To the Max!

[hnpcc]

OK, so I've had a very sporting couple of days.

Friday I played in the Staff versus Student soccer match. This was in honour of our outgoing Institute Fearless Leader, who is off to bigger and better things. Despite it being cloudy with brief showers all day, it cleared up and we eventually took the field as planned at 3.30pm. Staff in dark t-shirts, students in light t-shirts. That left plenty of room for error, as people's ideas of what is "light" and "dark" apparently vary wildly. Then you had the student wearing a top which was white at the front and black from behind - very sneaky, and it paid off when a staff member passed him the ball and he scored! We made him change into a green top at half time.

I have no idea how people manage with only 11 players on the field - we had up to 15 per side, which meant a lot less running. Somewhat bizarrely I ended up defending the 13 year old son of a staff member who was playing for the students - he was fast, had very good ball handling skills and was very fit. Surprisingly I managed to slow him down a bit, mostly by getting in the way. Eventually the staff won 4-2 - would have been higher but for the own goal scored by our side. Fortunately not by me though!

The only down side to this match for me was that I managed to strain some ligaments in my foot when I slid sideways into a drain cover in the middle of the pitch which was about 5cm lower than the pitch. I didn't notice it because (a) I was chasing the 13 year old who'd gotten away from me again and (b) it was semi-covered by grass. (The pitch was pretty ordinary all round actually - there was also a cricket pitch in the middle of it which was about 10cm higher than the rest of the ground and the drought had certainly played havoc with the grass cover, which was patchy to say the least. And no one could work out where the hell the lines were, because they were kind of off on a diagonal where we weren't expecting them and friggin' miles away when we were expecting them to be there. Anyway.) The ligaments weren't badly strained though, so I kept playing and just sort of favoured that foot a bit. Which caused my opposite knee to go out slightly. Ouch.

The knee probably wouldn't have worried me too much but for two things - I couldn't actually straighten it properly on Friday night and I'd agreed to participate in the Urban Max challenge with a friend the following day. Hm. Could be a bit dodgy. I decided to hope it would settle down overnight with sleep and give it a go anyway.

Saturday dawned bright and much earlier than is usual for Saturdays and me, and I headed off down to Albert Park to meet up with my challenge partner, Sal, and astrocave and his challenge partner, loisa, at the unheard of time of 8am. After registering both our teams (Team Jasmine in our case[1] and Team Equilax[2] for the others) we then got to sit around for an hour waiting for the event to start. A quick briefing, a move outside for a group photo and then we got:

"Your clue sheet is with the marshals behind the building!"[3]

200 people turn around and start sprinting around the building. Well, almost 200 - after fun run experiences I tend to hang back a bit in these situations so I don't run into poles or something. Which, of course, someone did. Ouch.

Sal made it to the marshal first and grabbed the clue sheet. The four of us gathered round, seeing what we did and didn't know from the clues and planning the route as much as we could.

The first two clues were easy. Clue number three astrocave glanced at and said "I know that. Let's go."

So we ran to St Kilda Rd and waited for a tram to take us to Checkpoint 3:

Charles was born in 1801 and arrived in Melbourne in 1839. As the first Governor of Victoria, he brought his own cottage from England to Australia, now one of the oldest buildings in Victoria. Find Charles' dwelling to complete this checkpoint.

OK, I've lived in Melbourne since 1991 and I had never heard of Governor Latrobe's Cottage. astrocave, as it turns out, lived down the road from it for quite a number of years. Handy.

Along with several other teams we disembarked at Domain interchange, jogged up the hill to the cottage and clipped our card. 1 down, 9 (for us) or 11 (for astrocave and loisa) to go!

Back down to St Kilda Rd and on to another tram. My knee this stage was sort of clicking in and out, but not too bad. It seemed to be alternating with my ankle, so I was half running and mostly walking. We jumped off at Flinders St to catch a tram to Checkpoint 1:

Occupied by the Captain of the Endeavour, the two-storey cottage built from sandstone and brick is the only 18th Century building in Melbourne. It was originally built in 1755 in Yorkshire but was later purchased and transported to Australia in 1933. Find the cottage to complete this checkpoint.

OK, this one was easy. I think every school kid within two hours of Melbourne has been on a trip to Cook's Cottage. We caught a 75 tram down to the Fitzroy gardens, found the checkpoint and were good to go.

astrocave looked at my half-running/half-walking/kind of limping a bit.
"Do you mind if we go?"
"Nah, go for it - you guys are racing, we're not."
So Team Equilax sprinted off up the hill. Team Jasmine, meanwhile continued the slow jog up to Checkpoint 2:

The nine feet bronze statue of Melbourne's Archbishop from 1917 to 1963 stands in the forecourt of the finest ecclesiastical building in Australia. Find the statue to complete the checkpoint.

