A Brief History of the Team
Like most adventure racing teams, Taintastic is represented by expert riders, runners, trekkers and paddlers. Just kidding. We actually grew up together and thought racing would be a fun way to stay in shape. Taintastic! is not your everyday adventure racing team. For starters, we've raced in a four person CobraQuad kayak… on purpose. Second, we used to spend more time on our team name than we did on training. Third, we’ve raced through swarms of angry bees, tackled obstacles in the dark and we’ve had poison oak in very, very bad places. Finally, one of us (Marty) even attempted to make homemade GU to provide a competitive edge.
Taintastic! has competed in over 70 multi discipline adventure and urban races. In addition, we've run more than a dozen marathons, 1 ultra and numerous other foot and bike races. While we've finished the Boston, Marine Corps and New York City marathons, we prefer dressing up like super heroes to run the Marathon de Medoc in Bordeaux, France. Some stopped to smell the roses, while Taintastic! stopped at all 22 wine tastings en route to a sub 4 hour finish.
You can trace the growth of our team through the evolution of our name. For many races, we dedicated more time to coming up with an original team name than actually training. Eventually we settled in on Taintastic! and have never looked back. Except Marty, who never liked the name even after his wife explained it to him.
Taintastic is based in San Francisco and has been racing since 2002. The team has completed a variety of races including sprint and medium (6-12 hr) distance adventure races, urban races, Bay to Breakers and a few marathons.
We’d also like to thank many of our family and friends who have provided awesome race support over the years. You guys are the best.
We also won for 2011 - sadly no cool logo to share.
Taintastic Takes on the 2017 Angel Island Adventure Race
After placing in 2nd place in 2016, Colby and Matt were looking to take the title in the 2017 Angle Island Adventure Race, and they had been talking about it for 6 months. They even convinced Ken and John to come out to race for some Taint on Taint action. However, Colby remembered shortly before the race that he had a family wedding on race weekend and had to drop out. Those family weddings can really sneak up on you! So, Marty (on little notice and minimal training beyond tending to his flock of 5 chickens) stepped up to take the challenge! A couple of days before the race, Ken decided he needed to sleep-in that morning and also backed out of the race. Sleep is very important!! So, it would just be Marty and Matt representing Taintastic! Taintastic came up with a race strategy where Marty would primarily bike and Matt would be the runner, and they studied the island trails as best they could. As the starting gun went off, Matt sprinted out to a good lead and Marty would bike uphill to meet Matt. After some desperate dry heaving from Marty at the top of the first bike climb, the team became a bit worried about their chances, but Marty recovered to power through a strong race. Matt and Marty worked fast though the team challenges like the pizza sling shot, the double stilt walk and the golf ball tube transfer and ran a pretty clean race in the individual challenges as well. Thinking we had the race in the bag, we noted another team ahead of us at the final challenge and finished in second place once again! Of course, Matt would send Marty over to the winning team post race to find out how they won. It turns out that Taintastic was unaware of one very important trail that could have saved the team 20 minutes. It wasn't on the map but the rookie move cost the team a sweet victory. Next year, Matt has promised to live on the island for 2 weeks prior to race day to learn every trail, chart all of the island wind patterns and learn the location of all water supplying native cacti in preparation for the event. Taintastic will return!!
After placing in 2nd place in 2016, Colby and Matt were looking to take the title in the 2017 Angle Island Adventure Race, and they had been talking about it for 6 months. They even convinced Ken and John to come out to race for some Taint on Taint action. However, Colby remembered shortly before the race that he had a family wedding on race weekend and had to drop out. Those family weddings can really sneak up on you! So, Marty (on little notice and minimal training beyond tending to his flock of 5 chickens) stepped up to take the challenge! A couple of days before the race, Ken decided he needed to sleep-in that morning and also backed out of the race. Sleep is very important!! So, it would just be Marty and Matt representing Taintastic! Taintastic came up with a race strategy where Marty would primarily bike and Matt would be the runner, and they studied the island trails as best they could. As the starting gun went off, Matt sprinted out to a good lead and Marty would bike uphill to meet Matt. After some desperate dry heaving from Marty at the top of the first bike climb, the team became a bit worried about their chances, but Marty recovered to power through a strong race. Matt and Marty worked fast though the team challenges like the pizza sling shot, the double stilt walk and the golf ball tube transfer and ran a pretty clean race in the individual challenges as well. Thinking we had the race in the bag, we noted another team ahead of us at the final challenge and finished in second place once again! Of course, Matt would send Marty over to the winning team post race to find out how they won. It turns out that Taintastic was unaware of one very important trail that could have saved the team 20 minutes. It wasn't on the map but the rookie move cost the team a sweet victory. Next year, Matt has promised to live on the island for 2 weeks prior to race day to learn every trail, chart all of the island wind patterns and learn the location of all water supplying native cacti in preparation for the event. Taintastic will return!!
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Taintastic Clashes with the Nads in an Epic SF Xplore 2016
The Nads flew into town with the threesome of Andy, Josh and Mike (Hubs) ready to take on John, Doug and Matt of Taintastic. To carbo load the night before the race, the Nads along with Matt went out for a late night cocktail called a "Hot Tub". This is a creation from Hubs comprised of a Guinness pint and a Johnny Walker Red on the Rocks sipped slowly back and forth. You know... Like being in a Hot Tub! (OK; Maybe I'll explain later) Anyway, no intel could be stolen from the Nads on this night even though Matt offered to buy the Nads 2-3 more rounds of Hot Tub. The next morning, Taintastic was ready with a good gameplan, we wished our rival frenemy Nads good luck... and we started sprinting from the start as our clue team got to work. Taintastic ran a clean race throughout the day even though we had to wait 4-5 minutes for a cable car picture, we didn't think that little wait would come into play as it was quite minuscule and we were nailing the other points efficiently. The tattoo check point in which we had to find two people with tattoos was fun as we found a group of about 8 people excited to be part of a race who all wanted to share their tattoo story with us. Easy challenge in San Francisco! Getting to an escalator checkpoint near the end of the race, we were surprised to see the Nads at the checkpoint with us They had taken a completely different route and yet here we were neck and neck .Both teams completed the point simultaneously and with just two checkpoints to go it was a sprint! The Taints decided to take a calculated risk at the next checkpoint and take a different path to a globe sculpture in Yerba Buena Gardens. It did not pay off as we got slightly lost and fell behind a bit. We would finish the final checkpoint and run to the finish about one minute behind the Nads for second place. Many beers and a few Hot Tubs would follow as we celebrated a fantastic and fun race. Huge thanks to our stellar clue team of Summer, Mike, Justin, Ken and Elise for knocking out the clues and navigation. The Taints may have been behind the Nads this time (At least that's anatomically correct), but we'll be back!! |
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Taintastic Runs the "Extra Mile" to Win the Back on your Feet Urban Challenge
John and Matt entered the San Francisco Urban Challenge not knowing what to expect since it's a new race, so we put on our Taintastic jerseys and prepared to get the race juices flowing again. John showed up to the race with a back injury and a 1/2 inch layer of dirt in his lungs from some recent construction work. So, prior to the start Matt worked on John's back and hip outside of the start area. We think that the public display of deep massage and John's audible groaning was a good pre-race intimidating demonstration for the other teams. With a small field of about 20 teams, we got the cluesheet, and we were surprised to see a whopping 25 clues that our team would have to solve. Normally, these races have 10-12 clues and we can solve the clues rather quickly. However, in this event, our lack of race patience was on full display as we would sprint from point to point without having enough solved clues to chart an efficient race path. That would mean we would often end up running to the same area of town several times making our race path look like a 3 year olds coloring book. After finishing the race, we learned that our 11 mile sprint to get the points could have been done in about 5 miles. 50% efficiency sounds about right for Taintastic..... but we finished in first place anyway! Sometimes fast and dumb wins the day!! Big Thanks to Mike, Summer and Dave for dominating 25 clues and guiding us on our circuitous path. |
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Taint So Nad Assembles for a Sloppy 2016 Wild Canyon Games
For the fourth year in a row, the 7-member TaintSoNad squad rendezvoused in the Oregon high desert to ring in the start of summer at Nike's Wild Canyon Games; this year, with the added swagger of being the defending champs. Four years in, the team has a regular routine: Get to Oregon, meet at the Black Bear in Madras at 2p, wait for JZ for 30-60 minutes, have lunch (count on Andy to have the Cuban sandwich), go to Antelope and compete in the weekend's events, head back to Madras for Mexican food at Rio Distinctive (count on Matt to eat two entrees), and head on home.
This year, though, a lot of rain changed up the routine. Sure, that didn’t mean much for Marty, who hung out by a campfire all morning in his wetsuit, rotating like a rotisserie chicken until the seams on his wetsuit started to melt, only taking a short break to hop in the pond for his 18 minute swim. But for the other six guys, the rain made for a LOT of mud to slog through for up to 4 hours in the bike, run, and geocache segments of the morning. Always prepared though, the geocache foursome had brought five ice/paint scrapers to clear the mud off of their shoes during the event. And indeed, a competitor saw the scrapers and exclaimed “Fuckin’ TaintSoNad! I should have known! You guys think of everything!”.
We won’t lie; it was tough this year. While TsN keeps bringing back the same aging crew every year, the other top teams keep replacing their aging members with younger and faster guys, often collegiate runners. But working as a team, at the end of the weekend, TsN finished in a very impressive 4th place! Sadly, no trophy to take home this year, and just missed the podium by less than 0.1%; but losing only to three young Nike-associated teams is nothing to be down about.
Other highlights to mention from the weekend:
· Marty showing up to the Challenge run event in the kind of khaki shorts you would wear on a safari, listening to the team argue about who should tow him, and then rocketing off of the starting line to the amazement of the team, albeit because he had fresh legs. It was funnier than it sounds, you had to be there, or just know Marty.
· Andy, also during the Challenge segment, disregarding the predetermined team plan to help each other get over the 7 foot inflatable blob, told the team “I got this one solo guys!”, and then running smack into the inflatable blob without even jumping. We’re still not sure what that was all about, but Andy does have a history of entertaining us on the inflatable blob. https://youtu.be/QxlrHNDdPgk?t=40
- For some reason, the team convinced Mark to sprint three different times to the High Ropes Challenge in the same event and then got him to give his jacket to a shivering Matt in the same event. Talk about a team player!!!
For the fourth year in a row, the 7-member TaintSoNad squad rendezvoused in the Oregon high desert to ring in the start of summer at Nike's Wild Canyon Games; this year, with the added swagger of being the defending champs. Four years in, the team has a regular routine: Get to Oregon, meet at the Black Bear in Madras at 2p, wait for JZ for 30-60 minutes, have lunch (count on Andy to have the Cuban sandwich), go to Antelope and compete in the weekend's events, head back to Madras for Mexican food at Rio Distinctive (count on Matt to eat two entrees), and head on home.
This year, though, a lot of rain changed up the routine. Sure, that didn’t mean much for Marty, who hung out by a campfire all morning in his wetsuit, rotating like a rotisserie chicken until the seams on his wetsuit started to melt, only taking a short break to hop in the pond for his 18 minute swim. But for the other six guys, the rain made for a LOT of mud to slog through for up to 4 hours in the bike, run, and geocache segments of the morning. Always prepared though, the geocache foursome had brought five ice/paint scrapers to clear the mud off of their shoes during the event. And indeed, a competitor saw the scrapers and exclaimed “Fuckin’ TaintSoNad! I should have known! You guys think of everything!”.
We won’t lie; it was tough this year. While TsN keeps bringing back the same aging crew every year, the other top teams keep replacing their aging members with younger and faster guys, often collegiate runners. But working as a team, at the end of the weekend, TsN finished in a very impressive 4th place! Sadly, no trophy to take home this year, and just missed the podium by less than 0.1%; but losing only to three young Nike-associated teams is nothing to be down about.
Other highlights to mention from the weekend:
· Marty showing up to the Challenge run event in the kind of khaki shorts you would wear on a safari, listening to the team argue about who should tow him, and then rocketing off of the starting line to the amazement of the team, albeit because he had fresh legs. It was funnier than it sounds, you had to be there, or just know Marty.
· Andy, also during the Challenge segment, disregarding the predetermined team plan to help each other get over the 7 foot inflatable blob, told the team “I got this one solo guys!”, and then running smack into the inflatable blob without even jumping. We’re still not sure what that was all about, but Andy does have a history of entertaining us on the inflatable blob. https://youtu.be/QxlrHNDdPgk?t=40
- For some reason, the team convinced Mark to sprint three different times to the High Ropes Challenge in the same event and then got him to give his jacket to a shivering Matt in the same event. Talk about a team player!!!
Colby Makes His Taintastic Racing Return for the Inaugural Angel Island Adventure Race
After a two year hiatus from Taintastic, Colby was ready to get back to racing and signed up with Matt for the 2016 Angel Island Adventure Race. It was a fun race design in which each team of two would have one bike for the team to divide and conquer multiple checkpoints scattered on the island. Colby prepared for the race like most races waiting until 5 days before the race start to start training and began complaining to Matt about 7 different injuries and ailments on the day of the race. However, Colby always performs when it counts and the run-bike concept of the race would allow Colby to focus his efforts on biking and hope the biking was all downhill. As teams got on the ferry for the Island, maps were handed out and the nervous energy and excitement was in the air. Matt and Colby had a great race plan and executed it well with only a couple of hiccups along the way. The race design which split the team up for 75% of the race was helpful in limiting Matt's ability to get on Colby's nerves and Colby had almost NO time to yell at Matt. Go Team!! The rubber chicken sling-shot launch basket helmet catch challenge (obviously a classic) was much more difficult than expected and took the team a good 15 minutes to complete. In the end, after some great teamwork and bike leapfrogging to the last challenge, the team had a chance to pass the leaders on the final puzzle, but accidentally covered up some important parts of the puzzle with some of the puzzle pieces. It wouldn't be a Taintastic race without some mistakes so this helped Colby to feel back at home on the team. We sprinted to the finish with a second place finish!! A really cool race that we'll do again next year.
