It was just another rainy, 50 degree, August day here in Denver… Wait, we don’t do rainy, 50 degree days here in Denver in August. But, alas, this Saturday that’s what we had as we woke up to as I prepared to race the Denver Oyster. This wasn’t rain, it was more like a deluge or the remainder of a tropical storm that somehow managed to make its way a thousand miles inland.
The Denver Oyster is an urban adventure race organized by Team Sage to support the Colorado Special Olympics. It’s a fast paced, multi-staged event with a course that’s revealed during the race with the events and locations of the checkpoints unknown in advance. Looking back at the website, the only guidance given on what to expect are the instructions to bring running shoes, a road bike, and roller blades. This was our third year running it and we were determined to bring the adventure to this urban adventure race.
Lee and Sheri arrived to the Aquarium near REI first to claim our transition area (TA) near the racer exit, a great spot and fortunately we had tents courtesy of Rocky Mountain Sports. We setup our gear and had a short warm up before the race announcements. Evidently, the first clue was to be dropped by helicopter which was grounded by the weather. Instead, at the "GO," we had to run around we found a clue wrapped in red t-shirt. The first stage had us running from the Aquarium through town to take pictures of our team at the red phone booth at Pint’s Pub. Thankfully, we caught a tiny glimpse of the The Dancers and took our required photo from several hundred feet away before continuing on. There was a 5km race also taking place that morning along the Cherry Creek path and as we came up at Colfax, a policeman was blocking traffic for us. We could see a finish line to the left by the firestation but we crossed the road heading to 13th with a policeman yelling that we were going the wrong way. We wrapped up a picture at the phone booth, headed back down 14th to "I See What You Mean," also known as the big blue bear before returning to the TA.
Pint’s Pub
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 The Dancers – Jonathan Borofsky |
 I See What You Mean – Lawrence Argent |
This was a nice warm up and we were third after the first leg. The next point was out to the Bladium in Stapleton on bikes. We made a very quick transition and headed out of town at a good pace, with Lee and I pulling lead. Since my wife and I ride out to the Anschutz Medical Center a good bit, I was familiar with the routes, which gave us a significant advantage. We made it to the Bladium, Lee made a hockey goal and we were given another task to head back down to the City Park Golf Course driving range to shoot at a target or finish the bucket of balls, whichever came first. Since we’re more of the adventure racing stock and not so refined as to play golf, we quickly hacked away a bucket of balls and were allowed to head back to the TA, without any other teams in sight.
Checkpoint 4…. Hmmm….we ran over to Coors Field and were given the task for each of us to sit in every seat in Section 122. After riding hard for an hour and running through rain, can you imagine how much it burns to do squats while shuffling across rows to cover the 400 plus seats? Under close supervision by the checkpoint officials, we completed the mission and head back again for the next challenge.
We were flying through the race by this point and came back in for another bike leg out to Elitch Lanes to bowl a strike or spare. Lee was nominated to be our star bowler and we headed out to the Highlands near 38th and Tennyson. As we started up the ramp from Platte to Spear, Lee yelled that he had a flat so we opted to leave him behind and use our one Oyster Rockefeller to be allowed to skip him, saving us precious time. Sheri and I had a Paris-Roubaix experience riding up Irving since it was torn up awaiting repaving. After another soggy ride, we pulled up to the bowling alley and took about 12 frames to finally bowl a spare. Seriously, there’s something about staying at a high level of intensity for a few hours and then needed to call on coordination.
The next leg had us making a quick run over to the Aquarium where I dove into a tank with large fish, perhaps including a shark or two, where I swam around a buoy and dove for a card. We finished this event so quickly, the race staff didn’t have the next card when we came through. The decision had been made to skip Checkpoint 7 and we were given the last leg, Checkpoint 8.
After deciphering the clues, we ran through LoDo to Forza Fitness Center to complete the challenge. It started with another pool event when I ducked into the pool to retrieve a card. From there, we had to go upstairs to the basketball court so Lee could complete a layup, free-throw, and three pointer, allowing us to race to the finish. We had a comfortable lead by this time but pushed it back to the finish, more than anything to stay warm. We sloshed through pools of water in parking lots and were surprised to see water flooding the Cherry Creek trail. We ran across the with little fanfare and told we could head home since the weather was bad and there wasn’t going to be much of a party. At least we were done!
Since Camille was racing her first race, we stayed to help them since they had three legs to go, not to mention help polish off the plentiful Q’doba burritos and beer! All in all, in spite of the rain, which we did see blue sky before we left, it was a great event and we look forward to next time. For a quick overview of what this race is like in good weather, check out the below video taken in 2007.