As it happened, I'd worked in a building directly opposite to this for about 5 years. Even more surprisingly, when I mentioned the clue to kirstenfleur she knew who the statue was actually of. I didn't, I just knew it was there. But we managed to clip our cards at the feet of Dr Mannix outside of St Pat's Cathedral. Woo-hoo, 3 down and it wasn't even 10am!! We checked our list again and headed for the tram stop. No visible Team Equilax.

"They must have already caught the tram" said Sal.

At that point they appeared from behind us, having missed the open gate and run around the cathedral trying to find another one. Heh.

We all caught the tram up Brunswick St together (and with about 3 other teams) to Checkpoint 8:

Set in the historic Edinburgh Gardens, make your way to the Fitzroy Bowling Club where your team will be engaged in a "crackerjack of a game".

OK, this one was right in astrocave's territory. He lives around the corner from it, in fact. It was also pretty much in my territory, given that I've been around that side of town quite a lot. We rocked up to the Bowls club and were told to bowl one bowl to within a foot of the jack. Hm, easier said than done. The nice marshal kindly gave us instructions on how you actually bowl these things (I'd no idea) and then stood back and laughed at us a bit. Sal managed to get hers within a foot in about 5 minutes. 5 minutes after that I was still pretty much all over the place, while Sal was at the other end sending the bowls back to me. Team Equilax finished and sprinted out at about this point.

"Gently release the bowl" said the marshal for the umpteenth time, while demonstrating what I was supposed to be doing.

I tried again, sending it wildly off to one side.

"Aim for that post between 11 and 12".

This time I was closer, but much too fast.

"Better.. maybe more gently."

Finally I managed the correct speed, direction and releasing technique all at the same time and the bowl thumped to a stop next to the jack. Sal and I jumped up and down cheering while the marshal stamped our card.

"Good luck!"

We headed back to the tram stop to go to Checkpoint 7:

Help!! Daffy, Donald and Daisy have been plucked out of their natural pond environment and thrown into unfamiliar territory, in a man made pool which was constructed in 1908. Put your lifesaver hats on and attempt to rescue them from their danger zone in Melbourne's first suburb. You will get wet in this activity.

This was another one right in astrocave's territory, being just down the road and all. We had in fact confirmed the dates with our standby google-monkeys kirstenfleur and her husband Marcus though. Marcus confirmed that yes, we were off to Fitzroy Pool.

"Maybe we should skip this one" said Sal. "I'm not sure about the getting wet part."

"It's OK, I'll do the getting wet. It's just down the road, let's at least take a look."

So we jogged from the tram stop to the pool - and found an entire lane full of plastic ducks, all with a number written on them.

"Hi!" said the extremely cheery marshal "You need to find duck 92[4]."

We looked at the ducks again. Half had blown over to the far side and were nestled up against the lane rope. Half had blown into the corner of the pool and could be reached by hand.

"Quick! You go get changed and I'll start looking at the close ones."

I dashed into the change-rooms. Halfway into my bathers there was a yell from outside

"It's OK! I've found the duck![5]"

"Brilliant!" I ignored the odd looks from the other people changing and got back into my slightly sweaty running gear.

We left the pool, and headed for the Smith St tram. And then ended up sprinting frantically for the tram stop when a tram started approaching before we'd gotten there. Fortunately by this time my knee had decided to go back in and I seemed to have warmed up (only took me about 40 minutes) so we actually made it onto the tram and were headed back into the city to Checkpoint 8:

Locate the sanctuary that embraces the history of Australian Football and pays tribute to the legends of the game. To successfully complete this checkpoint, make your way upstairs where you have to complete a series of "skill tests".

I was pretty sure that this one was the Australian Rules Hall of Fame, located in the QV building on Swanston St. We jumped off the tram at the top of Lonsdale St and jogged downhill all the way to the QV building, where we promptly got lost looking for the entrance. The QV building is designed around a sort of "laneways" concept. We could see the hall of fame, but we couldn't actually find the door to it (although we did find their fire exit.) Eventually after running around for 5 or so minutes we managed to make our way in and up to the right place. This time we were handballing AFL footballs into a target. One handball each through the centre. We completed this one surprisingly quickly, all things considered[6].

Now, for Checkpoint 12:

Checkpoint 12 is the Mystery CP for the race. To receive your clue, purchase a copy of "The Big Issue" magazine. In amongst page 36 you will find "two locations", track down both to complete the checkpoint.

