I started out in a group of three, though early on we accumulated a few more runners. We lost a lot of time early on by running through bonus checkpoints, keeping us at the back of the crowd and largely out of harm's way. Once we got to the third (official) checkpoint and recieved our yellow ribbons (and thus, didn't have to take any more side trips) we quickly made our way back into the thick of things.

Another group arrived at Checkpoint 3 just after we did, and we cleared out while they were sorting their business, heading northwest. Almost immediately, the herd started stampeding from behind me, someone shouting about a chaser. We all broke off into a desperate run, funneled through the unforgiving straightaway by buildings on either side of the street. At my first opportunity, I broke left around some weird decorative structure, and only just in time. The chaser, one of the guys with spray-painted orange hair, flashed past me (still following the runners who went straight) and I panicked again and started running, following my friend MPuzzle's lead up a... weird planter, display, thingy across 2nd Ave. hiding in the dark and shadows.

As I bolted up the bottom levels of the tiered... thing, I saw the Chaser making his way around, apparently having been momentarily distracted by something, before heading back to the northwest. Making my way low and quietly to the top of the... thing, I verified that he was nowhere in sight, and came back down. MPuzzle, Gabrielle and myself were all that was left of our original seven. We picked up another stray, but she quickly evaporated into the night before we so much as got her name.

We made our way to Nicollet, hoping to find a bus relatively close. There was one a few blocks down, very slowly making it's way towards us. Not knowing what happened to the Chaser(s?) from checkpoint three, we all tried watching every direction at once, willing the bus to come faster. As we were walking towards the bus stop, just as I was about to suggest calling Dawn, who was seperated from us, she appeared from around a kiosk. I slowed my pace as I checked her arm - blue ribbon still, but the yellow was gone.

We traded stories until finally the bus arrived and we were safe. Boarding the bus, I scanned the other passengers, looking for arm bands and finding none. We settled in for the ride, but before long, we spotted the orange-headed Chaser who broke us up after checkpoint 3 walking along the bus route as it approached the next bus stop. We muttered quietly, each of us trying, through the force of our will, to prevent him from boarding the bus, but to no avail.

I was sitting in a forward facing seat immediately behind the sideways facing seat the Chaser settled into. Just as we did, he scanned the occupants of the bus as each of us tried to look casual and cover our armbands, somehow. A splash of yellow poked out around my bag, betraying me, but I tried to keep cool, consciously ignoring him as he looked me over.

Eventually I broke into an embarrassed grin and explained, for our Chaser's benefit, "That was my 'Poker Face.'"

He grinned and our party at once relaxed, for not having to try and play coy anymore, and tensed up, knowing that the chase was on. Explanations were offered that we weren't worth the trouble, that he should find better targets, and the like. All the while, the bus rode through the night. We made small talk, he asked if we were having a good time and we quickly assured him we were.

By this time, some of the other passengers started looking at the lot of us, knowing that there was something going on. Our host explained, briefly, the game, explaining with a grin, "and these guys are in trouble once they get off the bus."

"Oh, we're not getting off the bus," I assured him. "We're going to find out where the bus ends. Yes."

As we spoke, the stop we had intended to get off at came and went and soon the Chaser gave up on us, choosing to get off somewhere in the general area of where he wanted to be rather than try and wait us out.

Some three blocks after the stop we wanted, we finally debarked the bus, jumped a fence, and ran for the shadows. Orange was fast, after all, and we couldn't be sure that he didn't get off the bus just to get us to move so he could come after us. As it happened, we made our way to Loring Park, and into view of checkpoint four, without further interruption. Checkpoint four itself, however, had more chasers drifting about. The checkpoint was out in the open and there was no safe approach so in the end we just broke and ran for it. I stayed close, but far enough back that the Chasers would hopefully have already picked (other) targets by the time I got there, and it worked out.

I'm pretty sure we all made it, actually, and manifests were signed. Once again, we waited for a gap in Chaser attentiveness, and broke away. We made our way through a large, open courtyard between some apartment buildings. Here, opportunities for ambush were plentiful and we were on high alert as we made our way, as hurriedly as we could, through them.

