Urban Dare

March 2012

Urban Dare (according to website)

Urban Dare is the race where smarts can beat speed. It’s part trivia, part photo hunt, part mental and physical challenges, and all fun. Think of it as a 1-day Amazing Race.

Teams of 2 solve a set of 12 clues to find checkpoints where they must take photos or perform dares in a race to the finish. You may call smart friends or use your smart phones for help solving clues. It is up to you to figure out the best order to complete your checkpoints.

You may walk, run or use public transportation to get to checkpoints. Sometimes the smart move is to run and other times a bus or the subway may be the way to go. You decide.

All races vary, but the winners usually finish under 2 hours and most people finish under 4 hours, while covering about 4 – 6 miles.

A portion of the proceeds, goes to feed the hungry through food banks.

Take the dare!

After doing the color run with our boys I wanted to find a fun race for myself and the hubster and I stumbled upon Urban Dare. This was labeled as an Amazing Race type run and that's all I needed to hear before signing up :)

This year it was on Mill Ave in Tempe. We weren't quite sure what to expect but there were almost 120 teams there. They gave a $50 gift card to the team with the best costume (only one team dress up up this year so they were the lucky winners). We were given a list of 12 clues and had to figure out the location to each clue, map it, go to each location and either take a picture there or perform an obstacle. We did a great job mapping it out and we were heading back to the finish when I noticed that I had overlooked the last clue/location and we ended up running 2 extra miles! We ended up finishing 22nd out of almost 120 teams even with that mess-up and it took us just under 2 hours to complete. We were given t-shirts to wear at the beginning and a few (smart) girls brought scissors to make theirs cute. Bringing a smart phone and pen is a must. Overall, we had a lot of fun and decided that this would be a fun race to do again. When we got home I mapped out the locations and if you did it efficiently it would have been 4 miles but we ended up going 6 miles.