We'd been on the lookout for a Big Issue seller since we left Albert Park. Hadn't seen a single one, even though part of the reason we'd gone down Smith St on the way back from the Fitzroy Pool was in case there was one along there. We already knew there were none on Brunswick St. Surely they had to have started work by now - it was pushing 10.30 and the city was much livelier than at 9am. Sure enough there was a guy outside Melbourne Central Station. We bought the mag, waited a fair amount of time for him to find change (he was obviously hoping we'd run off without waiting for it, given that we had racing bibs on. Sorry, but I'm a tightarse in these situations!) and turned to page 36. There were two photos. One was of Cow in a tree, which I knew the exact location of. The other was of Blowhole, which I'd seen pictures of but had no idea where it was located. Still, we decided to head for the Docklands. Into Melbourne Central station we went, only to find that basically all the trains run away from Southern Cross Station on a Saturday morning[7]. Back out to Latrobe St, only to find we'd just missed a city circle tram.

OK, change of plan. To Checkpoint 4:

As an outdoor artwork, this "Garden" records the names of over 7000 people who have travelled from all over the world and is a lasting tribute to the individuals and families who have immigrated to Australia. On the grounds of the garden, you have to locate toe British couple who travelled from England to Australia in 1830 on the ship named Mellish.

I'd a pretty good idea that this was at the Immigration Museum. We jumped on a tram down Elizabeth St, then on another one stop down Flinders (yes, it probably would have been quicker to run, but then how could we chat with the friendly tram driver?) Into the museum, where the most helpful person ever[8] gave us detailed and explicit instructions on what to do. Find the homepage of the museum in the Discovery Centre. Go to the Tribute Garden Page. Enter the details in the clue. Get the names. Then go to the actual Tribute Garden and locate the names. Sounds simple, right? It would have been, except that someone had left the webpage for the National Archives open, and we spent 5 minutes trying to get back to the Immigration museum page. Then we did the bloody obvious and closed the browser window - and there it was. Two seconds later we were looking for George and Maryann Althorpe in the list of 7000 names. A very TAR moment occurred when another team ran in, looked down and found the name instantly - and then had the other four teams who'd spent ages looking all run over and point in the rough vicinity to get the clue. Heh. I was almost standing on top of the names and had completely overlooked them. Still, we got our card stamped and headed out in pursuit of checkpoint 12 again.

At least this time getting to Docklands was relatively simple. We ran out, dived onto a city circle tram and then obsessively stared out the window in search of the sculptures. Much to my surprise we passed Blowhole (which was partially hidden by construction works) fairly quickly. This was good, because I knew that Cow Up A Tree was further along, so we could sit tight, leap out and then backtrack to the first one. Which, after the city circle tram had announced that we were approaching Cow on a Stick (thank you kind tram!) we did. And then had to sprint furiously again to catch the tram back to the city. Fortunately another team also were sprinting (having leapt over two fences to get through the construction site) and were kind enough to hold the tram for us.

On the tram I rang Marcus, my google-monkey, again to try and get an actual street address for Checkpoint 5:

South Side Melbourne challenges you to take part in an Urban Rap jump battle with Macka!... but not as you know it.

This was pretty much the only clue we had no idea about. Fortunately Marcus managed to not only get us a street address, but also a googlemap reference. Yay! This was very good as the opening hours for this checkpoint were 9.30-12.30 and it was now 12.15. Unfortunately this is where my map reading ability totally let us down and we ended up having to run quite a bit further than we thought we were going to. Note to self: take the damn map out of the plastic pocket if you have to keep turning it over! At 12.25 we were still about 300m away, and unsure of which direction to run in. Then Sal saw a team approaching.

"Maybe they'll help us!"

"It's up the road, across from Maccas" yelled astrocave as he sprinted past us, with Loisa jogging gamely along behind. We ran along with them, and managed to make it to Urban Central at 12.29, just in time to do a 5 storey face-first rappel down the building. Well, two of us had to rappel. Despite me being the one going "oh, abseiling, that'd be fun, we should try and get to that" Sal actually volunteered. I thought that was because she'd looked at it and thought "oh cool" but she admitted later that she was on the point of chickening out and spoke up quickly before she actually did so. So she and Loisa got to climb 5 flights of stairs and then rappel down while astrocave and I cheered and took photos.

Sal made it to the bottom and we looked at our watches. During the tram ride from Docklands we'd had a bit of discussion about whether to try and finish all the checkpoints or go for the higher placed finish. Sal felt that we could get a quite good finish time, so we decided to head straight for the line, while Team Equilax ran for the second last of their checkpoints.

This left us with only one thing to do: Checkpoint 13:

To complete this checkpoint you have to collect a minimum of $10 from the public on behalf of Mission Australia (Urban Max charity partner). This is a "roaming task' and can be performed anywhere in Melbourne. To successfully complete this task you have to hand over the cash you collected, at the finish. You have been given 3 Mission Australia Bands and a money bag to help you complete this task.