When we finally came back to Nicollet Ave. we saw a bus pulling up to a stop at the corner. Being that the bus meant safety as well as rapid transportation (and another chance to sit) we ran for it, arriving at the stop just as the bus pulled up. Hurriedly we filed in and sat down, plotting out what we would do for the next stop.

According to our maps, it appeared that we would only have to make it across the street to be in the next safe zone. My council was to overshoot by one block and come back around, but in the end we decided that we could scope out the checkpoint from the safety of the bus and make our decision then. As we approached, the checkpoint appeared clear so we all filed out of the bus and broke into a run to make it across the street.

Just before I hit the sidewalk, I saw Jane, one of the Chasers, bolt out on an intercept course along the sidewalk. Torqueing my knee and almost taking out one of my fellow Runners in the process, I made an immediate change of directions and ran in the street on the other side of some parked cars, then running straight into the door of the coffee shop.

Inside there was a man at a table with a hideously fake blue beard. Not pausing for anything, I sat down across from him, sweaty and breathless, and offered my manifest.

Outside, Jane and Liz were circling, waiting for us to break out of the safe zone. Jane was right on our corner, and Liz was guarding the bus stop across the street. Talk was made of finding a back door. MPuzzle had asked but had been told there wasn't one.

Dawn went to find one herself, soon returning and pulling MPuzzle inside to go to the bathroom. Jane was eyeing us up, knowing that there was something going on. I tried to come up with a way that I could get the other members of my team to quietly join us, but it just wouldn't work. As casually as I could, I made my way inside, looking for the back door that had to be there. At about the time I laid eyes on it, MPuzzle was calling to clue me in.

Outside, we briefly discussed our options and if there was a way to bring our fellow runners to safety with us, but it just wasn't feasible, not without putting ourselves in too much risk, so we bolted through the night, ditching down the alley and skirting around some residences. After we decided that we had a good head start, even if we weren't exactly safe, I called the coffee shop (through 411) and asked the annoyed clerk if he could discreetly let Gabrielle know about the back door. "Fine. But this is the last thing I'm doing for you guys!" he snipped.

"I really appreciate it," I offered, glad that I was able to get my one request in.

Hoping that the rest of the team would have a shot, we continued on our journey, heading north on 1st, a block off the main route. Being that we were close to another bonus checkpoint, we decided to hit it, just for giggles. So far, there hadn't been any chaser activity at any of the bonus sites, so we were pretty confident.

What we found, instead, was that there didn't appear to be a bonus checkpoint again. This time there wasn't even any sign of it, whereas the missing third bonus at least had a note. Eventually, MPuzzle found the stamp while rooting through the garbage for a sammitch and again, we headed off to the north.

In relatively short order, we were back downtown and closing in on danger once again. Suddenly, we were within a block of the final checkpoint (I didn't realize just how close we were!) and we started moving quickly, staying in the shadows, looking for dark alleys. We moved swiftly between two buildings and jumped a fence into a parking lot. Dawn, on point, called out "Chaser!" MPuzzle darted back over the fence and I jumped into the dark confines of the shoulder-width gap between the building to my right and what was likely the enclosure for the building's dumpster, leaping over a rotting heap that may, once, have been a homeless person. The other side of said heap was no less disgusting, but far less deep, so I crept along the shadows, ensuring that there was a way out (albeit even narrower than the channel I was in) and trying to get a look around.

I saw nothing. Not Dawn, not a lingering Chaser, I had no idea if there was someone immediately on the other side of the wall, lurking outside the opening, or if everyone had moved on. I waited, listening, until I saw MPuzzle poke his head around on the far side of the building. Making a break for it, I scaled the fence back over to the safe(er) side and regrouped. A phone call to Dawn revealed that she had been caught by a chaser.

Not that we'd had any grand strategy to begin with, but now we needed to re-work it, assuming that Dawn would be after us, having known exactly where we were and more generally where we were planning to be. Very carefully, we crept back and around, opting to take an even longer route to the final checkpoint.

