Team Teriyaki Donut in Seattle Night and Day 2007

Introduction

Usually in Night and Day, Team Teriyaki Donut is Elizabeth Walkup and I, Greg Barnes. But Elizabeth was not feeling well, and certainly didn't want to bike much in the rain, so we split into two teams. Elizabeth did 3 hours on foot as Cipro Slackin', and I stayed in the 7-hour bike class. We have lived in Seattle continuously since 1998, and off and on for about 10 years before that.

All the checkpoints were north of Yesler, so I was familiar with most of the area, and particularly knowledgable about those near Green Lake and in the NE section of the city.

The Weather

The weather forecast called for rain to start in the evening and not let up, and the forecast was correct. Fortunately (or not), I had gone through similar weather in the Everett Street Scramble, so I knew I could do it, and I knew roughly what to expect. Much of what happened then happened again during Night and Day: I got wet, my glasses became useless, my map cases stopped being useful, my pens stopped working. (Fortunately, the pens were the last to go.) The only real difference was that the darkness made it even harder to see, especially without my glasses.

Summary

I planned a route to pick up all the checkpoints, and nearly did it. I ended up visiting 49 of the 56 checkpoints, and got 2740 of the 3000 points. The 7 checkpoints I missed were all in the NE, due to my strategy (see below), and I estimate a simple 7-8 mile loop would have picked them up. So I could have swept the course if I had had 8 hours instead (or, maybe in 7 hours if it hadn't rained).

Route planning

As ever, my strategy was to leave familiar checkpoints until the end, since when it gets dark, it's a lot harder to find checkpoints. I chose to leave the checkpoints around the Burke-Gilman Trail, in View Ridge and Wedgwood, and around Ravenna Park for the end. I would have also left those near Green Lake, but the LuluLemon checkpoint closed at 6pm, so it was clear I had to visit it near the start.

The intention sheet was a great help when planning the overall route, as it was the only map with all the checkpoints on it. I actually filled it out first. If I was to leave the NE to the end, then either I had to do the NW or the SE checkpoints just before that. I knew checkpoint 72 (north of Lake City) and 80 (on the Burke Gilman just east of Lake City) should be done sequentially, and I'd climbed the hill up 125th from the Burke-Gilman before, and knew I didn't want to do that again, so that meant a clockwise circuit made more sense. This meant I'd cross the ship canal at the University or Montlake Bridges, and recross at the Locks (which close at 9, but if I were to even come close to picking up all the north checkpoints, I would have to get there well before that). I finally decided I would go to LuluLemon first and follow a smaller loop from there north of the Lake, before heading down to Gasworks and the Eastlake checkpoint. This would leave a fairly obvious loop of the rest of the checkpoints, although there were numerous minor problems, in particular 31 and 32 on opposite banks of Thornton Creek, 56 and 69 on the north end of Capitol Hill, and the exact order of the Magnolia checkpoints.

A few things I didn't worry about:

• I live on View Ridge, and there was no way I was going to climb View Ridge from the east (65 to 55). This meant it was an easy choice to go all the way down the Burke-Gilman to 37 and 61, then make a mini-loop through View Ridge and Wedgwood starting from the south. As it turned out, I didn't have time for this loop, but that was the plan.
• I didn't really worry about the exact route through Ravenna Park, since I knew the area well and figured I could improvise on the fly. This I ended up doing.
• I didn't know which order I would do the two checkpoints near the Montlake Bridge; I figured if the University Bridge was down after hitting 66 (Eastlake) I would cross it and get 57 (Oceanography Building). Otherwise I'd get 45 (West Montlake Park) first.
• There was no chance I would use the Carkeek Park trail system to get between the two Carkeek Park checkpoints. I knew that would involve a pointless descent and ascent, on dirt trails. Even if it hadn't been raining, this would not have been a good idea.
• I didn't worry about beating the closing time of the cemetery, as the detour wasn't that big, and hitting the nearby checkpoints before 8pm would have meant completely changing the route.