After a two year hiatus from Taintastic, Colby was ready to get back to racing and signed up with Matt for the 2016 Angel Island Adventure Race. It was a fun race design in which each team of two would have one bike for the team to divide and conquer multiple checkpoints scattered on the island. Colby prepared for the race like most races waiting until 5 days before the race start to start training and began complaining to Matt about 7 different injuries and ailments on the day of the race. However, Colby always performs when it counts and the run-bike concept of the race would allow Colby to focus his efforts on biking and hope the biking was all downhill. As teams got on the ferry for the Island, maps were handed out and the nervous energy and excitement was in the air. Matt and Colby had a great race plan and executed it well with only a couple of hiccups along the way. The race design which split the team up for 75% of the race was helpful in limiting Matt's ability to get on Colby's nerves and Colby had almost NO time to yell at Matt. Go Team!! The rubber chicken sling-shot launch basket helmet catch challenge (obviously a classic) was much more difficult than expected and took the team a good 15 minutes to complete. In the end, after some great teamwork and bike leapfrogging to the last challenge, the team had a chance to pass the leaders on the final puzzle, but accidentally covered up some important parts of the puzzle with some of the puzzle pieces. It wouldn't be a Taintastic race without some mistakes so this helped Colby to feel back at home on the team. We sprinted to the finish with a second place finish!! A really cool race that we'll do again next year.
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Photo Finish at the 2016 Challenge Nation San Francisco
Following last year's 3rd place finish, Jim and Matt were ready to get back on top, and we assembled a great clue team to help us get there. Zobel, Andy, Mike and Justin were on clues and Summer would navigate as we raced around San Francisco. Luck seemed to be on our side early as we efficiently found some of the more random scavenger items like a cross country newspaper and someone wearing a Kansas University garment. We would just need to find a police officer to avoid having to run to an extra far checkpoint (Cupid's arrow). Summer told us not too go to cupid's arrow.. "It's too far". In fact, Summer told us about 37 times not to go to "Cupid's arrow". We did not want to go there. But, naturally, Taintastic went to Cupid's arrow. We could not find an officer and couldn't risk missing that point, so we were sort of forced into it, but we were moving so fast that we thought we still might be OK. Here's where things got interesting. On the final push home to the finish, Matt was running slightly ahead of Jim and entered an ice cream shop next door to the start/finish location. The ice cream shop was not the finish line but Matt knew from earlier scouting that entering the shop would be a short-cut to get to the finish. He did not tell Jim this tidbit. Jim, knowing Matt and his tendencies, thought Matt was crazy and running the wrong way again. Matt usually out-runs his brain so this was quite possible. So, Jim ran around to the front of the finish venue and into the main entrance.... not following Matt. In the closest loss in Taintastic history, Matt would cross the finish line first, followed by the full Tweedles team.... and then Jim. So, Taintastic scores a second place falling to the Tweedles for a second year in a row.. So close!! Of course, had we found a police officer like most teams, we would have walked to the finish and won by 10 minutes. Lessons learned: 1. Listen to Summer 2. Tell Jim why you're running into a random ice cream shop. |
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A Taint Grabs a Nad to take on Two Nads... Wait... What?
In the 2015 San Francisco Xplore race, the two time defending champs Taintastic would have a tall task repeating with the Andy and Tyler of the Nads coming into town. Matt was ready to go but the usual Taintastic gang all had other commitments. So, Matt reached out to a local Nad in Mike (Hubs) and he was game to race stating... "So you're telling me I have 9 days to get in shape". That's the spirit! After meeting up with the Nads at a local diner before the race, Mike and Matt tried to get Tyler to eat an obnoxiously large breakfast to weigh him down but he was not falling for it......mostly because the diner's kitchen was basically in the bathroom. Yum. To start the race, Taintastic lucked out by guessing the starting line area and getting off to a quick start. It would be a long day of running with a few spots of back tracking but overall a clean race. Mike ran fast the whole time on limited training, making Matt wonder if training is over-rated for future races. Perhaps more beer and nachos would be best. Anyways...At one point, teams had to decide whether to run through or over the Broadway tunnel (a huge climb). Taintastic braved the smog-filled tunnel (which was much faster) while some unnamed team (Hint: It was the Nads) went over the hill. Taintastic was doing quite well until the gas station checkpoint tripped us up. We needed to take a picture of a red vehicle getting gas at a station. It was not easy. Matt went into crazy ping pong mode, darting in and out of traffic begging drivers in red cars to get gas; even offering to pay for the gas. Mostly Matt just looked like a deranged, sweaty mongrel and a danger to himself and the general public before Mike bailed out the team by finding a red motorcycle at the gas station. After the hiccup, Mike and Matt raced to get remaining checkpoints and finished in 2nd place behind the Nads and in front of 3rd place Finnsters. Close to a three-peat but not this time! Thanks to Mike for sucking it up and racing on little training and to our navigator Summer and clue team of Marty, Mike, Justin and Jim. Fun end to the season racing!! |
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TaintSoNad takes on the 2015 Wild Canyon Games
The racing blob TaintSoNad headed to the Oregon high desert for the 2015 Wild Canyon Games in late May, hoping that the third time would be the charm, after finishing 4th and 2nd in 2013 & 2014. A long journey for all, seeing that only 1 of 7 of us live in Oregon.
Creatures of habit, the team met at the Black Bear Diner in Madras for hugs, mustache juxtaposition and lunch. Meeting up at the Madras BBD is as much of a tradition as WCG Saturday night ham dinner. What? No ham this year? Fajitas? Well then, lunch at BBD is as much of a tradition as chatting up the gals from Vitacoco. Marty was sure he would score a sponsorship this year... or at least tie a banana to a rope and dangle it between his legs trying to swing it into a ball to get the ball through the hoop. Maybe next year.....
Upon arriving at WCG, Marty received a big surprise, as he found out the usual lake was not suitable for swimming (Does too much algae qualify as force majeure?) and the mile swim in the tri relay was replaced with a run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run.. This... on top of the fact that the team uniform was not Marty's preference of Carolina Blue....and he became quite depressed. Marty had he only run 3 times in prep for the weekend, but that he would be doing five legs of running in a speedo around a loop containing a large crowd. However, his depression was overshadowed by the sadness of the crowd realizing they would be watching that spectacle. Video evidence has mysteriously vanished.
The competition for the weekend was stiff, as the two Nike teams were there, along with the good military teams, and an increasing amount of teams that are bringing amazing runners to the games, to name a few.
After a night of sleeping and JW yelling at neighboring teams to go to bed, the competitions commenced the next morning. The triathlon team had a great team effort to finish in second place. But they were overshadowed by the two geocache pairs, who finally nailed their plan, putting in a monster amount of effort in 4 hours to bring home over 19000 geo points and get the geo win by just a hair. Incredible!! The 1st and 2nd finishes in the morning segments put TsN atop the leaderboard at lunchtime.
In the afternoon, the Challenge leg was a bit of a wildcard as usual. An early highlight occurred when JW yelled at Andy for not swimming 20 feet fully clothed quickly enough, letting him know that he would swim a lot faster if he PUT HIS HAT IN HIS PANTS!. Also enjoyable was how impressed JZ was with Marty's machismo as he hollered "Hey, mustache riders!" at a passing female team, only to find out later that their team name was actually Mustache Riders. Anyway, after all the teams came in and points tallied, TsN was very happy and surprised to see they finished fourth in the event. The choice to play a a childhood game of Memory over throwing large objects turned out better than expected. This left TsN in first place overall with a small margin leading to the next day's final event, the relay.
You'd think the team would awake the next day happy with their (narrow) perch atop the leaderboard, but no. Marty and JW got into a tense argument over alarm clock honesty which Tyler could have immediately resolved, but he chose to keep his mouth shut and let it escalate. Then, half of the team showed a big lack of faith in JZ's ability to handle his leg of the relay, and made him basically audition over and over again for his part like he was trying to get on America's Got Talent. It's fair to say, the team was not handling the pressure of being the leaders very well!
But then the relay started, and each team member did their part, as they had done all weekend. Tyler led off in a long obstacle course trying to keep pace with 20 year old college sprinters and putting JW in a good position to pass multiple fallen bikers on the cross course. Andy crushed the next obstacle course skipping up the triple wall and JZ erased any doubts in getting over both Blobs. Next, Marty would kill the swim, passing 2 swimmers in the process and putting TsN in 3rd for the final two legs. Matt would survive the first half of communication hill yelling at his legs the entire time to get moving and Mark closed the gap to the top.... keeping third in the race to the top of communication hill, which was just enough to secure the TsN victory! And it was "just" enough, as second place was less than half of one percent behind TsN, and the next teams not far behind either. So many things over the course of the weekend could have altered the outcome, but a great team effort all around, and a bit of luck, was just enough to provide the slightest of winning margins this time. And so to the victors went the spoils - in this case, some nice WCG gear, a box lunch, a nice trophy to take home, and video messages from underage groupies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADmjy0J8LkA
TsN will be back at WCG next year. They have to, to take back the trophy. Like the Stanley Cup, it's the actual trophy and not a replica. Next time, though, they'll be in new territory, the Masters Division. WCG is increasingly a young man's game, but the old timers of TSN will see if they can find a way to compete with the youngsters for one more year.
The racing blob TaintSoNad headed to the Oregon high desert for the 2015 Wild Canyon Games in late May, hoping that the third time would be the charm, after finishing 4th and 2nd in 2013 & 2014. A long journey for all, seeing that only 1 of 7 of us live in Oregon.
Creatures of habit, the team met at the Black Bear Diner in Madras for hugs, mustache juxtaposition and lunch. Meeting up at the Madras BBD is as much of a tradition as WCG Saturday night ham dinner. What? No ham this year? Fajitas? Well then, lunch at BBD is as much of a tradition as chatting up the gals from Vitacoco. Marty was sure he would score a sponsorship this year... or at least tie a banana to a rope and dangle it between his legs trying to swing it into a ball to get the ball through the hoop. Maybe next year.....
Upon arriving at WCG, Marty received a big surprise, as he found out the usual lake was not suitable for swimming (Does too much algae qualify as force majeure?) and the mile swim in the tri relay was replaced with a run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run.. This... on top of the fact that the team uniform was not Marty's preference of Carolina Blue....and he became quite depressed. Marty had he only run 3 times in prep for the weekend, but that he would be doing five legs of running in a speedo around a loop containing a large crowd. However, his depression was overshadowed by the sadness of the crowd realizing they would be watching that spectacle. Video evidence has mysteriously vanished.
The competition for the weekend was stiff, as the two Nike teams were there, along with the good military teams, and an increasing amount of teams that are bringing amazing runners to the games, to name a few.
After a night of sleeping and JW yelling at neighboring teams to go to bed, the competitions commenced the next morning. The triathlon team had a great team effort to finish in second place. But they were overshadowed by the two geocache pairs, who finally nailed their plan, putting in a monster amount of effort in 4 hours to bring home over 19000 geo points and get the geo win by just a hair. Incredible!! The 1st and 2nd finishes in the morning segments put TsN atop the leaderboard at lunchtime.
In the afternoon, the Challenge leg was a bit of a wildcard as usual. An early highlight occurred when JW yelled at Andy for not swimming 20 feet fully clothed quickly enough, letting him know that he would swim a lot faster if he PUT HIS HAT IN HIS PANTS!. Also enjoyable was how impressed JZ was with Marty's machismo as he hollered "Hey, mustache riders!" at a passing female team, only to find out later that their team name was actually Mustache Riders. Anyway, after all the teams came in and points tallied, TsN was very happy and surprised to see they finished fourth in the event. The choice to play a a childhood game of Memory over throwing large objects turned out better than expected. This left TsN in first place overall with a small margin leading to the next day's final event, the relay.
You'd think the team would awake the next day happy with their (narrow) perch atop the leaderboard, but no. Marty and JW got into a tense argument over alarm clock honesty which Tyler could have immediately resolved, but he chose to keep his mouth shut and let it escalate. Then, half of the team showed a big lack of faith in JZ's ability to handle his leg of the relay, and made him basically audition over and over again for his part like he was trying to get on America's Got Talent. It's fair to say, the team was not handling the pressure of being the leaders very well!
But then the relay started, and each team member did their part, as they had done all weekend. Tyler led off in a long obstacle course trying to keep pace with 20 year old college sprinters and putting JW in a good position to pass multiple fallen bikers on the cross course. Andy crushed the next obstacle course skipping up the triple wall and JZ erased any doubts in getting over both Blobs. Next, Marty would kill the swim, passing 2 swimmers in the process and putting TsN in 3rd for the final two legs. Matt would survive the first half of communication hill yelling at his legs the entire time to get moving and Mark closed the gap to the top.... keeping third in the race to the top of communication hill, which was just enough to secure the TsN victory! And it was "just" enough, as second place was less than half of one percent behind TsN, and the next teams not far behind either. So many things over the course of the weekend could have altered the outcome, but a great team effort all around, and a bit of luck, was just enough to provide the slightest of winning margins this time. And so to the victors went the spoils - in this case, some nice WCG gear, a box lunch, a nice trophy to take home, and video messages from underage groupies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADmjy0J8LkA
TsN will be back at WCG next year. They have to, to take back the trophy. Like the Stanley Cup, it's the actual trophy and not a replica. Next time, though, they'll be in new territory, the Masters Division. WCG is increasingly a young man's game, but the old timers of TSN will see if they can find a way to compete with the youngsters for one more year.
