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A summary of SubPrime Runners Oyster Race II experience-so y’all know what to expect and might hopefully join in next year’s adventure.
Pre-Race: Up at 5 am, I’m shining my anti-seasonal depression "sun"light in my face as I rack the bike, bundle gear & food into the Rav and head to Mike and Rich’s place. Sipping on the kick-ass Taiwan green tea from Dad slowly clears my brain as we cross Dumbarton and pick up LC, kick-ass mama and ringer, who always laments she is out of shape before she leaves you in her dust. Chrissy field is engulfed in swamp bog -like fog. We set up our transition area encampment. The grass is wet. Our mascot Sushi is shivering and it become apparent I won’t be changing into shorts after all. There are like 7 guys (why dudes, not women?) already in line at the porta potties. There are about 70 teams in play. My plan is to start mainlining an IV of Peet’s coffee around noon to stave off pain & keep me going…At the pre race talk they tell us not to violate the rules of San Francisco (before we all pour into the street jaywalking en masse), and announce that one couple is getting married today after they race together.
Stage one: 8:15 a.m. Run out as a team, find an obscure plaque in the Palace of fine arts, up a hill to find an obscure statue which thank goodness Mike remembers seeing on Friday night skates, and find a Starbucks to take a photo with all 3 team mates and someone with their cuppa Joe. Going from stone cold to running feels mighty sucky at 8 am, but we manage the tasks well. At this point most of the teams are all on top of one another, and we all dash back to transition area bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for the next challenge. We show our photo evidence of the tasks completed, get our "passport" punched and receive our next assignment.
Stage two: Oyster Triad. Hereupon the trouble began for all! Simple enough: we all have to split up. One must bike, another skate, the third run. One to Cow Hollow, one to Baker beach, one way the hell to the Legion of Honor to take a photo with Rodin’s thinker statue. I haven’t the faintest idea how to get anywhere. We bust out our respective maps. TK will take on Rodin on bike since that is the furthest task. MO is a proficient skater and will search for a rope at city car share in Cow Hollow. I, who am grateful not to be on skates, will run yet again to the "sand ladder" at Baker Beach. Tk and I head up Lincoln, the annoyingly hilly stretch, where he paces me on the bike and leads me most of the way to Baker Beach. We realize things are gettin’ ugly when we see an in line skater wipe out and almost fall in front of a car. My heart almost stops, but the motorist sees it too, and veers away. We see other skaters coming down the hill clad in socks, having removed their skates when they realized the incline was way too dangerous. I see a guy pass me with dirt and a rip in his shirt, a fall leaving his shoulder and face bloody. OMG. EEK. Friendly co-racers point me to the sand ladder, and absolutely beautiful path down to picturesque Baker beach where many of our friends have taken wedding or engagement portraits. The golden gate looms in the background, and I discover that a sand ladder is a never-ending sandy, sinking trail with boards across it that leads to a fantastically beautiful yet cold beach where I punch my passport, and a grueling crawl back up to Lincoln. People are gasping up the ladder. Others who skated here are coming down in their socks. The endorphins are finally easing my grievances and I run back down to Chrissy field , hoping my 2 team mates are not both waiting on me. TK is not back yet, we hang with other teams and start snacking. The spiffy blue uniformed medic guy with the latex gloves arrives to tend to the teams now returning erratically to the transition area. I am playing with other people’s dogs to soothe stress…
Stage three: The team is to bicycle on city streets down to Pier 40, where two of will ocean kayak and one must go to Gordon Biersch and "pour a pint". TK is a city-dweller and charts a course to avoid most of the traffic. I am SO happy I finally tuned up my bike at REI. We manage not to get hit by cars nor to run over any of the oblivious, gawking pedestrians and meandering tourists. I am desperate at this point to work out any part of my body that is NOT my legs. TK and I are better swimmers, so we opt to take on the kayak, settling into PFD’s & grabbing oars.
"Do you want single kayaks or a double?" they guy asks.
‘Why would we want a single!?" TK says. I agree. isn’t that more work!? Fortunately 2 racers are headed back to port with a double and we jump in and steer for the Bay Bridge. TK and I are a good team, only whacking oars out of syn once or twice. The current is against us but not as strong as we had feared. We spy Urban Chaos friends paddling back at us - pissed off as all get out.
"Don’t go all the way to the bridge, go to the boat!" they shout.
Out near the bridge they were hit by a wave and RO’s got a crust of sea salt on him to show for it. We sidle up to a motorboat that is serving as checkpoint. They tell us to head to the last buoy on a peer, and come back to get our passport punched. We see racers bobbing around near the bridge, desperately searching for the passport punching person. We whack the buoy & start paddling madly back. We almost run into the near-invisible fishing lines of fishermen on the dock, paddling away as fast as we can & apologizing. MO is waiting at port (he opted wisely not to drink his pint ‘o beer although many racers did). We advise incoming kayak racers to look for the lady on the boat and not go all the way out to the bridge pylons. Our friend B later tells us how they almost had a head-on collision with a boat, spun in a 360, and managed to hit 4 other kayaks while out. That ocean current does funny things…we bike back, drooling at In-n-out and Peet’s and the Italian restaurants catering to tourists as we pass, but daring not to stop momentum. We return for check in, me with sea water on my head and arms…thank goodness my Dri-weave and Nike sphere gear is performing as promised thus far. Otherwise I’d have to be like the dude with the red briefs in the neighboring transitions area who is changing his pants at transition.