After I had the order of the checkpoints figured out, I marked up an exact route on the event maps, using the Seattle bike map. At this point, I figured out exactly where most of the unknown checkpoints were (for instance, the Madrona checkpoint was on Marion, the Meridian Park checkpoint at the end of Bagley, etc.), and figured out a good route to approach them. It was during this process that I figured out the best route from 75 (Madison Park) to 76 (Madrona). For some reason I was thinking I would have to climb up from Lake Washington, but then I remembered that requires a descent from McGilvra Boulevard down to the water, and decided instead to reverse a route we'd taken a couple of times previously out of Madrona (climbing the switchback up from McGilvra and then heading south on Dorffel). The previous two times we'd done this route, I had gotten lost, so I kept my Seattle bicycle map open to this area in my map cases.

While I was still working out the fine details, Terry started making announcements, which was my cue to wrap it up and get ready to ride. At some point here, it started sprinkling a little, but then it stopped and held off for a couple of hours.

My actual route

Here is my route at Gmaps-pedometer. I visited the following checkpoints in this order: 35 [LuluLemon], 38 [west Maple Leaf], 47 [NSCC], 60 [Wilson School], 51 [Greenwood Park], 33 [Phinney Ridge], 36 [zoo], 44 [Woodland Park], 50 [Meridian Park], 74 [Gasworks Park], 66 [Eastlake Trail], 57 [Oceanography Building], 45 [West Montlake Park], 75 [Madison Park], 76 [Madrona], 67 [TT Minor School], 69 [23rd and Galer], 56 [Boren Overlook], 84 [Western and Union], 64 [Denny Park], 82 [Memorial Stadium], 68 [Apartment Complex near Galer overpass], 100 [Queen Anne Community Center], 52 [SPU], 73 [Lawton Park], 59 [Bay View Playground], 48 [West Magnolia Playfield], 79 [animals on 34th Ct W], 78 [Discovery Park], 81 [Railroad bridge], 70 [Sunset Hill Park], 63 [Salmon Bay Playground], 62 [South Carkeek Park], 53 [North Carkeek Park], 71 [Bitter Lake], 83 [Interurban Trail], 41 [Stone Ave], 77 [Northacres Park], 49 [Northgate non-gate], 72 [north of Lake City], 80 [BGT and Lakeside Pl], 58 [BGT and NE 93rd St.], 65 [Sand Point steps], 37 [50th and BGT], 61 [NE 42nd St], 42 [BGT and Blakeley], 46 [north of Ravenna Park], 40 [west of Ravenna Park], 30 [John Marshall School]

According to Gmaps, I rode a little under 66 miles. This is a little under 10mph.

At 5pm, I was between Eastlake and the University. At 6pm I had just left TT Minor School. At 7pm I was heading off Queen Anne. At 8pm I was about to cross the Locks. At 9pm I was leaving Bitter Lake. At 10pm I had just reached the Burke Gilman Trail. So, by hour:

• 4-5pm: 490 points, 11 checkpoints
• 5-6pm: 290 points, 5 checkpoints
• 6-7pm: 490 points, 7 checkpoints
• 7-8pm: 430 points, 7 checkpoints
• 8-9pm: 310 points, 5 checkpoints
• 9-10pm: 380 points, 6 checkpoints
• 10-11pm: 350 points, 8 checkpoints