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Taintastic! Nails the Balloon Animal Challenge in the Urban Dare Sacramento 2015
After years of futilely trying to build a balloon sword in the middle of an Urban Dare race, Matt decided to step it up a notch (ie. Go into super-nerd racing territory). Matt bought a pack of balloons to practice making animals the night before the race. A fun-filled Friday night indeed as Matt made 20 balloon swords and a handful of balloon puppies in preparation. So, Matt and John were ready for anything as we got the clue sheet and started sprinting around downtown Sacramento. The race course seemed a bit longer this year but Matt and John were up to the task.... and sure enough the balloon sword challenge was in play! The race staff implored us to use the directions in order to construct the sword, but he didn't realize that Matt was now a balloon sword master. It took 7 years of racing to figure it out, but the balloon sword was no longer in charge of Taintastic and a record for adventure race balloon craft was set! It was mostly smooth sailing from point to point thanks to our clue team although an awkward picture of John pretending to dip a 14 year old girl with braces for a challenge checkpoint was a brief slow down. Cruising to the finish line, Taintastic! was confident that we would seven-peat and win the race. BUT.... as usual there was a catch (now a trademarked occurrence known as the "Taintastic... BUT") We messed up a checkpoint and had to go back out not once.... but twice! All was OK as we were swift (and lucky) enough to still secure the win. So, while Taintastic now knows how to make balloon animals, we still don't know how to read clues. Thanks to Summer, Mike, Justin and Amy for your support. If anyone, needs Matt to dress as a clown and make balloon animals for a party, let him know (balloon puppies and swords only please) |
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Taintastic joins the Nads for the 2015 Xplore San Diego
As part of the 2015 Nads Adventure Race Outreach Program (aka NAROP), Matt would join Andy as an honorary Nad on one of his "fly-in, fly-out" adventure race days. So, packing only what they would be racing with, Andy and Matt flew into the San Diego airport and team Taint-So-Nad had assembled. After killing 3 hours at a local Starbucks buying one banana while using their bathroom 57 times, Andy and Matt were ready to go. Two minutes prior to race start, Matt texted the phone team and Colby called back with his customary pre-race joke "I thought the race was tomorrow!" Only this time...... he wasn't joking. To be clear, at no time in the last 50 races have we raced on a Sunday, but Colby thought it was on Sunday this time. Or so he said. It sounded like he was just driving up to Napa. So, one clue solver down, but it would not matter. Andy proposed the strategy to run to the local park a couple of miles away if any clues sounded like they might be there. This would give our team time to solve clues while on the move. Matt and Andy would pick up 4 checkpoints in the first park area including getting frisky with a crocodile sculpture and taking a picture with a military person holding a beer cozy. Moving fast and hitting points efficiently, Andy and Matt had time to take off their shoes before jumping in a local fountain for a checkpoint. This was good news for the people we'd be sitting
As part of the 2015 Nads Adventure Race Outreach Program (aka NAROP), Matt would join Andy as an honorary Nad on one of his "fly-in, fly-out" adventure race days. So, packing only what they would be racing with, Andy and Matt flew into the San Diego airport and team Taint-So-Nad had assembled. After killing 3 hours at a local Starbucks buying one banana while using their bathroom 57 times, Andy and Matt were ready to go. Two minutes prior to race start, Matt texted the phone team and Colby called back with his customary pre-race joke "I thought the race was tomorrow!" Only this time...... he wasn't joking. To be clear, at no time in the last 50 races have we raced on a Sunday, but Colby thought it was on Sunday this time. Or so he said. It sounded like he was just driving up to Napa. So, one clue solver down, but it would not matter. Andy proposed the strategy to run to the local park a couple of miles away if any clues sounded like they might be there. This would give our team time to solve clues while on the move. Matt and Andy would pick up 4 checkpoints in the first park area including getting frisky with a crocodile sculpture and taking a picture with a military person holding a beer cozy. Moving fast and hitting points efficiently, Andy and Matt had time to take off their shoes before jumping in a local fountain for a checkpoint. This was good news for the people we'd be sitting
next to on the plane home. Sweaty fountain-soaked socks aren't plane friendly. Not like the smell of victory, anyway. Doing some crossfit (2 burpees! Each! Ugh the cardio!), spinning a quarter, and serenading some waitress in Top Gun style, Matt and Andy were on point and cruised to a victory. A few too many beers at the finish line and a quick flight home made for a true Amazing Race type whirlwind day. GO Nads! Thanks for the great time! Also, thanks to Summer, Brandin, Nanci and Mike for helping us out. Finally, thanks to Colby for the laugh (nervous laugh) to start the race!
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Taintastic! starts the 2015 Season with Challenge Nation San Francisco
Coming off two straight SF Challenge Nation wins, Jim and Matt were ready for a three-peat. We were in good shape and supposedly had an extra clue in hand thanks to the fine art of Facebook begging for "likes" earlier in the week With strong teams (including the Tweedles!) at the start, it would not be easy. Even though Matt spent nearly 2 hours desperately googling the meaning behind the extra clue (with a break every 30 seconds or so to check basketball scores, but still!!), we came up empty-handed. This would hurt. So Taintastic got off to a slow start but seemingly made up for it by getting a bit lucky on a couple of checkpoints. How often can you find a boat captain on a boat (!), a fireman in a truck (!) and a non-California license plate with the letter Z at virtually the same time in the same area? That'd be like finding an easy parking spot, a unicorn and a sober Tenderloin hooker with a day job all on the same street corner together. So yeah... the answer is never. So with our lucky finds, we had huge confidence as we picked up the remaining checkpoints. After sprinting from point to point and then back to the finish, we crossed the finish just seconds behind the Tweedles. Those pesky Tweedles!! We would have to settle for second....... But......... A picture check revealed that we had the wrong picture of the Ferry building clock. Ouch. Back out on the course we went where we would have to sneak into a 10-story apartment building to take a picture in order to skip the Ferry clock. The guy reading US Weekly and getting a tan on top of the building was not amused, but we got our picture and headed back to the finish. 3rd place! Thanks to Freeman, Mart, Mike, Justin and Summer for supporting us! The 2015 season begins!!! |
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To close out the 2014 season, we were lucky enough to stumble upon this Finnish dog obedience video. We feel the Golden Retriever featured in this video embodies the Taintastic racing style:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iTTNRE-njM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iTTNRE-njM
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Taintastic!
Tastes Victory and Heartbreak in the Challenge Nation Finals
Race
The final race of 2014. 6 teams (5 qualifiers and 1 wildcard) for $5000 and first place glory. Matt, Jim and John felt good and were ready with an amazing clue team (we owe lots of people favors at this point), plus Andy and Tyler of the Nads offered to help us with the clues. The afternoon would be a 5 mile sprint picking up 6 of 7 checkpoints. Once we got the "Go" signal, we were off! Our first clue was of an antique phone in a casino (We would later come to find that this was an error, but at least we know where the oldest phone in Vegas is located for next year) The rest of the clues seemed to go pretty seamlessly. At one point we needed to find a mirrored column and the clue made reference to the movie "Back to the Future 2". The hotel and the column itself have nothing to do with that movie, but for some reason Matt and Jim kept frantically asking hotel staff... "Where's the Back to the Future Mirror! Quick.. We need the Back to the Future column" We can only imagine what people thought as 3 sweating, panicked guys wearing matching shiny outfits and headsets yelled at them about getting back to the future and then disappeared. We may end up on the local news as well-coordinated assailants. We ran to the next few checkpoints and the Nads ran with us to help direct us to a few points . Even with our early antique phone blunder, we were confident as we sprinted back to the finish. We arrived in first!! Wow!! What an amazing feeling!!.... But then.... the dreaded words from the race director seems to come out of his mouth in slow motion... "What's this picture?" Our initial "WOW!" went to a "wow" followed by a frowny face :-( We had made an error on not one, but two of the pictures/clues. We needed to go back out. The disappointment was incredible. Jim even asked if we should just go shower up and call it a day. It was devastating but with the hope that other teams would make mistakes, we decided to head back out running again. With a tow rope, Matt helped pull along Jim (who, by the way, had logged nearly 15 miles that day when his longest training run had been 6 miles). The towing partially made up for Matt having his standard meltdown in the afternoon race. Jim gutted out a strong finish and John was strong as always. With the help of the Nads and Summer whispering some inspirational quotes into Jim's ear to keep him running through all that fatigue ("If you fall on your face, you're still moving forward!"), Taintastic came in 3rd. We did fall on our Taints.... but we got back up! Podium spot in the championships is not too shabby! Tremendous thanks to our best support team ever of Summer, Marty, Justin, Mike, Free, Ralph, Tiffany, Dave, Elise and the Nads for spending part of your Saturday afternoon with us and nearly winning the big one!! Until next year!! |
Taintastic heads back to Vegas for the 2014 Challenge Nation Championships
After getting humbled at the Vancouver GUR championships earlier this year, Matt, John and Jim were looking to make some noise (or at least finish before midnight) and that would require some fast running and a great clue/phone team. After multiple heavy bribes and empty promises of reciprocation, we assembled our best and biggest clue team yet. We were confident but we knew that only 5 teams from the morning race would make the finals in the afternoon. There were definitely more than 5 good teams, and they would all be fast and all have good phone support. Anticipation and nervous tension was unusually high at the start. We got the clues and sprinted full speed to our "secret" bus stop that would take us to the Vegas strip from downtown. Lots of teams apparently knew about that secret. Like.... lots. So, for 40 minutes we sat on the bus with 10+ other teams.... waiting.... pacing.......... ...playing Sudoku... with plenty of time to plan our correct bus stop and route. Plenty of time to not mess up the correct bus stop. Plenty of time. And........ queue the Taintastic! patented early race bumble. We saw Vignette get off a stop early so we panicked and got off too. Son of a...!! So, we ran after the bus watching other teams fly past us as we headed to the end of the strip and the "Welcome to Vegas" sign. Luckily we spotted someone in an International sports team jersey on that run which helped with one of the clues. Perhaps we were lucky to get off the bus early?
After getting humbled at the Vancouver GUR championships earlier this year, Matt, John and Jim were looking to make some noise (or at least finish before midnight) and that would require some fast running and a great clue/phone team. After multiple heavy bribes and empty promises of reciprocation, we assembled our best and biggest clue team yet. We were confident but we knew that only 5 teams from the morning race would make the finals in the afternoon. There were definitely more than 5 good teams, and they would all be fast and all have good phone support. Anticipation and nervous tension was unusually high at the start. We got the clues and sprinted full speed to our "secret" bus stop that would take us to the Vegas strip from downtown. Lots of teams apparently knew about that secret. Like.... lots. So, for 40 minutes we sat on the bus with 10+ other teams.... waiting.... pacing.......... ...playing Sudoku... with plenty of time to plan our correct bus stop and route. Plenty of time to not mess up the correct bus stop. Plenty of time. And........ queue the Taintastic! patented early race bumble. We saw Vignette get off a stop early so we panicked and got off too. Son of a...!! So, we ran after the bus watching other teams fly past us as we headed to the end of the strip and the "Welcome to Vegas" sign. Luckily we spotted someone in an International sports team jersey on that run which helped with one of the clues. Perhaps we were lucky to get off the bus early?
After getting our picture at the Vegas sign, we started making up ground passing team after team on our way down the strip. We would take a picture with the Vegas Statue of Liberty before jumping on the light rail to catch a performance at Circus Circus. During our run and throughout the whole day we were looking for a car with a license plate east of the Mississippi river with the letter X,Y or Z in it. Sounds easy enough in a worldwide destination like Vegas, but it wasn't. We must have looked at 500 cars with no luck. Jim did spot a license plate fitting the description while 4 stories up on the light rail. Matt wanted to jump off the rail (literally) to get it but John held him back. Anyway, we never found it and that would be our one "skip," which is never safe in a race like this. Regardless, we made the show at Circus Circus (I think it was a show, or it could have just been a man walking around without a shirt? It is Vegas after all.) and we started heading back downtown for the final checkpoints. At this point, Taintastic had no idea how we were doing. We could have been in 20th place for all we knew. In fact, when we passed a team walking down the strip (Team PB@J) we thought we were toast. Seeing walking teams this late in the race... in front of us!.... is not reassuring. After the long trot back to downtown, we picked up a few more clues and we even saw our friends Andy and Tyler of the Nads. Seeing them brought back some confidence (if they were still racing...maybe we weren't out of it!). After taking a picture with bacon and a live Zip line ride, we headed to our last stop. The infamous mob museum which foiled us 2 years ago in Vegas!! Not again, Mob museum!! NOT again. We also saw team PB @ J at the same checkpoint. Yes. the team walking was somehow ahead of us again. Maybe they were playing possum because after we got that last point, PB@J went into a full NFL combine speed sprint. Not knowing where we were in the race, Taintastic! turned on the juice and barely edged them out at the finish. We were in 4th!! (PB@J would get 5th) We made the final race! Amazing feeling!! Our friends and Nads and Cougin' it would not be so lucky, and we were bummed not to have them there with us, but we were thrilled to be moving on. Thanks to our navigators Marty and Summer and our clue team of Ralph, Mike, Elise, Doug, Dave, Free and Tiffany. You guys were Taintastic!!
Taintastic! Learns the Art of Patience and Wins the 2014 San Francisco Xplore Adventure Race!
For the second annual Xplore Race, Doug and Matt knew they had to be on their game. Andy The Nad along with other experienced teams were in town, and that means no mistakes could be made if we wanted to get a repeat win. The race would start in a unique way in which teams had to race around Union Square to find a woman wearing red and telling her the secret race code "You are beautiful" in order to find the official race staffer with the password to access the clues. Doug told about 15 girls they are beautiful, many of which were NOT wearing red, before we finally found the right red girl. As a bonus, he may have a date later with the food server at the Union square café. Anyway, we got the clues, saw a familiar location on the sheet and started running! After a couple quick checkpoints at a gym and fire station, we ended up in Civic Center plaza for a checkpoint involving us counting the total number of trees in the plaza. Seems easy enough until you consider the army of bums in the park yelling out random numbers to throw us off. "17, 55, 87, 59... Why are you wearing those stupid socks? 87...." I'm not sure if they were planted by the race director but needless to say we did not reciprocate with loose change or any of our spare cigarettes. We arrived at the next checkpoint at the same time as Andy; here the teams had to take a video as the cable car was turning around on Market street. Timing would be key, but we just missed a trolley as we got there. Ouch. So the decision to stay and wait or skip the point and run to the next one had to be made. The Nads ran off and Taintastic stayed (Marty on the phone had a different skip in mind and recommended that we wait it out). It was tough to see a team running away while we were waiting and not knowing when we would be able to complete the checkpoint. But we got our video and we were off again. After a few more checkpoints we ended up at the Coit tower stairs only to see Andy there again! Neck and neck on the next couple of points with the Nad, Matt sprinted to catch the light rail on Embarcadero street, catching it just in time. The rail conductor was not impressed at Matt's banging on the front of the train to let us on but we got on anyway. Likely shocked at the spectacle Matt unwittingly had created, Andy just missed the train and that proved to be the difference for the win!! Maybe the patience at the trolley paid off. Who knows? It was a fantastically fun race and we had some fun celebratory beers with Andy after the race! Thanks to Elise, Marty, Summer, Mike and Colby for supporting us in the race!
