My brother an I arrived apprehensive, at the staging ground for the event. Two of our team's five members were almost late. Our team was finally complete when Dylan and Max showed up right as Burn Unit started giving us the rules. After a mad three or four block sprint to put us out ahead of the mass of people, we slowed the pace to a leisurely jog as we moved along university. Somewhere around university and cedar aves, we encountered our first chaser (Doktor Harmon) who was hiding behind a bus stop. I yelled "CHASER!" and the group scattered. I remember him chasing me across university multiple times before I jumped through a a row of bikes and he switched his attention from me to Sean, who ended up evading him despite his asthma. I hid behind a trash receptacle to catch my breath, and when the good Doktor had gone, Max and I found our way inside one of the university buildings. We rendezvoused with our team at 'The Purple Onion', got a drink, then pressed on to the first Stage.

I'm fairly sure that we were the first team to reach it, and after a successful sign-off we decided to get the bonus point. It would have been the most perfect place for an ambush. Lucky for us no one had thought of that yet. We decided to make good use of the walking bridge's safe-zone and use it to get to the next checkpoint. We got cautious near the mouth of the walking tunnel and decided to make a sharp right behind a wall and down a ramp. There was a gap between the wall and the building we wanted to keep running behind, and there were chasers positioned so that they would see us if we ran. We decided to take a chance and run to a door to see if it was unlocked. Another stroke of luck! The door was open. Unfortunately, we were separated from Jesse, who didn't notice us run in the door. We were safe for the moment. After using the tunnel to Wilson Hall, we hit a pit stop, then ventured outside.


We came out surprisingly near Stage two, the (aptly named) Hard Times Cafe. We ran into the parking structure directly across the street from it to check the lay of the land, evidently some chasers saw us on the second floor. Max and Dylan were able to make it out of the stairway and were not caught. Sean and I were trapped inside the stairwell, and were forced to run up to the top. We held the doors closed, but as we were only two, and there was another chaser coming up the back way, we were boned anyway. We were caught. What they didn't know was that we had designs to help our team to the finish no matter what.


We eventually regrouped with the rest of the team, and formed a plan of action. We headed around to the west side of the hard times, where I was distracted by two runners (after all, those ribbons were still worth points to me), who I caught. After much ado, they were able to make it in and get their signature. The team now consisted of three chasers (Myself, Jesse, and Sean), and two runners (Max and Dylan). We headed for the light rail.


We encoutered no chaser interference on the way, but ran into a team of three (which included Sithlet) on the platform. They discovered our plan and got on the train with us. We ended up going one stop too far (nicollet mall instead of government plaza). Dylan and Max took full advantage of their 15 second head start and sprinted off. When we met up a few minutes later it was decided that it was only neccesary to have one chaser protecting the runners, so Jesse and I took off Loring park. There we caught two runners, and decided to move to six, as five was ridiculously out of the way. On the way to six we met the Plan B team, who originally tagged me out, and another chaser who was staking out the hyatt. As Jesse and I were walking away from six, after hearing that it was so hot we probably wouldn't get any 'kills', we saw a lone runner. It turned out that it was a resurrection ribbon, and he was caught just before we got to him by the guy (who's name I don't recall) who finished first. Right after that, we saw the remnants of our team, who we decided to help out. We 'chased' them through a parking lot where we met with another chaser. He didn't seem to register that two of our five were still blue, so we let him believe it. We went around orchestra hall the long way, sprinted through the mostly empty pond, and finished.


Dylan and Max ended up winning the 1st Place Runner trophy, but weren't at the after-party. I'll have a picture of them with it at a later date.


All in all, it was an extremely well spent night, and I look forward to the next one. Though maybe I should think ahead and train a little bit...

~Rob