I'd heard about the Journey about a week before on a web message group, and was thrilled by it... though not so thrilled that I remembered to write it down. While hanging out with friends on Saturday, my friend said he would have to bail around six to get to the Stone Arch Bridge. When he mentioned Journey to the End of Night, my brain shot fireworks of recognition and I decided to join him, despite the fact that I was wearing less than ideal footwear (grippy but slip-on shoes).

We hit up the starting spot at Father Hennepin Park and immediately began to plan out our route. Having ridden buses all over Minneapolis as well as attended the U of M, I was able to pick out some key bus routes that would get us from one to two to three and so on... providing we weren't caught. I have a small charm on my phone that doubles as a fortune teller, spitting out tokens to tell you your luck at the moment. The fortune telling charm said "BIG LUCK," so we took that for what it was worth.

After the GO shout, we took off, and found ourselves reminded after two blocks exactly how out of shape we were. Ugh, should have trained for this. With a #6 bus nowhere in sight to take us down University Ave, we conserved our energy by cutting through some back alleys and parking lots, joining with some fellow runners once we hit campus. A sprint across to the first checkpoint, and we were safe!

My friend and I split off from there, opting to go for the stamp at the Audio Reflection Circle a few blocks away. After scoping out the site (which was ripe for a Chaser to be hiding in), we found ourselves quite alone and got the stamp with no issues. Grabbed a #2 bus at Washington and Oak St, and rode towards the second checkpoint at the (aptly named) Hard Times Cafe. Scraping through alleys, cutting around the back side of the building, but still we were spotted by a chaser when we tried to access the front of the building, and we split up around different ends of the block. He wound up catching my friend, and in the spirit of both teamwork and my fast-blistering heels, I gave myself up. We gave chase to some more folks that had escaped Checkpoint 2 and made our way to the LRT with another newly minted Chaser.

On the LRT, a group of runners and chasers boarded. The runners got off the train a stop past Government Plaza, and the chasers followed them down 5th street. We hopped another bus to check out the finish line further down Nicollet (also the site of some kind of unrelated party!) and then continued down the walking path towards Loring Park. A group came sprinting towards us - runners! We all scattered and tagged a lot of people. I even managed to tag a gal, limping as I was. She ripped off her armband and told me I was back in, resurrected. Damn, that was confusing. I knew I couldn't make it all the way back over to Hard Times to get the stamps I needed, and my heels were a bleeding mess by this point, so I had to turn down her resurrection band. She took it and ran off, with some of the newly minted chasers going after her.

My friend and I walked into Loring Park, scouting for other runners who might be coming back from the Spoonbridge and Cherry bonus point. We met up with more chasers, traded stories, and began the walk back to the finish line to see how things were going. It was then I found out that the resurrection armband also came with trading manifests - damn! We could have gotten a more complete manifest! Oh, if only I'd known! Still, we were still having fun and sat down with some other chasers outside the Hyatt on Nicollet. All of a sudden, a man comes bolting down the road. Who else would be running towards the plaza at 9:00 at night? My friend took off after him and caught him - and the runner was not only carrying a resurrection band, but a complete manifest! My friend took it and ran the last block straight to the finish line, being the first one to cross with a blue band and a complete manifest.

We whooped and hollered and hugged and couldn't damn well believe it. Some runners that had actually completed the whole thing showed up soon, and in the end they were the very well deserving winners of the runner trophy; honestly, it was sheer dumb luck that my friend was able to cross the line when and how he did, even though it was very fun and random.

Everyone at the finish line and afterparty was very kind - food, a flower, and someone even had some genius high-tech bandages for my heels (thank you mystery person!) I had an absolute scream and would do this again in a heartbeat. Definitely not how I imagined spending my night when I woke up Saturday morning, but from start to finish it was unforgettable.