For the second annual Xplore Race, Doug and Matt knew they had to be on their game. Andy The Nad along with other experienced teams were in town, and that means no mistakes could be made if we wanted to get a repeat win. The race would start in a unique way in which teams had to race around Union Square to find a woman wearing red and telling her the secret race code "You are beautiful" in order to find the official race staffer with the password to access the clues. Doug told about 15 girls they are beautiful, many of which were NOT wearing red, before we finally found the right red girl. As a bonus, he may have a date later with the food server at the Union square café. Anyway, we got the clues, saw a familiar location on the sheet and started running! After a couple quick checkpoints at a gym and fire station, we ended up in Civic Center plaza for a checkpoint involving us counting the total number of trees in the plaza. Seems easy enough until you consider the army of bums in the park yelling out random numbers to throw us off. "17, 55, 87, 59... Why are you wearing those stupid socks? 87...." I'm not sure if they were planted by the race director but needless to say we did not reciprocate with loose change or any of our spare cigarettes. We arrived at the next checkpoint at the same time as Andy; here the teams had to take a video as the cable car was turning around on Market street. Timing would be key, but we just missed a trolley as we got there. Ouch. So the decision to stay and wait or skip the point and run to the next one had to be made. The Nads ran off and Taintastic stayed (Marty on the phone had a different skip in mind and recommended that we wait it out). It was tough to see a team running away while we were waiting and not knowing when we would be able to complete the checkpoint. But we got our video and we were off again. After a few more checkpoints we ended up at the Coit tower stairs only to see Andy there again! Neck and neck on the next couple of points with the Nad, Matt sprinted to catch the light rail on Embarcadero street, catching it just in time. The rail conductor was not impressed at Matt's banging on the front of the train to let us on but we got on anyway. Likely shocked at the spectacle Matt unwittingly had created, Andy just missed the train and that proved to be the difference for the win!! Maybe the patience at the trolley paid off. Who knows? It was a fantastically fun race and we had some fun celebratory beers with Andy after the race! Thanks to Elise, Marty, Summer, Mike and Colby for supporting us in the race!
Taintastic!
tries out a new race at the 2014 Scavenger Dash in San
Francisco
John and Matt decided to try a race Taintastic! had yet to tackle called the Scavenger Dash. We heard about this race through our friends, the Nads. Upon arrival, the field was..... interesting. John arrived first and thought he was in the wrong place because he didn't see a bunch of teams wearing tutus, silly hats and ambitiously stretching (the mark of a true adventure race). We were in the right place but there were only 15 total teams and the team that looked like our fastest competition was already busy drinking a pitcher of beer prior to the start. The odds were ever in our favor. Apparently, the Scavenger Dash Sacramento (taking place the following day) had hundreds of teams, but not a huge turn-out in San Fran. The day would include some fast running, plenty of sloppy mistakes (the hallmark of any good Taintastic! race) and balloon animals. Yes.. balloon animals again!! This was John and Matt's nemesis in a race earlier this year, and we were chomping at the bit to redeem ourselves. Fortunately, this challenge required making a balloon flower. There are so many variations/appearances of flowers that Matt and John's tangled mess of a balloon (that looked more like a phallic golf club than a flower) got the "OK" from the race staff and we were off. After a checkpoint at the pyramid building and some other famous sculpture whose name escapes us, Taintastic! made a chalk outline of John out of sticks which made for a creepy cool picture. We did have a moment of panic at Washington Square park when the race volunteer we were supposed there was nowhere in sight. Matt had a mini-meltdown like a hungry toddler before getting a text back from the race director asking us to just take a picture proving we were there. A few more checkpoints and a long run back to the finish and Taintastic! landed comfortably in first place. We ended up running 11 miles on the day whereas the second place team ran 8. Not tremendously efficient, but a great work-out and a fun time! Thanks to Summer, Mike, Marty, Amy and John for helping us out!! Next year we take on the hundreds of teams in Sac!!!
John and Matt decided to try a race Taintastic! had yet to tackle called the Scavenger Dash. We heard about this race through our friends, the Nads. Upon arrival, the field was..... interesting. John arrived first and thought he was in the wrong place because he didn't see a bunch of teams wearing tutus, silly hats and ambitiously stretching (the mark of a true adventure race). We were in the right place but there were only 15 total teams and the team that looked like our fastest competition was already busy drinking a pitcher of beer prior to the start. The odds were ever in our favor. Apparently, the Scavenger Dash Sacramento (taking place the following day) had hundreds of teams, but not a huge turn-out in San Fran. The day would include some fast running, plenty of sloppy mistakes (the hallmark of any good Taintastic! race) and balloon animals. Yes.. balloon animals again!! This was John and Matt's nemesis in a race earlier this year, and we were chomping at the bit to redeem ourselves. Fortunately, this challenge required making a balloon flower. There are so many variations/appearances of flowers that Matt and John's tangled mess of a balloon (that looked more like a phallic golf club than a flower) got the "OK" from the race staff and we were off. After a checkpoint at the pyramid building and some other famous sculpture whose name escapes us, Taintastic! made a chalk outline of John out of sticks which made for a creepy cool picture. We did have a moment of panic at Washington Square park when the race volunteer we were supposed there was nowhere in sight. Matt had a mini-meltdown like a hungry toddler before getting a text back from the race director asking us to just take a picture proving we were there. A few more checkpoints and a long run back to the finish and Taintastic! landed comfortably in first place. We ended up running 11 miles on the day whereas the second place team ran 8. Not tremendously efficient, but a great work-out and a fun time! Thanks to Summer, Mike, Marty, Amy and John for helping us out!! Next year we take on the hundreds of teams in Sac!!!
Taintastic! takes on the 2014 CitySolve in San Francisco: "The Burrito Race"
Jim and Matt have not lost a race when starting at Pedro's cantina in San Francisco. It's a fact. We race. We win. And then we get some beers and tacos at the bar in the same bar seats. 70% of the time. Every time. When we heard the CitySolve start was at Pedros.... we knew we had this. So at 11:30 am the horn sounded and we were off and racing. After reading the initial question and being unclear on the answer, we followed a few teams to get the clue sheet. Immediately noticing that some of the checkpoints were in the Mission district, we jumped on a bus in that direction to give our team time to start working on the clues. One of the clues was a clue involving taking a picture of someone with a burrito on his head. Easy enough. We were going to be in the Mission after all. So while running to the Mission we went into the first burrito place we saw. No line... perfect! We bought a burrito and took a picture with the burrito on Matt's head.... Or maybe the picture needed to have the burrito BALANCING on the head. We got that picture too, just in case. Hmmm. Maybe the picture needed to have the burrito on a stranger's head? OK... We got that picture too (and about 12 other scenarios involving a burrito, some of which can't be shown on daytime blog pages) and headed on our way after giving away our delicious burrito to a stranger en route to the next checkpoints. As we were headed to next points our phone team informed us that the burrito picture needed to have a stranger with a burrito on their head and both Jim and Matt needed to be in the picture. Not in one of our photo burrito montages! Dammit! Apparently, reading at a 3rd grade level is required for these races and we clearly failed in that capacity. We would need another burrito!! After hitting the Pirate store and getting "mopped", finding the Hobbit book in a bookstore, and finding a famous mural in an alley, we went to another random burrito joint. This place was more busy and when we got to the front of the line, Matt told the cashier that he wanted the quickest burrito that they could make. The following back and forth commenced between Matt and the cashier: Cashier: "Do you want steak or chicken?"
Matt: "No, Just beans and rice"
C: "Do you want Jalapenos?"
M: "No - Just beans and rice and nothing else" (Freeman would be mad Matt refused the Jaleps... even in a race)
C: "Do you want cheese?"
M: "No thank you"
C: "What kind of salsa do you want- Hot or Mild?"
M: "Anything is fine"
C: "Hot is OK?"
M: "Yes- Just the fastest burrito you can make"
C: "Do you want a drink?"
M: "No thank you- Just the burrito"
C: "Do you want chips"
M: "NO!"
C: "OK- That will be $7.59"
Jim and Matt have not lost a race when starting at Pedro's cantina in San Francisco. It's a fact. We race. We win. And then we get some beers and tacos at the bar in the same bar seats. 70% of the time. Every time. When we heard the CitySolve start was at Pedros.... we knew we had this. So at 11:30 am the horn sounded and we were off and racing. After reading the initial question and being unclear on the answer, we followed a few teams to get the clue sheet. Immediately noticing that some of the checkpoints were in the Mission district, we jumped on a bus in that direction to give our team time to start working on the clues. One of the clues was a clue involving taking a picture of someone with a burrito on his head. Easy enough. We were going to be in the Mission after all. So while running to the Mission we went into the first burrito place we saw. No line... perfect! We bought a burrito and took a picture with the burrito on Matt's head.... Or maybe the picture needed to have the burrito BALANCING on the head. We got that picture too, just in case. Hmmm. Maybe the picture needed to have the burrito on a stranger's head? OK... We got that picture too (and about 12 other scenarios involving a burrito, some of which can't be shown on daytime blog pages) and headed on our way after giving away our delicious burrito to a stranger en route to the next checkpoints. As we were headed to next points our phone team informed us that the burrito picture needed to have a stranger with a burrito on their head and both Jim and Matt needed to be in the picture. Not in one of our photo burrito montages! Dammit! Apparently, reading at a 3rd grade level is required for these races and we clearly failed in that capacity. We would need another burrito!! After hitting the Pirate store and getting "mopped", finding the Hobbit book in a bookstore, and finding a famous mural in an alley, we went to another random burrito joint. This place was more busy and when we got to the front of the line, Matt told the cashier that he wanted the quickest burrito that they could make. The following back and forth commenced between Matt and the cashier: Cashier: "Do you want steak or chicken?"
Matt: "No, Just beans and rice"
C: "Do you want Jalapenos?"
M: "No - Just beans and rice and nothing else" (Freeman would be mad Matt refused the Jaleps... even in a race)
C: "Do you want cheese?"
M: "No thank you"
C: "What kind of salsa do you want- Hot or Mild?"
M: "Anything is fine"
C: "Hot is OK?"
M: "Yes- Just the fastest burrito you can make"
C: "Do you want a drink?"
M: "No thank you- Just the burrito"
C: "Do you want chips"
M: "NO!"
C: "OK- That will be $7.59"
So, for our SECOND burrito of the day we waited nearly 10 minutes and paid 8 bucks. But we got our picture, and off we went. Taintastic! hit a a few more checkpoints including some belly dancing and another burrito place that was actually a checkpoint in the race. We could have taken care of the burrito challenge here saving some time. Dammit. Oh well, a long run back to the start rewarded Taintatic! as the winners!! We took our bar seats for victory beers and tacos. Sweet! Thanks to the support from Colby, Summer, Mike, Doug, John and E. Burritos are on us next time we see you!!
Taintastic! races in the last ever Great Urban Race Elite 8!!
After a quick rest between the morning and afternoon races, John and Matt were ready to go. The last time Taintastic was in an Elite 8 race was in 2010, and not finding Elvis on the Vegas strip likely cost us a top 3 finish. So, with a really strong phone team, we felt good about our odds. And then the race started...
Perhaps signaling things to come, the start of the race was a bit rough to say the least. After the clues were given out in a saran wrap ball in the starting bar, John's phone decided to lose service completely so we lost our phone team link. To get a better signal, we went outside the bar to open the clues only to find out that the clues were cut into 10-15 pieces and started blowing away in the wind. We taped them together and sent them out to our phone team, who proceeded to cuss and proclaim over and over “Fuck. These are hard.” Although we had a really strong clue team and more solvers than usual, the clues seemed to be taken from a Mensa club entry exam. On top of that, patience and calm is needed in a race like this, which Matt is working on someday acquiring. So, Taintastic! started running to checkpoints without a real route plan and that led to some epic zig-zagging. Usually, it's a bad sign when you run past the same corner 4-5 times in the same race. We did some fun challenges along the way. John had a hawk on his arm and tackled the trapeze challenge, Matt did a blinded tactile challenge in which he had to feel a place setting in a pitch black restauarant and reproduce it outside the restaurant. One challenge involved a hypnotist trying to put us under hypnosis. Matt doesn’t remember much but may have been violated.
Toward the end of the race, the afternoon was summed up by a challenge in which we had to find a needle in a haystack. Literally. While John was willing to impale his hand by squeezing bundles of hay over and over, Matt tried to analyze the Nads (who were also at this challenge) who were using the "Lets throw the hay in a bucket of water strategy" to see if it was worth copying. It was good if you wanted wet hay but not in finding a needle. So, after getting through 1/20th of the bale with no luck, we took a skip on the challenge. Knowing we were toast with no buses arriving soon, Taintastic hoofed it 3 miles back to the start. At one point, John bungie towed Matt up a long hill/bridge, which was the first time Matt has ever been the "towie;” Matt described the experience as really, really, really nice. We finished as expected in 8th for the afternoon race, but we were there and we made the last ever Elite 8. A bittersweet day that was made better by
the fact that we got to hang out with many of our racing friends for a few beers and warm champaigne after the race. We'd like to thank our phone team of Summer, Mike, Mart, Erik, Ken, Butter, and Justin. We'd still be at the starting line if it weren't for you and we want to thank you for taking your afternoon to help us!!!
After a quick rest between the morning and afternoon races, John and Matt were ready to go. The last time Taintastic was in an Elite 8 race was in 2010, and not finding Elvis on the Vegas strip likely cost us a top 3 finish. So, with a really strong phone team, we felt good about our odds. And then the race started...
