things way different.  I had fun.  Stu said he didn't.  Not sure about Cole.  Next years Nationals will be in another state.  Maybe one year it will be in SLC and we can race the Vegas one and qualify for the SLC one and win the gold, I mean $5000!

Here some of the clues and pictures from that day:

 Clue: Britany Spears makes her much heralded return to the stage on 12/27 in Las Vegas.  Re-create her previous Vegas escapade from 1/3-inside any of the dozens of appropriate spots-the catch here is that you have to include at least 2 strangers AND at least one prop.

                                                          ** Here is the image we created

 Clue: By the numbers: a 1:2 thing exists at 36.1125 N, 115.1722 W and you'll need to gather up at least 10 willing bystanders to work together to mimic it in the photo you take with them within at least 50 yards of it.
**It ended up being the Paris hotel and we had to recreate the Effiel Tower.

 Clue: This clue will require some clever timing. Grab a photo of your team within 30 yards of WET's best known work--visibly operating.
**Thankfully we figured this out and only had to wait 10 min.  The fountains only go off every 30 min.  This was one of our last clues.  Can you see how tired we are?

Clue: There are more than 40 structures taller than 400 feet in Las Vegas, and it just so happens that none of them are downtown.  To complete this clue, you only have to reach half those lofty heights: Elevate your team to more than 200 feet and take a photo proving it clearly and unambiguously!
**We went to the 24 floor of the Stratosphere to get this shot

Clue: Ah yes, the "Find a sports fan" Challenge Nation clue-can't leave that one out! Find and pose with an actual found-on-the-street fan wearing gear (any article of clothing) from a college team located East of the Mississippi that is playing a football game at anytime today.  (watch out for bye weeks and weeknight games!)  
**This was hard.  All the fans we found were West of the Mississippi.  We finally found this man on the strip

Clue: This Las Vegas retail destination shares a unique feature with a San Francisco mall-they're the only two with them in America.  Hop on board and snag your photo halfway down any one of them.
**This one was hard.  We goggled and asked and FINALLY found out it was at Caesars Place, the escalators that spiral up. 

I found out that the Las Vegas Marathon was the next day.  If only I knew I could have shot for 4 this year!  Just kidding.  There is no way I could have done that after running a 1/2 marathon (unexpectedly) the day before.  It was fun racing with my honey and brother, and even more fun to do it as scavengar hunt.  If you are interested in signing up-Here their website!