Rambling chronology

• I was ready for the start, and successfully aimed my bike out of the crowd and onto the street. I noticed another men's bike team was taking the Green Lake trail clockwise, which is not the way you're supposed to go, folks. I got to LuluLemon before anyone else, and then proceeded to have trouble finding it. I wandered up and down Woodlawn Ave NE until I decided to go back to 72nd, which was the address I recalled from their ad in the flyer. By this time there was a crowd around the entrance, and I found it easily. I think my problem was that I was expecting a yellow sign, which they don't have, but the gym on the nearby corner does, and that distracted me.
• From there, it was a small climb up the side of Maple Leaf to an area I had explored a number of times in the past on trips to Silver Platters. As I was leaving the Maple Leaf checkpoint, I saw another biker who had cut through to the checkpoint from the south. Pretty clever. I also noticed the bike-unfriendly chip-seal paving job on the local streets. All the loose gravel this process creates makes it hard to bike and hard to stop.
• Near 47 (NSCC), I started running into foot teams going the other direction. A number of them were at or around the Wilson School checkpoint. Luckily, thanks to the Ballard Street Scramble a few weeks before, I knew a route through the school grounds on the covered walkways. As I was heading west on 90th, I saw Elizabeth going the other way.
• For a more gentle climb up Phinney Ridge, I jogged over from Fremont to Dayton. At checkpoint 33 (Phinney Ridge) I was momentarily confused because I read the wrong clue, but soon figured out my error. After leaving, I powered up the rest of the Ridge via the direct route, and headed down to the zoo, where there were a few other teams. Unfortunately, after leaving the zoo I saw a team crossing Aurora via the street. My, that was dangerous. I took the first overpass to the south, which deposited me just above the Woodland Park checkpoint. After that checkpoint, I don't think I saw any other teams until Magnolia.
• 74 (Gasworks Park) was on the western exit from the Park that I'd used in another race two weeks earlier, so I didn't have any trouble there. I did, however, have trouble at 66, the Eastlake checkpoint. I was certain this was the little paved bike trail that links Harvard Ave E to the end of Franklin Ave E, but I was wrong. There were no large concrete blocks here. I consulted the map, and decided it could be the next street or alley over, and descended back down the hill to the north, where, sure enough, there was an alley about half a block to the west. It ended in concrete blocks, but they had no writing on them. So I followed a footpath further south, which ended in more concrete blocks, with my initials on them. I didn't do it!
• The University Bridge was down, so I headed across and behind the Medical Center. After visiting the old fish hatchery, I looked across the ship canal and could clearly see the answer to checkpoint 45. I visited it, anyway.
• Given how few checkpoints I got in the second hour, I should probably have picked up the Montlake checkpoints first, then Eastlake and the checkpoints on North Capitol Hill. Ah, hindsight. Instead I headed out to Madison Park, which I reached at around 5:30. I took a snack break, then stopped a few minutes later to take an Aleve for a twinge in my right knee. It didn't bother me the rest of the ride.
• At 69 (Galer and 23rd), I had planned to backtrack to a more sane climb, but when I saw it, I knew I could climb the sidewalk to the west, so I just took it.
• 56 (Boren Overlook): haven't I seen this question before? Somewhere after Capitol Hill, I believe I slipped on my clip-on sunglasses. Not, of course, because it was sunny, but because it was raining, and I figured if I kept them in their flipped-up position, it might keep some rain off my lenses. This worked for a while.
• At 82 (Memorial Stadium) there was none of the problems of past Bites of Seattle (for more on this, see a recent Stranger Police Beat). Someone doing security was happy to tell me the answer, but I could see it, anyway. Afterwards, I had a nice gentle climb up the side of Queen Anne on a route I'd never taken before.
• At 100 (Queen Anne Community Center) I was planning to take a break and get some more water, but it was really starting to rain. I had also planned to put on a layer over my T-shirt, as it was now starting to rain steadily, but the combination of a temporary lull in the rain and the hillclimb made me skip this. I didn't see a water fountain, so I kept on going.
• After 52 (SPU), I tried W Emerson Street, which parallels my usual route of Nickerson St., in hopes this would avoid the small hill on Nickerson. I'm not sure it worked, but it certainly wasn't any worse. After the flyover to Fisherman's Terminal, I climbed up the hill to Lawton Park (73), which I was familiar with because our family visited it a few weeks ago. I took the steep hill back east down Thurman from the park very slowly, with my brakes squealing all the way. Looking at the map now, I realize I could have climbed up the path in the park to the southern exit and out 26th Pl W, which would have avoided this steep descent.
• Heading south from 73 to 59 (Bay View Park), I took 24th Ave W. I had taken 23rd Ave W just a few days earlier, and it was a gentle ascent, but 24th was much more hilly. After Bay View, I had originally decided to go down to the Magnolia Loop and checkpoint 79, but instead I decided to power over the hill to 48 (West Magnolia Playfield) instead, as I'd climbed that hill twice on the day of the Ballard Street Scramble and knew I could do it. At 48, I once again failed to find water, but did take a short break in the somewhat dry area under the trees near the checkpoint to eat a little trail mix.
• Just before 79 (animals on 34th Ct W.), I saw Doug Beyerlein heading in the opposite direction. This was the first participant (that I noticed) since back in Woodland Park. Somewhere in here, I believe I also took off my glasses for good.