Perhaps signaling things to come, the start of the race was a bit rough to say the least. After the clues were given out in a saran wrap ball in the starting bar, John's phone decided to lose service completely so we lost our phone team link. To get a better signal, we went outside the bar to open the clues only to find out that the clues were cut into 10-15 pieces and started blowing away in the wind. We taped them together and sent them out to our phone team, who proceeded to cuss and proclaim over and over “Fuck. These are hard.” Although we had a really strong clue team and more solvers than usual, the clues seemed to be taken from a Mensa club entry exam. On top of that, patience and calm is needed in a race like this, which Matt is working on someday acquiring. So, Taintastic! started running to checkpoints without a real route plan and that led to some epic zig-zagging. Usually, it's a bad sign when you run past the same corner 4-5 times in the same race. We did some fun challenges along the way. John had a hawk on his arm and tackled the trapeze challenge, Matt did a blinded tactile challenge in which he had to feel a place setting in a pitch black restauarant and reproduce it outside the restaurant. One challenge involved a hypnotist trying to put us under hypnosis. Matt doesn’t remember much but may have been violated.
Toward the end of the race, the afternoon was summed up by a challenge in which we had to find a needle in a haystack. Literally. While John was willing to impale his hand by squeezing bundles of hay over and over, Matt tried to analyze the Nads (who were also at this challenge) who were using the "Lets throw the hay in a bucket of water strategy" to see if it was worth copying. It was good if you wanted wet hay but not in finding a needle. So, after getting through 1/20th of the bale with no luck, we took a skip on the challenge. Knowing we were toast with no buses arriving soon, Taintastic hoofed it 3 miles back to the start. At one point, John bungie towed Matt up a long hill/bridge, which was the first time Matt has ever been the "towie;” Matt described the experience as really, really, really nice. We finished as expected in 8th for the afternoon race, but we were there and we made the last ever Elite 8. A bittersweet day that was made better by
the fact that we got to hang out with many of our racing friends for a few beers and warm champaigne after the race. We'd like to thank our phone team of Summer, Mike, Mart, Erik, Ken, Butter, and Justin. We'd still be at the starting line if it weren't for you and we want to thank you for taking your afternoon to help us!!!
Taintastic! Takes on the Last Ever Great Urban Race
Championships!
Earlier this year the Great Urban Race announced that 2014 would be their last year putting on this race and that Vancouver would be the championship location. We've always wanted to go to Vancouver and we love the Great Urban Race championship, but it was sad thinking about the fact that this would be the last one! John and Matt were in peak condition. Matt studied Vancouver public transpo and knew it better than public transpo in his hometown (side note: Matt doesn’t ride public transpo in his home town). We had some great phone helpers on the line for clue support. We brought new Taint shirts. Destiny right?! This was our year!
Some of the best teams in the industry were at the start of the morning race.
Clue sheets in hand, teams almost immediately began running south. We quickly jumped on a light rail and took it to the other side of False Creek where most of the points would be for this race. So, Taintastic is running AND taking public transporation in the right direction to start a race. It was like a miracle on ice except with no ice and no hockey... though we were in Canada. Anyway, right aboot when we get off the rail, we were disoriented and started running the wrong direction for 2 blocks (back to normal Taintastic protocol) before getting in synch with our navigator, Erik. From then on, we start flying. John and Matt take down challenge after challenge sucking coffee beans and passing then with straws, maneuvering our bodies through a loop of bagel dough, picking up corks with our toes and some stand up paddle boarding. After Matt grabbed a crab on the business end in the final minutes of the race we collected the remaining points and crossed the finish line comfortably in the Elite 8 race!! We were stoked. The Nads would join us there, though our friends the Narwhals and Zack attack would just miss the cut. Our phone team of Summer, Mike, Mart and Erik were sensational! We felt like you were there with us the whole way. Taintastic!!!
Championships!
Earlier this year the Great Urban Race announced that 2014 would be their last year putting on this race and that Vancouver would be the championship location. We've always wanted to go to Vancouver and we love the Great Urban Race championship, but it was sad thinking about the fact that this would be the last one! John and Matt were in peak condition. Matt studied Vancouver public transpo and knew it better than public transpo in his hometown (side note: Matt doesn’t ride public transpo in his home town). We had some great phone helpers on the line for clue support. We brought new Taint shirts. Destiny right?! This was our year!
Some of the best teams in the industry were at the start of the morning race.
Clue sheets in hand, teams almost immediately began running south. We quickly jumped on a light rail and took it to the other side of False Creek where most of the points would be for this race. So, Taintastic is running AND taking public transporation in the right direction to start a race. It was like a miracle on ice except with no ice and no hockey... though we were in Canada. Anyway, right aboot when we get off the rail, we were disoriented and started running the wrong direction for 2 blocks (back to normal Taintastic protocol) before getting in synch with our navigator, Erik. From then on, we start flying. John and Matt take down challenge after challenge sucking coffee beans and passing then with straws, maneuvering our bodies through a loop of bagel dough, picking up corks with our toes and some stand up paddle boarding. After Matt grabbed a crab on the business end in the final minutes of the race we collected the remaining points and crossed the finish line comfortably in the Elite 8 race!! We were stoked. The Nads would join us there, though our friends the Narwhals and Zack attack would just miss the cut. Our phone team of Summer, Mike, Mart and Erik were sensational! We felt like you were there with us the whole way. Taintastic!!!
Taint So Nad makes a successful return to the Wild Canyon Games in 2014
At the end of May, TaintSoNad (TSN) headed to deep Oregon for their second Wild Canyon Games, trying to improve upon last year's 4th place overall finish. The TSN squad is really a hands-across-america effort, as the team this year was 7 people from 4 different states.
John, Matt and Marty (the Taint of TSN) departed the Bay Area well before the crack of dawn to make the 600 mile drive north. They met up with the rest of the squad in Madras, OR to compare mustaches and meet newcomer Mark, who was rocking a monkeytail.
A little more driving to get to the weekend's venue, the squad was a little crestfallen when greeted by the event's chairman, who had no recollection of the squad from the prior year despite the strong finish and even stronger mustaches. Off to the dorms where bunks were chosen, with Matt whining his way out of a top bunk saying that he was too uncoordinated to sleep in a top bunk. It's unclear what he meant by that.
The first event the next morning was the triathlon relay. First place! (Only dampened by the race announcer also denying any memory of TSN in the post-race interview.) The other morning event was the much harder geocache, 4 hours and 15+ miles of difficult terrain in the heat. The geocache guys also improved upon their 2013 finish, coming in at a very solid 6th place.
Lunch was fun, as TSN was called up in front of 1000+ racers to receive leaders jerseys. This was confusing for the crowd actually, for a moment. The reason, our team shirts this year were the EXACT same shade of bright fluorescent green as the ones that the 500 WCG volunteers were wearing! As we walked up to get the leader jerseys we could hear racers murmuring to each other, "Umm....why are they giving leader shirts to the lunch staff?" Within moments though it was obvious what was happening, and it was at this moment that the Q Score for TSN went through the roof for the rest of the weekend.
The afternoon event was the Challenges segment. TSN took a very different strategy this year, going for the speed option, giving up higher challenge points. It resulted in a fourth place finish, another improvement upon last year. Special recognition to John W for an impressive hill climb, and to Marty for trying to land on a counterweightless Blob, which threw him backward in a 360 flip nearly cracking his head on the dock, and then trying it again. For those of you keeping score, he is now 1 for 4 on the blob in competition. From observation, other teams seem to have a ~95%+ success rate.
After the Challenges, a bit of fun as the squad got to try some of the camp's fun apparatus like the Canyon Swing and the Zip Line. During this time the team also secured a temporary product sponsorship for TSN with VitaCoco for the remainder of the weekend. Kellie Cagle of Shakeweight, eat your heart out, you should have pulled the trigger when all we were asking for was a logo-wrapped VW Beetle. A nice ham supper for dinner, though it was somewhat awkward when the race director asked (really one, well known by all) cheating teams to turn themselves in for a race infraction, and they didn't. Then off to Creeknight, a social gathering. Hey WCG: Donde esta Jones soda?
Going into Sunday morning, TSN was on the leaderboard, 2nd place. Only one event on Sunday, the fast and furious Creek 2 Peak full team relay. 7 people, 22 minutes. Just a great event, and a great effort from TSN, as every member pulled their weight. When the dust settled at the top of Communication Hill, TSN finished the relay in 2nd place, securing a 2nd place overall finish!
The weekend was a success by every measure, as every event's finishing result was an improvement over 2013 for the squad. A ton of fun, great to see old friends and make new ones. A classic announcement video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3-KQozYqHg . High popularity, and free VitaCoco. What more could we ask for? Well, besides first place that is. 2015?
At the end of May, TaintSoNad (TSN) headed to deep Oregon for their second Wild Canyon Games, trying to improve upon last year's 4th place overall finish. The TSN squad is really a hands-across-america effort, as the team this year was 7 people from 4 different states.
John, Matt and Marty (the Taint of TSN) departed the Bay Area well before the crack of dawn to make the 600 mile drive north. They met up with the rest of the squad in Madras, OR to compare mustaches and meet newcomer Mark, who was rocking a monkeytail.
A little more driving to get to the weekend's venue, the squad was a little crestfallen when greeted by the event's chairman, who had no recollection of the squad from the prior year despite the strong finish and even stronger mustaches. Off to the dorms where bunks were chosen, with Matt whining his way out of a top bunk saying that he was too uncoordinated to sleep in a top bunk. It's unclear what he meant by that.
The first event the next morning was the triathlon relay. First place! (Only dampened by the race announcer also denying any memory of TSN in the post-race interview.) The other morning event was the much harder geocache, 4 hours and 15+ miles of difficult terrain in the heat. The geocache guys also improved upon their 2013 finish, coming in at a very solid 6th place.
Lunch was fun, as TSN was called up in front of 1000+ racers to receive leaders jerseys. This was confusing for the crowd actually, for a moment. The reason, our team shirts this year were the EXACT same shade of bright fluorescent green as the ones that the 500 WCG volunteers were wearing! As we walked up to get the leader jerseys we could hear racers murmuring to each other, "Umm....why are they giving leader shirts to the lunch staff?" Within moments though it was obvious what was happening, and it was at this moment that the Q Score for TSN went through the roof for the rest of the weekend.
The afternoon event was the Challenges segment. TSN took a very different strategy this year, going for the speed option, giving up higher challenge points. It resulted in a fourth place finish, another improvement upon last year. Special recognition to John W for an impressive hill climb, and to Marty for trying to land on a counterweightless Blob, which threw him backward in a 360 flip nearly cracking his head on the dock, and then trying it again. For those of you keeping score, he is now 1 for 4 on the blob in competition. From observation, other teams seem to have a ~95%+ success rate.
After the Challenges, a bit of fun as the squad got to try some of the camp's fun apparatus like the Canyon Swing and the Zip Line. During this time the team also secured a temporary product sponsorship for TSN with VitaCoco for the remainder of the weekend. Kellie Cagle of Shakeweight, eat your heart out, you should have pulled the trigger when all we were asking for was a logo-wrapped VW Beetle. A nice ham supper for dinner, though it was somewhat awkward when the race director asked (really one, well known by all) cheating teams to turn themselves in for a race infraction, and they didn't. Then off to Creeknight, a social gathering. Hey WCG: Donde esta Jones soda?
Going into Sunday morning, TSN was on the leaderboard, 2nd place. Only one event on Sunday, the fast and furious Creek 2 Peak full team relay. 7 people, 22 minutes. Just a great event, and a great effort from TSN, as every member pulled their weight. When the dust settled at the top of Communication Hill, TSN finished the relay in 2nd place, securing a 2nd place overall finish!
The weekend was a success by every measure, as every event's finishing result was an improvement over 2013 for the squad. A ton of fun, great to see old friends and make new ones. A classic announcement video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3-KQozYqHg . High popularity, and free VitaCoco. What more could we ask for? Well, besides first place that is. 2015?
Taintastic! Goes for a Six-peat in the Urban Dare Sacramento 2014
Balloon animals...... Specifically balloon swords. It's in the Urban Dare formula. We know it's coming and yet year after year and race after race, we taking balloon art ineptitude to new levels. This year was no exception as John and Matt raced around downtown Sacramento on a hot day. After our clue team solved the clues in the amount of time it took Matt to eat a gluten free Lara bar, we were off and running fast. John was in really really really good shape and made running a 6 minute pace look easy as Matt tried to keep up. Some of the Urban Dare classics were in play. John and Matt (the shortest and tallest members of the team) somehow made the three -legged race look smoother than ever. We nailed the Spellbound challenge...., though I think the volunteer messed up by putting all of the letters in a 2 x 2 square on the ground thereby taking the "search for the letters" part away. Then.... the balloon sword challenge. There may not be a rule limiting to the number of balloons you're allowed to pop before being banned from participating in the race. If there were such a number, we surpassed it. Seriously, I'm not sure later arriving teams got a balloon. I'm even not sure our sword ever looked like a sword let alone a balloon. But somehow after what seemed like ages, we got the "OK" and we were off and running again. We hit the last few checkpoints smoothly and John even "proposed" to a stranger as part of a challenge and her boyfriend didn't look amused... but it made for a great picture!! In the end, we landed in first place again despite our balloon blunders. Thanks to Summer, Mike, and Marty for crushing the phone support. Balloons 101 enrollment starts in the fall.
Balloon animals...... Specifically balloon swords. It's in the Urban Dare formula. We know it's coming and yet year after year and race after race, we taking balloon art ineptitude to new levels. This year was no exception as John and Matt raced around downtown Sacramento on a hot day. After our clue team solved the clues in the amount of time it took Matt to eat a gluten free Lara bar, we were off and running fast. John was in really really really good shape and made running a 6 minute pace look easy as Matt tried to keep up. Some of the Urban Dare classics were in play. John and Matt (the shortest and tallest members of the team) somehow made the three -legged race look smoother than ever. We nailed the Spellbound challenge...., though I think the volunteer messed up by putting all of the letters in a 2 x 2 square on the ground thereby taking the "search for the letters" part away. Then.... the balloon sword challenge. There may not be a rule limiting to the number of balloons you're allowed to pop before being banned from participating in the race. If there were such a number, we surpassed it. Seriously, I'm not sure later arriving teams got a balloon. I'm even not sure our sword ever looked like a sword let alone a balloon. But somehow after what seemed like ages, we got the "OK" and we were off and running again. We hit the last few checkpoints smoothly and John even "proposed" to a stranger as part of a challenge and her boyfriend didn't look amused... but it made for a great picture!! In the end, we landed in first place again despite our balloon blunders. Thanks to Summer, Mike, and Marty for crushing the phone support. Balloons 101 enrollment starts in the fall.
