Chad Things

I’ve always loved them – both as a participant and as a creator. Yep, i’ve created them before too – for friends in high school and college. But yesterday i was a participant in one here in SF, put on by Go Game. And it was awesome.

It was called the “Everywhere Game“. You create your own team (they recommend 4, but we had 6), you need web-enabled cell phone and a digital camera capable of pictures and video. Using the phone, you retrieve your missions and answer trivia. The missions often involved going somewhere, noting a sign or picture, then combining that with other clues to get the answer. Once you submit the answer on the phone, they supply the next mission. They grouped several missions together in different neighborhoods. For example, we did about 4 missions around the metreon, then did a bunch around union square, then hit the marina.  At the end we all met up at the mezzanine to watch team submitted pictures and videos and see who won.

These Go Game guys have been around, had some good challenges, but the game was far from perfect. Most pictures and videos submitted had problems, and twice during the game their servers went down. Our team did well, getting over 90% of the answers correct within the time limit. We got more points than the other 3 teams we spoke with, but still got less than half the points the winning team got. How is that possible? The go game people don’t disclose how people get points, or what is the worth of points. I remember the old scavenger hunt days – you get a list of a bunch of things and you can decide if you want to do easy things for small points or hard things for lots of points. This game seemed to randomly assign missions – except that the winning team was friends with the go game people, so it may not have been so random.

That said, our team had a blast and i’m totally down to do it again. Only $10 and proceeds benefit Alex Smith Foundation.

Have you ever done one?   Where was it, and would you do more like it?  Leave me a comment.

(Updated list of runs below)

I’ve always craved exercise regularly, whether its been mountain biking, backpacking, or dancing all night. But these days i want easy, cheap, regular exercise that doesn’t take too much time – and running fits the bill perfectly. I find myself doing things “runners” do, like checking out running websites, looking for interesting runs around SF, looking for “good” running shoes, and .. yes .. running races. Thanksgiving day, I’m running the 4th largest Half Marathon in the United States in Atlanta with my sister. Hurray.

I’m actually surprised that i’m able to run these days without the knee problems i used to have. I attribute that to my more disciplined approach of exercising more regularly and ALWAYS stretching after I run – i never stretch before. I also have coffee in the morning, then run before lunch while i’m still got that delishous caffeine in my system. I’m surprised by how much energy i have to run – an hour is over and i’m not even tired. I usually just run for 30-60 mins around the mission, castro, and noe valley, but heres a few of my longer runs:

2008 UPDATE – find my runs on motionbased, super easy with new GPS watch.

Sun, 12/2/07, I ran a DSE 4 mile run along Embarcadero in 30 mins exactly (7.5 min/mile).

Thur, 11/22/07, I ran a Half-marathon in Atlanta (13.1 miles) in 1:55 (115 mins, 8.1 min/mile).

Tues, 11/6/07, I ran from 116 to Ocean and back (11 miles) in about 110 mins (8.2 min/mile).

Tues, 10/24/07, I ran from 116 to Heron’s Head Park and back (7.3 miles – extra mile in park) in about 70 mins.

Also, check out the SF bike map – it shows how steep streets are – good for runners and bikes.