We were, quite frankly, pretty bad at this. Not least because I kept calling it Urban Mission. And because we had no idea what Mission Australia did/does, which makes it hard to ask people for money for them! And the bands kept being down the bottom of the backpack when we wanted them. We did end up with $10 though.

So - onto yet another tram, and then around Albert Park Lake. Up the stairs and through the finish line for a time of 4 hours 6 minutes. This was enough, it transpired, to put us 5th in the women's social division and 9th overall in the social division! We were very chuffed and headed straight out for our free food.

Twenty minutes later, Team Esquilax rocked up, having completed two checkpoints in a very fast time to put them equal 9th in the mixed racing and equal 20th overall in the racing category. Which was damn good.

While we were waiting for the results and prizes astrocave filled me in on the other checkpoints they'd done:

Checkpoint 10:

After September 11, 2001, working out seems to be no longer as fun. With my bigger brother now gone the 5 of us must now stand tall and continue to trade business as usual. If we are to have the power to go on we must build up our fitness and strength from the very bottom level.

This was, as we'd guessed, in a fitness centre at the World Trade Centre building on the Yarra. The activity was apparently very strenuous - one person had to do four fitness challenges, none of which were easy - so we were kind of glad we missed it actually!

Checkpoint 9:

Located in the area bounded by Coventry, Cecil and York Streets, this market is regarded as one of Melbourne's best fresh produce markets. Your task is to located the "Urban Max Stall" and complete and other "challenging" activity.

This was the South Melbourne Market, which again we had guessed. The activity turned out to be a wooden puzzle, which Loisa put together almost immediately.

Checkpoint 11:

http://www.maxadventure.com.au/urbanmax/cp11.htm

We knew what this one was for three reasons - one, I'd gotten Marcus to look at the page (it was an ariel shot of Albert Park Lake with the Powerhouse and piers ringed; two, astrocave had overheard someone before the start talking about kayaks; and three - we'd gone past it on the way to the finish line. Basically you had to kayak from the Powerhouse across Albert Park Lake to a buoy and back. It looked like fun - but we decided to go for the time anyway!

So yeah, a fun if somewhat strenuous Saturday! We did much better than we thought we would - even if we'd done racing we probably only would have been about an hour later than what we were. Next year we're going to attempt the racing. This time I'll take the map out. And possibly train more!

Sunday I played indoor soccer, which we lost 7-5. I felt fine most of Sunday. Then I got up Monday and started to really feel my muscles. So I played netball (lost 28-20.)

This morning, when I ran for the tram (again, it seems to be a theme of mine) I could really, really feel my muscles. Which could be good, or could be bad. Either way, you'd think I'd be fitter[9]. Or thinner. Or taller. But not.

[1]never let me name your team when I'm tired. I can't think of good names.
[2]I didn't get the reference until it was explained to me.
[3]OK, it wasn't quite Phil, but I'll live.
[4]It took me a while to realise that this was our team number, despite both of us wearing bibs with the number prominently displayed.
[5]Sal told me afterwards that she'd pulled out number 93, then 94. "They're not in order!" said the cheery marshall. She then pulled out 92. Heh.
[6]I got really paranoid that we'd missed something, but no, apparently that was it. Even though the clue was plural.
[7]There was one train (Glen Waverley) going via there but it wasn't leaving for 27 minutes.
[8]She's totally our Fern.
[9]This whole thing was sponsored by Weightwatchers. So the entire time we were wearing bibs with their logo on it. I'm sure there were quite a few people looking at me and going "well, at least I can see why the fat chick's doing it..."

Comments

[vestalvagrant.livejournal.com]

Urban Max sounds amazing! My mum's family has a plaque in the Immigration Museum Tribute Garden.

[hnpcc]

It was fantastic fun, I highly recommend it if you're up for it at all.

[bungo.livejournal.com]

Sounds fun.

Checkpoint 1: I could never figure out why Cook's Cottage ended up in Melbourne... surely Sydney or Cooktown would have been more appropriate. Did he ever go anywhere near Port Phillip Bay?

[hnpcc]

No, never came close (Botany Bay would probably be the closest he got I think actually.) It's here because we bought it, no other reason. Bizarre when you think about it. But easy to find!

[undergroundsea.livejournal.com]

lol@[9] I felt virtually exercised by everything you did this weekend! Urban Max sounds like a really exciting challenge. I don't know how you pulled it together. I hope your knobbly knee is getting better as the week progresses!

[hnpcc]

My knee's actually been fine since Monday afternoon - it sort of went in and out a few more times Sunday and Monday but seems to have decided to go back in properly now (thank God.)

Urban Max was a lot of fun, I'd totally do it again!