Taintastic! gets it's mojo back for a victory at the 2014 Challenge Nation in San Francisco
Nearly a year after his last race, Jim returned from injury to race with Matt in the Challenge Nation race we had won in 2013. The Challenge Nation race is a race in which some public interaction and some luck play a role in victory. Having no shame when racing, Matt is typically ace with public interaction and Jim is pretty lucky (in all things that don't involve his big toe) so things were aligned for a good race. It was a huge field of racers with at least 150+ teams. Matt was panicking at the start per usual but with the clues handed out, we were off. As our clue team started on the clues, Taintastic quickly hopped on a light rail along the Embarcadero to head toward some checkpoints.
While on the rail, we started interrogating fellow passengers to get some of our needed clues checked off. We lucked out by finding a girl with a Connecticut license with whom we reenacted a scene from Good Will Hunting as Jim calmly got more clues nailed down from the clue team. After quality time spent on the light rail we got off and were running fast hitting most points pretty cleanly. We even snapped a shot with a supposed local celebrity musician( --->). We learned afterwards that he had recently been on "Oprah" but we played it pretty cool because Taintastic is kind of a big deal. He'll likely remember our picture moment as fondly as he remembers his time with Oprah. Cruising from point to point, doing some air guitar, hula hooping, chalk artwork and even finding a 2 dollar bill all went well as our clue team guided us to a near perfect race. The most difficult challenge on the day was finding someone wearing a college shirt from a March Madness team.... during March madness.... in Sports bars. Weird. Anyway, after finding a guy with a Michigan shirt we sprinted to the finish and landed in first place. Repeat!!
Thanks to Freeman, Summer and Mike for outstanding phone help. Tacos and beer!!
Nearly a year after his last race, Jim returned from injury to race with Matt in the Challenge Nation race we had won in 2013. The Challenge Nation race is a race in which some public interaction and some luck play a role in victory. Having no shame when racing, Matt is typically ace with public interaction and Jim is pretty lucky (in all things that don't involve his big toe) so things were aligned for a good race. It was a huge field of racers with at least 150+ teams. Matt was panicking at the start per usual but with the clues handed out, we were off. As our clue team started on the clues, Taintastic quickly hopped on a light rail along the Embarcadero to head toward some checkpoints.
While on the rail, we started interrogating fellow passengers to get some of our needed clues checked off. We lucked out by finding a girl with a Connecticut license with whom we reenacted a scene from Good Will Hunting as Jim calmly got more clues nailed down from the clue team. After quality time spent on the light rail we got off and were running fast hitting most points pretty cleanly. We even snapped a shot with a supposed local celebrity musician( --->). We learned afterwards that he had recently been on "Oprah" but we played it pretty cool because Taintastic is kind of a big deal. He'll likely remember our picture moment as fondly as he remembers his time with Oprah. Cruising from point to point, doing some air guitar, hula hooping, chalk artwork and even finding a 2 dollar bill all went well as our clue team guided us to a near perfect race. The most difficult challenge on the day was finding someone wearing a college shirt from a March Madness team.... during March madness.... in Sports bars. Weird. Anyway, after finding a guy with a Michigan shirt we sprinted to the finish and landed in first place. Repeat!!
Thanks to Freeman, Summer and Mike for outstanding phone help. Tacos and beer!!
Taintastic! struggles early but ultimately finishes strong in the 2014 SF Great Urban Race
The San Francisco Great Urban Race came early this year and as such Taintastic! was in it's early season form. Before the race, Colby brought it to our attention 30 times that he was fat and slow and we'd be better off finding a teammate on Craigslist Casual Encounters. Matt was a nervous wreck - checking to make sure his phone battery was at no less than 98% while pacing back and forth to and from the bathroom to assure minimal bladder weight. Doug, on the other hand, strolled up to the race with the calm of a man about to rake a zen garden. So, Matt, Doug ad Colby were hoping for a good showing, taking on what would likely be the toughest competition in SF in the five years we've done this race. The Tweedles were there as were the Finnsters
(Both Podium finishers from last year). In addition, Great Urban Race veteran teams Avenging Narwhals, Vignette, and even a surprise entrance from the Nads would be toeing the start line. Not
the type of day to make mistakes if we wanted a good finish.
Cue the screaming. In the first 25 minutes of the race, Taintastic! had quite the difficulties getting clues out to the phone support. Plus, we had trouble hearing the phone team, and they had trouble hearing us. This all led to a great deal of zig-zagging around the Mission district at the start. If we got bonus points for running a route resembling a 2 year old's coloring book we'd be in good shape. Alas, we were likely well off the pace of the leaders from the get go. After our initial trouble, however, we started to get into a rhythm - hitting checkpoints and knocking out challenges. As usual, the Great Urban Race does a fantastic job of throwing in fun challenges at most of the checkpoints and we seemed to avoid the often common issue of bottlenecks at checkpoints. We dominated a balloon blowfish challenge,.... played the Newlywed game, ate some sausage (That wasn't part of the race... we just felt like a bratwurst break.... OK... Not really)... invaded a fabric store sweating profusely on some fabric rolls... did a ring toss at the Lookout .... sang out-of-tune Karaoke....and even assaulted a animal shelter to snap a picture with a cat. The most difficult challenge was probably the blindfolded cake box assembly. Colby took on this challenge, and although Doug and Matt were allowed to give instructions, I don't think it helped. I think all Colby heard was.... "Blah Blah Blah.....HURRY....... Blah Blah Blah.... NOT THAT WAY.......... Blah Blah Blah...... WE NEED A CAT". Regardless, Colby finished the puzzle and we hit a few more points before sprinting to the finish in 4th place.
Not a clean race but ironically we "beat" the Nads in a race for the first time. They lost by default (disqualified) because they lost their clue
sheet mid race proving that it certainly could have been worse for Taintastic! As always, we want to thank our clue team - Mart, Erik, Elise
and Mike. Next time we'll actually send them the clues before the middle of the race and then listen to their advice before running around like headless chickens.
The San Francisco Great Urban Race came early this year and as such Taintastic! was in it's early season form. Before the race, Colby brought it to our attention 30 times that he was fat and slow and we'd be better off finding a teammate on Craigslist Casual Encounters. Matt was a nervous wreck - checking to make sure his phone battery was at no less than 98% while pacing back and forth to and from the bathroom to assure minimal bladder weight. Doug, on the other hand, strolled up to the race with the calm of a man about to rake a zen garden. So, Matt, Doug ad Colby were hoping for a good showing, taking on what would likely be the toughest competition in SF in the five years we've done this race. The Tweedles were there as were the Finnsters
(Both Podium finishers from last year). In addition, Great Urban Race veteran teams Avenging Narwhals, Vignette, and even a surprise entrance from the Nads would be toeing the start line. Not
the type of day to make mistakes if we wanted a good finish.
Cue the screaming. In the first 25 minutes of the race, Taintastic! had quite the difficulties getting clues out to the phone support. Plus, we had trouble hearing the phone team, and they had trouble hearing us. This all led to a great deal of zig-zagging around the Mission district at the start. If we got bonus points for running a route resembling a 2 year old's coloring book we'd be in good shape. Alas, we were likely well off the pace of the leaders from the get go. After our initial trouble, however, we started to get into a rhythm - hitting checkpoints and knocking out challenges. As usual, the Great Urban Race does a fantastic job of throwing in fun challenges at most of the checkpoints and we seemed to avoid the often common issue of bottlenecks at checkpoints. We dominated a balloon blowfish challenge,.... played the Newlywed game, ate some sausage (That wasn't part of the race... we just felt like a bratwurst break.... OK... Not really)... invaded a fabric store sweating profusely on some fabric rolls... did a ring toss at the Lookout .... sang out-of-tune Karaoke....and even assaulted a animal shelter to snap a picture with a cat. The most difficult challenge was probably the blindfolded cake box assembly. Colby took on this challenge, and although Doug and Matt were allowed to give instructions, I don't think it helped. I think all Colby heard was.... "Blah Blah Blah.....HURRY....... Blah Blah Blah.... NOT THAT WAY.......... Blah Blah Blah...... WE NEED A CAT". Regardless, Colby finished the puzzle and we hit a few more points before sprinting to the finish in 4th place.
Not a clean race but ironically we "beat" the Nads in a race for the first time. They lost by default (disqualified) because they lost their clue
sheet mid race proving that it certainly could have been worse for Taintastic! As always, we want to thank our clue team - Mart, Erik, Elise
and Mike. Next time we'll actually send them the clues before the middle of the race and then listen to their advice before running around like headless chickens.
Taintastic Takes the Inaugural XPLORE race in San Francisco
With a new race series starting it's always exciting, and in reading previous Xplore race reports (from other cities) the Xplore race directors seemed to have tons of enthusiasm and creativity. Matt joined up with Doug (a Taintastic guest star in previous races) and there was excitement in the air with some well known teams (Including the Tweedles) at the start. A month earlier, Doug texted Matt that he was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis but on race day he was ready. That's
right....Doug is hardcore.
The Xplore race had a couple of pre-race clues that would be helpful in getting us started. Shout out to Colby who helped us solve one of the clues while he was packing to fly to Australia. After getting the clues, Doug and Matt got off to a quick start and jumped on a bus.... for 2 blocks. OK.... with our usual trouble with public transportation it was a start. The race would take us from Bryant street Sports Basement to Mission Bay, to the Ferry Building area before climbing to the
top of Nob Hill. The clues for this race were written in such a way that interaction with strangers is a must for success. So, Matt's ability to race with no shame paid off... although waking up a sleeping homeless man to take a picture of us may have pushed the envelope. Doug was cool as a cucumber on the phone often saying "Hold Please" to the phone team like a Comcast customer service rep. Some fun challenges included a spinning Monkey contraption at the Exploratorium (See link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw7hZ10oQDo), a fortune cookie interaction with strangers and a palm tree hammock with more strangers. After hitting a couple more checkpoints near Market street, Doug and Matt caught public transportation to the last (12th) checkpoint and raced to the finish coming in first place!!!
It was a remarkably error free and efficient race by Taint standards, and we even caught some perfectly timed buses - a rare feat. Doug was awesome and he earned the Taint badge (I'm not sure that he wants that badge, but he earned it!!) Thanks to Mike, Elise for clue help and Summer for excellent clue/direction help!
With a new race series starting it's always exciting, and in reading previous Xplore race reports (from other cities) the Xplore race directors seemed to have tons of enthusiasm and creativity. Matt joined up with Doug (a Taintastic guest star in previous races) and there was excitement in the air with some well known teams (Including the Tweedles) at the start. A month earlier, Doug texted Matt that he was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis but on race day he was ready. That's
right....Doug is hardcore.
The Xplore race had a couple of pre-race clues that would be helpful in getting us started. Shout out to Colby who helped us solve one of the clues while he was packing to fly to Australia. After getting the clues, Doug and Matt got off to a quick start and jumped on a bus.... for 2 blocks. OK.... with our usual trouble with public transportation it was a start. The race would take us from Bryant street Sports Basement to Mission Bay, to the Ferry Building area before climbing to the
top of Nob Hill. The clues for this race were written in such a way that interaction with strangers is a must for success. So, Matt's ability to race with no shame paid off... although waking up a sleeping homeless man to take a picture of us may have pushed the envelope. Doug was cool as a cucumber on the phone often saying "Hold Please" to the phone team like a Comcast customer service rep. Some fun challenges included a spinning Monkey contraption at the Exploratorium (See link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw7hZ10oQDo), a fortune cookie interaction with strangers and a palm tree hammock with more strangers. After hitting a couple more checkpoints near Market street, Doug and Matt caught public transportation to the last (12th) checkpoint and raced to the finish coming in first place!!!
It was a remarkably error free and efficient race by Taint standards, and we even caught some perfectly timed buses - a rare feat. Doug was awesome and he earned the Taint badge (I'm not sure that he wants that badge, but he earned it!!) Thanks to Mike, Elise for clue help and Summer for excellent clue/direction help!
Taintastic! finally lands on the Podium at 2013 GUR San Francisco
Forth time's a charm? The San Francisco Great Urban Race had always
stumped Taintastic. Mistakes have been our undoing, so this year we
were determined to get it right. Colby and Matt were in good shape and
Marty practically begged to be on the phone just to hear the ensuring
Colby-Matt high school girl bickering during the race. The only thing
that would derail us this year would be something out of the
ordinary...... and on cue Matt got sick the night before the race.
At the start of the race, Matt was basically curled up in a ball on the
cold cement throwing up bile and sweating like he was in some hot yoga class (Marty loves hot yoga FYI). Colby took control and got us going with the clues and after carefully making sure planning our route (maybe too carefully?) we were on our way. Colby and Matt worked well through many of the challenges and Colby unintentionally amused the race staff by yelling "Put it in slowly and not too deep!!" during an olive-toothpick challenge. Some indoor golf and show-tune singing went smoothly and we were hitting checkpoint after checkpoint. We even picked up a Miley Cyrus magazine to check off one of our Tic-tac-toe points- taking a fitting tongue-out picture considering Matt's digestive state.
Then, Matt started asking Colby about where they would pick-up some needed flowers for a checkpoint... and he asked Colby over and over and over.... and over. For Colby, it may have started to sound like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE3PXTDiaEw) . Colby actually
stopped mid-run at one point... jumped straight up in the air and yelled "Matt... If you ask me about the flowers one more time, I swear, I'm
stopping the race right here!" Matt asked a few more times. But we kept hitting checkpoints on foot (missing every possible bus) and at one
point Colby felt he needed to calm the phone team and it went a little like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvMq2YZloZM). After a BBQ battle with the Tweedles we raced to the finish and came in second place overall. Finally on the podium!! Matt went home and went to bed for 3 days but it was worth it. Thanks to Summer, Nicole and Mart for the awesome clue help. KEEP OUR COMPUSURE!!
Forth time's a charm? The San Francisco Great Urban Race had always
stumped Taintastic. Mistakes have been our undoing, so this year we
were determined to get it right. Colby and Matt were in good shape and
Marty practically begged to be on the phone just to hear the ensuring
Colby-Matt high school girl bickering during the race. The only thing
that would derail us this year would be something out of the
ordinary...... and on cue Matt got sick the night before the race.