Eventually we made our way down Grant towards the Convention Center. As we crossed the street, I spied to our left a woman who seemed to be taking a little too much interest in us. I steered us a little to the right and she adjusted course to match us, quickening her pace a little.

"Let's go," I said and MPuzzle and I were running, the Chaser hot on our heels, I broke left as MPuzzle ran on and now the chaser was after me. I tried dodging and weaving through and over hedges and decorative rock piles and had started making some room between us. All the while, I kept reminding myself that I wanted this more, all I had to do was keep moving and make the Chaser realize that it wasn't worth the effort. I was winning when I tried to take a short-cut into what appeared to be a gap that might let me back out on the street.

Instead it turned out to be a solid wall and I was forced to loop back out to the right, affording the chaser a shortcut to gain some ground and the confidence to push harder. I was tiring, now, and wouldn't be able to run too much more. Searching for any escape, I found a fence separating the grass I was on from a parking lot. Rather than chain-link, it was an iron fence, two horizontal bars with maybe eighteen inches underneath them. Beyond that was a drop of two feet or so into an asphalt parking lot - too much of a drop to go over the fence. The chaser was right behind me and I wasn't even sure I had enough time for this, but I ducked down and slid to the fence, pulling myself under the lowest bar and sliding and rolling down the concrete embankment.

I staggered to my feet and glanced over my shoulder to see her standing at the top of the fence. "I'm gonna have to give you that one," she offered, staying put.

"Oh, god, thank you!" I called back, waving exhaustedly. I never stopped moving, but I was less frantic now, trying to make some distance, but unable to really run. I was safe from the Chaser, though, and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, hoping to quickly rejoin MPuzzle.

And that's when the other Chaser came around the corner.

"Oh, fuck you," I laughed.

Quickly I glanced around, maybe even took a few steps, but the area I was in was fenced all around, the only possible quick escape would be directly into the arms of the Chaser who had already almost run me down. Whatever I did, though, it was enough for the new Chaser to break into a run. I threw up my arms, stopped and called my hit. When she tagged me I fell to my knees on the asphalt in relief.

The Chaser who ran me joined our little party in the parking lot and, panting and out of breath, I started working my yellow ribbon off. I got it most of the way off before I thought to ask, "How long [pant] after I give you this [pant] do you guys come after me [pant] again?"

"Thirty seconds," the new Chaser offered.

"[pant] You don't get this yet [pant]."

She laughed, giving me the chance to catch my breath, explaining she had done the same thing earlier in the night. I drew this out as long as I felt I could without pushing the boundaries of sportsmanship, handed over my ribbon and we all wished each other luck in the remainder of the night. As quickly as I could, I ran into a parking garage across the street and almost panicked when I thought I'd just run myself into a dead end. Finding the pedestrian exit, I met MPuzzle on my way across the street and told him there were two Chasers and we had to keep moving.

Coming out of another narrow alley between two buildings, we fell in with a crowd of people on Nicollet moving, apparently, from one bar to another and rode that merry band until they broke just before our final destination. With the fountain area of the final checkpoint less than a block away, we broke into a run. This, of course, attracted some attention, and this time the Chaser went after MPuzzle while I skirted the edge of the fountain, above the level of the finish line, but below street level. As I went, I was searching about for the actual finish line and, once I found it, I ran up roughly parallel before dropping down several tiers of decorative nonsense, along the way jumping onto the bench of a couple who were making out in the shadows, calling over my shoulder as I leapt onto and then off of their bench, "Sorry!"

At the bottom, I made my way around and casually threw myself on my ass at the finish line as MPuzzle finished his bit of chase at the bottom of the fountain and rejoined me. Completed manifests were presented, "flowers of courage" were offered, and brief stories were exchanged. I texted our victory to some friends and we went to the after party in a nearby hotel to find out how the rest of our party made out and share tales of glory and tragedy.

My legs are still sore. (Goddamn flat feet and shin splints!)

It was one of the most fun nights I've had, like, ever.