• Just as I started crossing the wooden footbridge (81), I remembered that wet wood and bicycle tires don't mix, just before I fishtailed and fell. Luckily the bridge was narrow enough that I could grab the railings and only fell on one hand, but that was enough for a small bleeding cut on a few fingers. I sucked on the largest one, but everything back together, and walked the bike across the bridge. I had thought I would fill up my water bottles for sure at the Locks, and as I got to Commodore Park, I saw the water fountain I knew in the back of my mind was there.

  At this point, it was just before 8pm, and I decided to regroup and get myself ready for the night and the rain (it was clear now that it was not going to stop). First, of course, I filled my water bottles. Then I put on my rain jacket over my wet shirt. As I was getting out my jacket, I noticed the alternate answer sheet. I was already having trouble with the official answer sheet getting wet, so I decided to fold it in half to keep it away from the edge of my map case, and consult the alternate answer sheet whenever I wanted to know details about the next question and answers. Similarly, I also folded my maps smaller to keep them away from the edges. After the Locks, I only needed the north map, anyway.

• Heading down to 53 (North Carkeek Park), I saw a mixed bike team with much brighter lights then I. I could definitely have used brighter lights, as I next encountered fog coming up from Piper's Creek. I could still see a good distance in front of me, but it made the scene even more surreal.
• I picked up the Interurban Trail just after leaving Bitter Lake (71) and, just as I was leaving it after visiting 83, I saw a solo man on foot.
• After 41 (Stone Ave), I had planned to go back to N 115th, but it looked like following the trail north would allow me to cut over to N 121st without backtracking. I couldn't find this trail on the overgrown path, so instead I went all the way up to 125th. I can recall taking this path during the North Aurora Street Scramble (2004), and it wasn't nearly this overgrown.
• At 77 (Northacres), a mixed foot team caught up with me. It was a little after 9, and I had just received a text message from Elizabeth telling me she was now home (after winning the 3-hour women's foot competition). The foot team said they were going to start heading back after visiting 49. I was also going to visit 49 next, but I wasn't heading back. I'm guessing they made a smarter route choice then I, going up to 130th to cross the freeway. I went much further out of the way, back down to a familiar crossing at 117th.
• By this point, I was hardly consulting my maps and answer sheets at all, for fear of damaging them. I would remember two answers at a time to avoid undue handling of the answer sheet and prevent wiping off any previous answers (I'd already had to remark a few of them, and was down to my last pen). I had to take my map out at some point to make the correct quadrant visible, and was afraid it would start falling apart. My alternate answer sheet was already starting to fall apart. I tried to get to 49 by memory, and was afraid I'd gone too far when I thought I saw an address above 12800. But I was mistaken, as the next right was my street. At 49, my first of the two 'locked gate/open gate/no gate' questions, it took me a bit of investigation to decide there was no gate.
• I headed east on 125th for a while before the traffic got too much for me and I headed north on 15th, then right on the quiet NE 135th St. At checkpoint 72 (north of Lake City), I did an inordinate amount of walking around, mostly because I'd forgotten the question, didn't want to pull out either answer sheet, and didn't have much light to read it, anyway. Under a lightpost I figured out the answer. By this point I'd pulled out an extra LED flashlight I had fortuitously thought to pack, and stuck it in my jacket pocket.
• 72 was the last checkpoint on a street I had never visited (well, I'd never gone up to the dead end at 30 (John Marshall School), but I'd certainly been on all the surrounding streets. I made my way east to Lake City Way, and biked down it to 130th; even in the dark and the rain, Lake City Way isn't very threatening at 9:50pm on a Saturday. My last navigational challenge was to get down to the Burke Gilman Trail via Lakeside Pl NE. It was pretty easy until the last section, which was very steep. I rode my brakes down this section, squeaking horribly. There was actually a woman walking up the street from the trail, and I had to apologize for the noise. Just before 10pm I made it down to the trail and answered checkpoint 80.