At the start of the race, Matt was basically curled up in a ball on the
cold cement throwing up bile and sweating like he was in some hot yoga class (Marty loves hot yoga FYI). Colby took control and got us going with the clues and after carefully making sure planning our route (maybe too carefully?) we were on our way. Colby and Matt worked well through many of the challenges and Colby unintentionally amused the race staff by yelling "Put it in slowly and not too deep!!" during an olive-toothpick challenge. Some indoor golf and show-tune singing went smoothly and we were hitting checkpoint after checkpoint. We even picked up a Miley Cyrus magazine to check off one of our Tic-tac-toe points- taking a fitting tongue-out picture considering Matt's digestive state.
Then, Matt started asking Colby about where they would pick-up some needed flowers for a checkpoint... and he asked Colby over and over and over.... and over. For Colby, it may have started to sound like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE3PXTDiaEw) . Colby actually
stopped mid-run at one point... jumped straight up in the air and yelled "Matt... If you ask me about the flowers one more time, I swear, I'm
stopping the race right here!" Matt asked a few more times. But we kept hitting checkpoints on foot (missing every possible bus) and at one
point Colby felt he needed to calm the phone team and it went a little like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvMq2YZloZM). After a BBQ battle with the Tweedles we raced to the finish and came in second place overall. Finally on the podium!! Matt went home and went to bed for 3 days but it was worth it. Thanks to Summer, Nicole and Mart for the awesome clue help. KEEP OUR COMPUSURE!!
TAINTASTIC! grabs the SAC for Victory in the SF Oyster 2013
Taintastic! came into the 2013 SF Oyster with revenge on their mind, after a third place finish in 2012 behind Finnsters and The Nads (not a bad name for an alt rock band). Also, sadly, this would possibly be the last SF Oyster ever, so walking off with the final Oyster title would be pretty sweet. Matt and Marty, searching for a third teammate again (boo, Colby), decided to try an experiment this year. The hypothesis: was Taintastic's success in past Oysters due to the personnel, or the system? We decided to test the system by taking a newcomer off the street, and having him round out the team. Enter, Ken.
Actually, Ken already had a couple of Oysters under his belt so to speak, with crowd-favorite Dropping SAC. He wasn't very excited about the prospect of racing with Taintastic! at all. It took a lot of cajoling. Also, Matt and Marty had to pay for half of his race fees, and Matt built a tow rope to pull him,
though he refused to use it. The morning of the race, the team received a great omen as Dr. Dunk showed up at the transition area bright and early, riding the yellow lady and munching on homemade tostadas. This was unexpected, and really buoyed the team's spirits.
The race itself was a blast. Taintastic! roared out of the gate on the scavenger hunt to take a nice lead. Then up to Coit tower on bikes, and down to City Kayak. Fun twist there, as Matt and Marty were in the kayak, towing Ken on a paddleboard without a paddle. Whereas the paddleboarder on the other teams chipped in by paddling with their arms, Ken chose to lay back and relax in order to save his arms for, umm, bicycling we guess. He did seem to enjoy the ride quite a bit, so who are we to have ruined it for him by asking him to chip in
for the team. Let's see, on to a little blind bowling, puzzles, catching goldfish, and more. Finally, to a bar to enjoy a challenge with some beer... and that's where it got a little weird. It's probably best to let the picture do the talking, and note that this wasn't a quick frame grab, but more of a 45 second video.
Anyway, back to the finish for a Taintastic! victory! Ken was awesome to race with, really a lot of fun. He really has Taintastic! written all over him, and we don't mean from the bar challenge. Thanks to the great team at Team Player Productions for the awesome Oysters these last 8 years, we hope to see you guys out in SF again someday.
Taintastic! came into the 2013 SF Oyster with revenge on their mind, after a third place finish in 2012 behind Finnsters and The Nads (not a bad name for an alt rock band). Also, sadly, this would possibly be the last SF Oyster ever, so walking off with the final Oyster title would be pretty sweet. Matt and Marty, searching for a third teammate again (boo, Colby), decided to try an experiment this year. The hypothesis: was Taintastic's success in past Oysters due to the personnel, or the system? We decided to test the system by taking a newcomer off the street, and having him round out the team. Enter, Ken.
Actually, Ken already had a couple of Oysters under his belt so to speak, with crowd-favorite Dropping SAC. He wasn't very excited about the prospect of racing with Taintastic! at all. It took a lot of cajoling. Also, Matt and Marty had to pay for half of his race fees, and Matt built a tow rope to pull him,
though he refused to use it. The morning of the race, the team received a great omen as Dr. Dunk showed up at the transition area bright and early, riding the yellow lady and munching on homemade tostadas. This was unexpected, and really buoyed the team's spirits.
The race itself was a blast. Taintastic! roared out of the gate on the scavenger hunt to take a nice lead. Then up to Coit tower on bikes, and down to City Kayak. Fun twist there, as Matt and Marty were in the kayak, towing Ken on a paddleboard without a paddle. Whereas the paddleboarder on the other teams chipped in by paddling with their arms, Ken chose to lay back and relax in order to save his arms for, umm, bicycling we guess. He did seem to enjoy the ride quite a bit, so who are we to have ruined it for him by asking him to chip in
for the team. Let's see, on to a little blind bowling, puzzles, catching goldfish, and more. Finally, to a bar to enjoy a challenge with some beer... and that's where it got a little weird. It's probably best to let the picture do the talking, and note that this wasn't a quick frame grab, but more of a 45 second video.
Anyway, back to the finish for a Taintastic! victory! Ken was awesome to race with, really a lot of fun. He really has Taintastic! written all over him, and we don't mean from the bar challenge. Thanks to the great team at Team Player Productions for the awesome Oysters these last 8 years, we hope to see you guys out in SF again someday.
Taintastic! wins 5th straight San Francisco Urban Dare...and we can never get that time back.
For the 5th straight year Kevin Keefe of Urban Dare has gone against modern norms with respect to course planning in San Francisco. Where other race organizers continue to push the envelope with ever new and difficult obstacles and team challenges, Kevin has managed to essentially use the same exact effing
course for 5 straight years. We can't tell whether he is a brilliant businessman, or a little lazy. Other experienced teams seem to have come to the conclusion that Kevin jumped the shark years ago. Either way, we still fight over who has to dunk their head into the plate of whip cream, and after 5 years we still can't make balloon animals to save our lives.
All in all, UD is still a great excuse to run around the city making asses of ourselves with some good friends. And, a fifth title in as many years just makes it all the more fun. As with every single year prior - we vow to never do this stupid race again.
Taintastic! teams up for Wild Canyon Games in Oregon
To ring in the start of summer, Taintastic! (Matt, John, Marty) headed to Oregon for the Nike's Wild Canyon Games, a multi-event full weekend competition against 130 other teams. But as teams needed to have 7 racers, they didn't go it alone, teaming up with their friends the Nads (Andy, Tyler, Josh twitter: @nadscontrol) and a Narwhal (John Zobel), joining forces like Voltron to compose Taint So Nad!!!!.
Even before getting to Antelope, OR, positive signs were everywhere. Excellent teamwork was exhibited early, as all TSNs arrived at PDX within an hour of each other. Mustaches were admired. Planning and physical preparation were recognized and complimented. John W exclaiming to Marty "Hey, you don't look like the tub of goo you were the last time I saw you!". Ah, good times.
Eventually getting to the WCG camp Friday afternoon in the stadium-style seating of the Honda Element generously provided by corporate sponsor the Runner Design Studio, the team donned garish day-glo orange shirts that were successful in simultaneously blinding and confusing the competition. During a lull later in one of the events, a racer noted the "Franchise Opportunities Available" tagline on the bottom of the shirts and asked, "Taint so Nad....so, what is it that your company does???" If only one of us seven had been thinking quickly, we might have landed a franchisee and some beer money. Opportunity lost.
On to a summary of the weekend's highlights-
* Marty, John W and Matt did the olympic-length triathlon relay. Matt closed the trail run with a 5:45 minute mile that made his nose explode.
* John Z, Tyler, Andy and Josh killed the 4-hour geocache, powering a ton of miles and elevation gain.
* All TSN members displayed various skills in the Challenges competition, highlighted by John W's domination of the Communication Hill climb.
* The team refueled Saturday evening at Creeknite(TM) with a zesty DJ and bottles of Jones soda.
* The team closed out the competition on Sunday morning with the Creek to Peak Relay, which needs more than one sentence. To recap: Tyler led off, fell down at the leadoff Border Clash and got trampled, but got up and crushed the rest of the run and obstacles to get near the front of the pack. John W was next, and dominated the singletrack and cyclocross course as usual. Josh was third, dominated through another obstacle course to stay near the lead. JohnZ vaulted over the top of an 8 foot inflatable via a method that resembled the Fosbury Flop. Marty swam across a small lake, making up a spot, albeit on a swimmer that couldn't see and swam out of bounds. And Matt and then finally Andy battled their way up a 45 degree mountain in a close battle with a couple of teams, finishing TSN in third place for the relay,fourth place overall for the weekend and second place in the division!!
And that was the weekend. A mix of fun, hard work, muscle milk, and general confusion from the other teams about who the guys in orange shirts and mustaches were. Perhaps to characterize it best,,a highlight of the race was the PA announcer (who on this third day was still confused by the TSN contingent), spotted Matt climbing up the hill on the sixth leg of the relay and yelled "Taint So Nad??....in third place??.....that's a surprise!" Ah, good times.
Even before getting to Antelope, OR, positive signs were everywhere. Excellent teamwork was exhibited early, as all TSNs arrived at PDX within an hour of each other. Mustaches were admired. Planning and physical preparation were recognized and complimented. John W exclaiming to Marty "Hey, you don't look like the tub of goo you were the last time I saw you!". Ah, good times.
Eventually getting to the WCG camp Friday afternoon in the stadium-style seating of the Honda Element generously provided by corporate sponsor the Runner Design Studio, the team donned garish day-glo orange shirts that were successful in simultaneously blinding and confusing the competition. During a lull later in one of the events, a racer noted the "Franchise Opportunities Available" tagline on the bottom of the shirts and asked, "Taint so Nad....so, what is it that your company does???" If only one of us seven had been thinking quickly, we might have landed a franchisee and some beer money. Opportunity lost.
On to a summary of the weekend's highlights-
* Marty, John W and Matt did the olympic-length triathlon relay. Matt closed the trail run with a 5:45 minute mile that made his nose explode.
* John Z, Tyler, Andy and Josh killed the 4-hour geocache, powering a ton of miles and elevation gain.
* All TSN members displayed various skills in the Challenges competition, highlighted by John W's domination of the Communication Hill climb.
* The team refueled Saturday evening at Creeknite(TM) with a zesty DJ and bottles of Jones soda.
* The team closed out the competition on Sunday morning with the Creek to Peak Relay, which needs more than one sentence. To recap: Tyler led off, fell down at the leadoff Border Clash and got trampled, but got up and crushed the rest of the run and obstacles to get near the front of the pack. John W was next, and dominated the singletrack and cyclocross course as usual. Josh was third, dominated through another obstacle course to stay near the lead. JohnZ vaulted over the top of an 8 foot inflatable via a method that resembled the Fosbury Flop. Marty swam across a small lake, making up a spot, albeit on a swimmer that couldn't see and swam out of bounds. And Matt and then finally Andy battled their way up a 45 degree mountain in a close battle with a couple of teams, finishing TSN in third place for the relay,fourth place overall for the weekend and second place in the division!!
And that was the weekend. A mix of fun, hard work, muscle milk, and general confusion from the other teams about who the guys in orange shirts and mustaches were. Perhaps to characterize it best,,a highlight of the race was the PA announcer (who on this third day was still confused by the TSN contingent), spotted Matt climbing up the hill on the sixth leg of the relay and yelled "Taint So Nad??....in third place??.....that's a surprise!" Ah, good times.
Taintastic! Squeaks out a Close Win at 2013 Urban Dare Sacramento
In our 5th racing of the Urban Dare Sacramento, Colby and Matt prepared to defend our title of 4 previous consecutive wins. Ken and Matt won the first three years and Colby stepped in last year for the victory. The pressure was on to keep the streak alive but Colby had pre-race jitters about the high proportion of racers wearing short shorts; a sure indicator of studliness or an impending disco party.
With the clues handed out, Colby and Matt along with the phone studs of Mike, E and Doug started cracking the answers. Matt immediately noticed two questions that seemed easy enough and tackled the answers. The first was a questions about the author of "Call of the Wild" and going to that author's mural. So, Jack London's mural... check. The other question asked "What type of birds are Heckle and Jeckle? Go to that café". Matt searched for a blackbird café (They are black birds.. right?) in Sacramento and a blackbird café exists in downtown sac within striking distance. Boom!! Two clues right off the bat. So, with swift feet and a mesmerizing, Olympic quality wheel barrel and 3-legged race demonstration, Taintastic! picked up checkpoint after checkpoint. With only a minor stumble on a sundial location in Capital park (finally located by Mike on the phone), we seemed to be on our way for a sure 5-peat. Crossing the finish line first felt good as ever and Colby had a beer in hand within seconds of the successful run. Everything felt great.......... until the race director checked our pictures. When, he got to the blackbird café picture, the words.. "That's not correct" sank Matt's heart. Matt spaz mode almost ensued as the race director implored us to "look it up". After a few fruitless minutes of arguing, Matt looked up Heckle and Jeckle and it turns out they are Magpie birds. Flashbacks from the Matt Mob Experience mistake in last year GUR championship flooded back. In a frantic state, Matt located the Magpie café just one block away and literally grabbed Colby mid beer sip to get to the checkpoint. We raced back to the finish... again... and were still in first but just by 3 minutes this time. Taintastic! got lucky this time. Lessons learned... Don't let Matt solve clues.... but Colby drinking beer mid race might be OK. Taintastic!!!