Stage four: Public transportation IS in play. After all, this race is partially about navigation & problem solving not merely athletics. We have to get to Chinatown, take a photo with all team mates at the gate, and come back with a "three fingered ginger root." Ooookay. We set out running (again!?) and MO calls P on the phone to get Muni schedules. V, an SF local tells us to look up Bus 30. We run down the street madly as MO spies the bus a block ahead. It’s empty except for us and one other race team. But the time we get to Chinatown it is standing and pushing & shoving room only, mostly of Chinese folks with pink plastic bags of food. We stare out the windows longing for Chinese buns & dimsum (and me for coffee). At Stockton Sutter we barrel out & run 2 blocks to the chinatown gate. Then uphill (ARGH) off the touristy streets full of tchotkes until we spy bins of produce. TK and I find a good, fleshy, ginger specimen that rings up at 30 cents. MO bought one for 60 cents. We get back on Muni, ride back to Beach street. At this point there are about 4-5 teams on this bus-all trying to outrun one another from Beach street to the transition area.
LC is cracking up, three white guys from a team on her bus were puzzled at why their "ginger root" was $28.00 a pound, especially for such a shriveled little thing.
I gasped, "did they buy ginseng?!" Yes. Apparently they did. Obviously not cooks who know what ginger looks like, they walked into a shop, spied some dried root thing with three fingers and asked the shopkeep "is this ginger?" They man said yes, so they bought it. Not until they were able to compare with the ginger other teams bought did they realize the mistake.
(I wonder if they owner even spoke English at all, or if he was smart to make an expensive sale…)Oh well. I sure hope they ate their ginseng. After all, it gives one energy and they paid a hefty price for it already.
Stage 5: Teams are groaning and scattered. People are cramping, falling, tired. As we ran back from the last stage I told the woman next to me that I had heard the next leg would entail rollerblading -everybody’s most accident-prone event. "That’s just great, give that to us when we’re most tired," she griped. By now we are more than 6 hours into the race and I figure if I hadn’t had coffee by now I will survive without it. TK’s fantastic wife brings us a bucket of KFC which revives us. Task is to hit Hyde Pier via in line skates, and untie a special knot and bring the rope back. We realize for this stage not all 3 must be present at the knot, so MO and TK go ahead. I skate to Fort Mason and opt not to even attempt the crazy hill that was freaky even via bike. TK later reports it was REALLY scary and he near lost control of speed on that thing (and wore away lots of wheel brake). Other racers just removed their skates and proceeded in socks yet again. We meet up after they got the rope and we head back, with me near-missing a van, but not falling down at all by some miracle! It’s now 3:30 p.m., and they won’t let us start leg 6. Awwww. But it’s been 7 hours and 30 plus minutes, none of are injured, and we are satisfied with our performance. Time to eat the orange & apple slices, Chipotle burritos and Gordon Beirsch beer the race has provided.
Stage Six: FYI. For those who did it, they were to head to REI store and pump water, as well as to the Whole Foods on 4th street to secure a few mystery items. Public Transpo was again in play. This was a contentious stage. I did not mind missing it as people used Muni and Taxi. I would have felt bad missing a bike or run event but this, not as much. Some people were WAY Po’ed that taxis were allowed, (one team actually ran that whole long ass route) others just questioned who the hell wants to pay $50 for a taxi. Thus, of course the team who ran it all or who Muni’ed it were mad that the team who won used taxi. I can’t comment since I didn’t run it, at this point Sub Prime runners were eating more KFC. And BTW, it was STILL cold as heck, and I never did get caffeinated unless you count Cola Cliff blox.
Post-Race: The prizes were Sweet. REI gift certificates, Merrell shoes, tees, & packs etc. A special prize went to the "most injured". The guy who continued to race despite ripped T-shirt and shoulder and giant face bandage one first prize. ($100 REI gift certificate for his suffering). Next up was the guy with huge, thigh-long abrasions, sprained fingers, a smaller face scab, and what he called "a developing black eye". Third honorable mention was they person who was not very injured at all, but whose Bicycle was presented as an impressive mangled mess. After re-packing our entire encampment up, we headed yet again to Mel’s to refuel the thousands of calories expended.
So there you have it. We are all hurtin’ but it was LOADS of fun & I finally got to enjoy many parts of SF I had never taken the time for before. The Oyster also runs in Denver, Portland, and Austin, but I think it would feel like an impossible race in an unfamiliar city due to the navigation and landmarks clues. For the less aggro, there is a "family’ or "6 -pack" option you can consider with shorter stages or where 6 people can run it relay-style. If one fundraises enough extra for charity you can buy an oyster Rockefeller which allows one player to opt out a stage. This was the longest and hardest event I have done besides Half Dome, (which took longer but was leisurely and required almost no skills whatsoever). So now I know, I can race around for about 8 hours, caffeine free, on foot, wheels, bus, and paddle.
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