• I had originally planned to visit 31 and 32 (bridging Thornton Creek) before hitting the trail, but it was an easy decision to skip them. Elizabeth and I had traversed the trail between these two on the North Aurora Street Scramble, and it was a mess of staircases and boards over bogs back then. I can't imagine how bad it would have been after 5 hours of rain. In hindsight, these were better reached from the south, anyway, and the best bike strategy would probably be to leave the bike at one and hoof it to the other.
• The Burke-Gilman Trail was fairly fast, but presented a few problems due to the dark and rain. It was very dark, and I overtook a couple of pedestrians wearing dark raincoats in the first mile. I told them they were very hard to see, but I had to slow down after this to make sure I didn't run anyone down. Even ignoring the pedestrians, the rain weighed down the tree branches, and I got hit in the head a few times and once in the face. Luckily there was no harm done.
• 58 (BGT and NE 93rd St.) was a very familiar checkpoint to me, as I often take this trail exit to get home. Similarly, I knew just when to leave the trail for 65 (Sand Point steps), as this is near a route I used a few times to get Emmett home from soccer practice. At the steps, I wrote in an explanation of my answer, as there were 7 total steps with a landing between, and I was afraid the set of 5 might be mistaken for another answer (4). It was at this checkpoint that my alternate answer sheet officially turned into mush (probably because the next checkpoints were on the other side of the paper and required me unfolding it). At the Pigs on Parade Street Scramble, I found the forgotten answer sheet in my jacket pocket, a solid ball of crusted-together paper.
• 37 (50th and BGT) was another familiar checkpoint. I knew there was no road bend on the west side of the trail, but guessed the east section of 50th might bend into Railroad Ave NE, and I was right.
• After 61, I had a little over half an hour left, and had to modify my route. Fortunately, I had noticed that this was the last checkpoint worth more than 60 points, so I didn't feel bad about skipping any of the remaining checkpoints. I decided to skip the View Ridge Loop (34, 55, 39) and just head over to the 40-point checkpoints near Ravenna Park. The first of these was 42 (BGT and Blakeley). To save time, I cut through University Village, which, in hindsight, was not a good shortcut. I should have just followed Blakeley. Also, I fell for the second time getting onto the trail from the UW Motor Pool parking lot.
• I decided to skip 43 (east of Ravenna Park) and head for 46 (north of Ravenna Park) instead. I figured if I had time, I could pick up the highest-value remaining checkpoint, 54. All three of these checkpoints I was familiar with: 46 is on the way home from work. 43 is at the other end of some footbridges I explored many times when I lived nearby. And I noticed the peculiar non-alignment of the two halves of 21st Ave NE (54) once while househunting. If I'd had the time after 46, I would have biked over to the west end of the bridge near 43 and walked over, but I only had about 15 minutes left when I got to 46. Also, all my pens were basically dead at this point, so my only hope was to memorize the answers and bum a pencil at the finish line (why I didn't pack a pencil to begin with I don't know).
• 40 was another familiar checkpoint; if you have to transport a child in a Burley trailer from the 20th Ave NE bridge to the University District, you'd have tried the old trolley bed on the south side of the Ravenna Park ravine, which takes you right to it. From there I merely had to zoom back to the start on Ravenna Boulevard, with a stop at checkpoint 30 (the second of those locked gate/open gate/no gate questions). I had a few minutes to spare at the finish line to bum the pencil and write in my remembered answers.
• Afterwards, there was 40 minutes or so of huddling under tents, changing my wet shirt, eating the food (Cup O' Noodles are nasty, but watermelon is still great), and waiting for results. I knew no one would come close to my score; most impressive to me were the high foot scores of John Zobel and Doug Beyerlein. For my work, I got a $10 gift certificate to Seattle Running Company (which I'm sure Elizabeth will find a use for).
• The trouble with a theme is that the rest of the creativity of the checkpoints has to be subservient to the theme, so not surprisingly there were a lot of not very interesting locations. The dog park sign at Northacres (77), Lawton Park (73) and the sign at Madison Beach (75) were the most interesting to me, although I have to give props for fooling me at 66 (Eastlake) and for finding the jog in 21st Ave NE (54, which I didn't have time to visit).

Back to my home page.

gsbarnes [at] drizzle.com