With the clues handed out, Colby and Matt along with the phone studs of Mike, E and Doug started cracking the answers. Matt immediately noticed two questions that seemed easy enough and tackled the answers. The first was a questions about the author of "Call of the Wild" and going to that author's mural. So, Jack London's mural... check. The other question asked "What type of birds are Heckle and Jeckle? Go to that café". Matt searched for a blackbird café (They are black birds.. right?) in Sacramento and a blackbird café exists in downtown sac within striking distance. Boom!! Two clues right off the bat. So, with swift feet and a mesmerizing, Olympic quality wheel barrel and 3-legged race demonstration, Taintastic! picked up checkpoint after checkpoint. With only a minor stumble on a sundial location in Capital park (finally located by Mike on the phone), we seemed to be on our way for a sure 5-peat. Crossing the finish line first felt good as ever and Colby had a beer in hand within seconds of the successful run. Everything felt great.......... until the race director checked our pictures. When, he got to the blackbird café picture, the words.. "That's not correct" sank Matt's heart. Matt spaz mode almost ensued as the race director implored us to "look it up". After a few fruitless minutes of arguing, Matt looked up Heckle and Jeckle and it turns out they are Magpie birds. Flashbacks from the Matt Mob Experience mistake in last year GUR championship flooded back. In a frantic state, Matt located the Magpie café just one block away and literally grabbed Colby mid beer sip to get to the checkpoint. We raced back to the finish... again... and were still in first but just by 3 minutes this time. Taintastic! got lucky this time. Lessons learned... Don't let Matt solve clues.... but Colby drinking beer mid race might be OK. Taintastic!!!
Taintastic! wins the Challenge Nation 2013
In our first race of the year, Sloppy Jim and Matt took on Challenge Nation San Francisco. We heard that the Challenge Nation races tend to favor running over public transportation, which could only help us. Plus, we figured out a couple of clues before the race thanks to our friends "liking" the "Taint" name on the race Facebook site prior to the race. Of course, Taintastic is a fan favorite name! Who wouldn't like the team name?!? Oh yeah... Marty. Anyway... with the largest race field we've seen in a while (800+ racers) we got the clues and got moving. Jim quickly noticed that one of the checkpoints was a pier. Our phone team helped us to figure out which pier and we jumped on a train along the Embarcadero. Muni travels at the speed of a constipated sloth but this allowed us to concentrate on the clues a bit. By the time we completed the pier point, we had a few more points solved and started planning our route. While Matt was his usual nervous spastic self, Jim was on the line with our phone helpers as cool as can be. At one point, they even asked Jim if he was actually running. Who knew....Jim is a racing zen master! Matt looked over at one point and Jim's eyes may have been closed while running. Pretty sure he was meeting his totem animal in his meditation cave. Lesson learned.... Matt is no longer allowed to be on the phone in races. Most of the checkpoints went pretty smoothly. We posed in a train replica (where a creepy kid who I believe was in the movie 'Insideous' photo bombed our picture.... See bottom left corner). ....we took some pictures next to some famous statues along Market street and in Union Square and went into some underground exhibits to pose with pirates and rare silver coins. Matt utilized his primary skill of frantically yelling at complete strangers to have them pose with us in pictures and we even found a guy in overalls for a checkpoint! Our last point was a yoga pose in a studio and then we ran into the finish. First ones there! In checking our pictures, the race director found a mistake (we didn't run to the END of that first pier to take the picture) Panic set in as we were told to go out and get another checkpoint. Luckily, the point we originally skipped was only 2 blocks away. We sprinted at top speed for a yogurt shop (we do like yogurt) and asked for a sample. The yogurt barista kept asking us our flavor preference and wouldn't take "any flavor" for an answer so I think we ended up with a nice amaretto flavor. A full sprint back to the finish led to a quick scare as we saw another team approaching the finish. Luckily, they still had one checkpoint to get... and we got the win!! Not a mistake-free race but we had a blast. Challenge Nation put on a good event and we qualified for free entry to the Vegas Championships. Thanks to our our phone team of Free-Dogg, Summer, and Colby who were spectacular. Taintastic!!!
Taintastic Get Knocked Out at the 2012 Great Urban Race Championships
Taintastic!'s bid for the 2012 Great Urban Race Championship in Las Vegas, NV started much like most other races - months of intense physical training (or at least a few weeks), hours upon hours of
studying city maps and public transportation routes (we definitely looked at a map while on the plane), and scouring local entertainment guides for every last bit of information that could be used as a race
clue (or a buffet discount). We recruited the best possible ground support in the game to give us an edge at finding the checkpoints: Mart (on-site), KaBoosh, Mike, Summer and Erik. Fresh off the
marathon circuit, Matt and Colby were well prepared (if only physically) to break into the top 8 of over 120 teams, and earn a spot to compete for the National Championship, a $10,000 payday, and the
celebrity that comes with both. Alas, our Taints -once again- got in the way.
Upon reading the clue sheet, Matt's trained eyes immediately caught light of a familiar set of photos: members of the infamous Italian Mofia. Many of whom played an integral role in the development of Las
Vegas. Matt had done his homework well. His breathing relaxed. His heart rate dropped. A calm overwhelmed him. The world around him slowed. His vision became clear. He looked through the window and noticed - off in the distance - the monorail approaching. He instinctively knew that we had exactly 2.5 minutes to make it to the platform. Moments earlier, in a whirlwind of commotion and chaos, he had solved the clue. We were off the The Tropicana Hotel and Casino where "The Mob Attraction" was playing daily from 10a to 9p. It was also the furthest southern hotel on the strip. All other checkpoints would be to the north. We were the first team out of the building…it was a brilliant display of preparedness, focus and strategy.
While navigating the 1.5 mile trip to the Mob Attraction our support team was hard at work. Solving clues as if they were in a Sherlock Holmes wet-dream. Point after point was to the north of us. Our plan was working. Or, so it seemed. Upon arriving at our presumed checkpoint there were the familiar pictures of Mobsters on the wall. A mere 50 yard hallway and flight of stairs down to the theatre separated us from our first challenge. Confident that we were well on our way to a long sought after "clean race," we defiantly tried the door over and over, even as common sense began to scream at us - the door was locked. There was no checkpoint. Several minutes past as we frantically ran up and down the hall way. Asking old ladies for help as they took long drags from the cigarettes that were already down to the filter - clinging to their slurpy cups half-filled with quarters.
There was no help to be had. On the conference line we heard a faint curse. It was the realization that the checkpoint that we were searching for was, in fact, 7 miles north of us, at a place called "The Mob Museum." Dammit!
To be absolutely clear - Tropicana was the right decision. We all agreed. As did roughly 25 other teams who came to the same conclusion (non of whom finished the race due to the time cut-off). Sure, we could dwell on the fact that the race organizer should have caught the similarity. We could have not tried to fight back after a 30-40 minute "mistake." But that's not the Taintastic! way. We'll learn, we'll get better, and we will win the 2013 Championship in Puerto Rico!
The rest of the story is actually quite uneventful. With the help of our amazing support crew, we hit checkpoint after checkpoint with speed and efficiency. Had even one thing outside of our control gone right -a bus here, a monorail there, a checkpoint that didn't have an 8 team deep line in front of us to complete a challenge - we wouldn't have been the team that missed the finals by 30 seconds - 9th. We
would have finished strong, made the finals, and had the endurance to place very well among the elite eight. Shoulda. Coulda. Woulda.
As a side note, by all accounts, the finals would have been epic. There was base-jumping, lion training, and an excavator obstacle course just to name a few of the crazy challenges. There was also running. A lot of running. The eventual champions ran 18.5 miles; 23 miles for the team that placed second - that's just in the second race. That kind of distance would have made it difficult to drink enough to kill a pony and close down the Vegas clubs until 5:30am as we did. I mean, we still would have, but it would have been tough.
Taintastic!!
studying city maps and public transportation routes (we definitely looked at a map while on the plane), and scouring local entertainment guides for every last bit of information that could be used as a race
clue (or a buffet discount). We recruited the best possible ground support in the game to give us an edge at finding the checkpoints: Mart (on-site), KaBoosh, Mike, Summer and Erik. Fresh off the
marathon circuit, Matt and Colby were well prepared (if only physically) to break into the top 8 of over 120 teams, and earn a spot to compete for the National Championship, a $10,000 payday, and the
celebrity that comes with both. Alas, our Taints -once again- got in the way.
Upon reading the clue sheet, Matt's trained eyes immediately caught light of a familiar set of photos: members of the infamous Italian Mofia. Many of whom played an integral role in the development of Las
Vegas. Matt had done his homework well. His breathing relaxed. His heart rate dropped. A calm overwhelmed him. The world around him slowed. His vision became clear. He looked through the window and noticed - off in the distance - the monorail approaching. He instinctively knew that we had exactly 2.5 minutes to make it to the platform. Moments earlier, in a whirlwind of commotion and chaos, he had solved the clue. We were off the The Tropicana Hotel and Casino where "The Mob Attraction" was playing daily from 10a to 9p. It was also the furthest southern hotel on the strip. All other checkpoints would be to the north. We were the first team out of the building…it was a brilliant display of preparedness, focus and strategy.
While navigating the 1.5 mile trip to the Mob Attraction our support team was hard at work. Solving clues as if they were in a Sherlock Holmes wet-dream. Point after point was to the north of us. Our plan was working. Or, so it seemed. Upon arriving at our presumed checkpoint there were the familiar pictures of Mobsters on the wall. A mere 50 yard hallway and flight of stairs down to the theatre separated us from our first challenge. Confident that we were well on our way to a long sought after "clean race," we defiantly tried the door over and over, even as common sense began to scream at us - the door was locked. There was no checkpoint. Several minutes past as we frantically ran up and down the hall way. Asking old ladies for help as they took long drags from the cigarettes that were already down to the filter - clinging to their slurpy cups half-filled with quarters.
There was no help to be had. On the conference line we heard a faint curse. It was the realization that the checkpoint that we were searching for was, in fact, 7 miles north of us, at a place called "The Mob Museum." Dammit!
To be absolutely clear - Tropicana was the right decision. We all agreed. As did roughly 25 other teams who came to the same conclusion (non of whom finished the race due to the time cut-off). Sure, we could dwell on the fact that the race organizer should have caught the similarity. We could have not tried to fight back after a 30-40 minute "mistake." But that's not the Taintastic! way. We'll learn, we'll get better, and we will win the 2013 Championship in Puerto Rico!
The rest of the story is actually quite uneventful. With the help of our amazing support crew, we hit checkpoint after checkpoint with speed and efficiency. Had even one thing outside of our control gone right -a bus here, a monorail there, a checkpoint that didn't have an 8 team deep line in front of us to complete a challenge - we wouldn't have been the team that missed the finals by 30 seconds - 9th. We
would have finished strong, made the finals, and had the endurance to place very well among the elite eight. Shoulda. Coulda. Woulda.
As a side note, by all accounts, the finals would have been epic. There was base-jumping, lion training, and an excavator obstacle course just to name a few of the crazy challenges. There was also running. A lot of running. The eventual champions ran 18.5 miles; 23 miles for the team that placed second - that's just in the second race. That kind of distance would have made it difficult to drink enough to kill a pony and close down the Vegas clubs until 5:30am as we did. I mean, we still would have, but it would have been tough.
Taintastic!!
Taintastic! Tries for a Three-peat at the San Francisco Oyster
After two years of mistake-free outings in the Oyster we knew going into this year's race we would have to be better than ever as our friends from the the Oyster sponsored Nads team were coming into town. Having the Nads in town as well as our friends Dropping Sac from Sacramento was exciting and having a Taintastic-Nads-Dropping Sac podium would be epic. Plus, the Nads and Taintastic added a mustache challenge throwdown to the event to add some extra awesomeness.
Taintastic! (Matt, Marty and John) had a great start to the race as we biked fast and got to the first paddleboarding challenge a couple minutes before the next team arrived. From there things got a bit more tough as we had some trouble with a Chipotle recipe challenge and then John got a flat tire on the way back to the transition. When John gets a flat tire he still bikes faster than anyone on the team so we were near the front going into the next running leg. The next challenges involved an SAT test, a ball minefield challenge and a shoe slingshot challenge. Our slingshot skills were better suited for Tosh.0 videos as Marty nearly knocked Matt out with a direct shot to the head with a size 12. After shaking off the cobwebs, we made it back to the transition right behind the Nads and feeling good. ........ And then the mistake happened. In the heat of a challenge after a long bike ride to the end of Golden Gate Bridge we neglected to snap a picture we needed and didn't realize this until we were halfway back to transition. This mistake allowed the Nads to pull well ahead and the eventual overall winners (the Finnsters) to pass us by. With only two legs remaining we didn't have the time to catch up although on a positive note Marty did seem enthusiastically overjoyed in a donut challenge with John and Matt eating a Krispy Creme off of his belly. A great beer mile and work-out challenge ended the race and Taintastic! cruised to the finish in third place overall (2nd in men's). After a few "what ifs" we grabbed some beers and then a late-night meal at the Lucky Penny (instead of attending our 20y High School reunion) with the Nads and recapped another fantastically organized Oyster race.
Taintastic! (Matt, Marty and John) had a great start to the race as we biked fast and got to the first paddleboarding challenge a couple minutes before the next team arrived. From there things got a bit more tough as we had some trouble with a Chipotle recipe challenge and then John got a flat tire on the way back to the transition. When John gets a flat tire he still bikes faster than anyone on the team so we were near the front going into the next running leg. The next challenges involved an SAT test, a ball minefield challenge and a shoe slingshot challenge. Our slingshot skills were better suited for Tosh.0 videos as Marty nearly knocked Matt out with a direct shot to the head with a size 12. After shaking off the cobwebs, we made it back to the transition right behind the Nads and feeling good. ........ And then the mistake happened. In the heat of a challenge after a long bike ride to the end of Golden Gate Bridge we neglected to snap a picture we needed and didn't realize this until we were halfway back to transition. This mistake allowed the Nads to pull well ahead and the eventual overall winners (the Finnsters) to pass us by. With only two legs remaining we didn't have the time to catch up although on a positive note Marty did seem enthusiastically overjoyed in a donut challenge with John and Matt eating a Krispy Creme off of his belly. A great beer mile and work-out challenge ended the race and Taintastic! cruised to the finish in third place overall (2nd in men's). After a few "what ifs" we grabbed some beers and then a late-night meal at the Lucky Penny (instead of attending our 20y High School reunion) with the Nads and recapped another fantastically organized Oyster race.
