I knew I wasn't very athletic, and couldn't outrun those art school kids, so I thought ahead and brought bribes: fancy chocolate. Packed my bag full of it, along with bottled water, and set out for the starting point. Upon receiving the map, I called the DC phone number immediately, figuring once the game was in play I'd get a busy signal. Sure enough, someone answered and gave me the address. A few more times over the night, I simply called to see if anyone needed the box number, and every time someone answered... guess I needn't have worried about the crowd. I asked all the DC players where they were, geographically, and everyone seemed to be confused by the question - one did say they were on Mass Ave, but no neighborhood, cross-street, nothing. I'm really curious where they were!

We booked it north off Columbus & Jackson to Adams, catching the #4 bus in our group of five with no difficulty, taking it to 11th & Michigan and the first checkpoint easily. We crossed Michigan and went through the lobby of my building with my electronic passkey out to the alley behind, crossed through the Sam's parking lot, and easily made it to the Roosevelt CTA station, where we met up with a Chaser on a bike with a flat. We kindly pointed him in the direction of a free bike pump, and, having dispatched him, crossed over State to the bridge, where we reached the second checkpoint easily.

We cut through the Whole Foods and the mall to use the washroom (men's was closed, we ladies stood watch while the guys peed). Out on the side, we went along the balcony to Taylor and cut across north to Halsted by UIC, eluding chasers. We ran into plenty of players on the bus, who let us know that the bonus checkpoint could sign off on the third AND another checkpoint... so we made the call to go to the bonus. That was our mistake.

We got off on 16th street, and zigzagged through alleys, eventually scattering when someone spotted another person and assumed it was a chaser. We all ended up popping up side alleys along 19th street near the bonus checkpoint, but there was a PHALANX of young, spry, aggressive chasers lining the street, and all of us but one were caught immediately. It was actually kind of lame - some younger ladies tagged my friend and kept running to catch others, but when they came to collect her blue armband, they weren't wearing red ones, saying they'd "run out." We thought this was lame and started to walk away towards the bonus checkpoint, but they started yelling "CHEATERS!" and jeering at us, and we decided not to pick a fight with these immature girls - so we said fuck it, passed over our blue armbands, and sat on the stoop at the bonus checkpoint and hung out with the minders of the checkpoint, who were really cool peeps. There really should have been a safe zone around the bonus checkpoint. Once it stops being fun, we weren't interested... we're just not aggressive people, so whatever. I was tempted to just "catch" one blue player, take their armband, and continue on my journey but decline the medal at the end... but decided that was too close to cheating even though I would have turned down the award at the end.

One of our merry band of players is black, and he was the only one who got away from the chasers in Pilsen - running full speed through alleys, jumping over trashcans while being chased by some young punk. He finally realized what a tactical "real world" mistake that was... a young black guy running as fast as he could, being pursued by someone, wearing armbands, through the alleys of a neighborhood he didn't know. So instead of risking bodily harm by non-player neighbors, he took off his blue, dropped it, and put on the red to walk back and meet the rest of us by the bonus checkpoint. I gave everyone there some chocolate, hung out for a bit, and took the Halsted bus to the orange line and headed home.

All in all, I really enjoyed the orienteering part of this game, and the scavenger-hunt aspect, but the running and aggression of chasers, not so much. I would rather have had the opportunity to go through the course and not worried about running from kids much more spry than I.