Road Runner Sports First Thursday Adventure Run

Since I stared running I am always looking for a way to make running as fun as possible. I know that I will never be an Olympic runner or a World Champion runner and I am OK with that. I do like the competitiveness of racing myself, but I also like the social aspect of it. I have met many new friends through running and racing, and even blogging about running. So when I did a mudrun (The Dirty Girl) with my friend Melanie, I started looking into other types of races. I came across the The Great Urban Race, I am looking forward to doing this race one day.

 However while I was on my great 10 day San Diego/Phoenix/Sedona trip, my sis-n-law told me about a FREE race that Road Runner Sports puts on in Scottsdale on the first Thursday of every month. First of all FREE, and an adventure run, I was like sign me up...So here's how it went...

The race started at 6:30 and check in was at 5:30. So we of course arrived around 5:15 to check things out. They had blocked off a section in the parking lot, and had different sponsors set up booths. Asics had a booth where you could actually check out a pair of their running shoes and do the run in them. I checked out these bright orange beauties.

I am not a full cushion shoe runner or an Asics shoe runner, but it was cool to try out a new shoe and actually get to run in them.

They also had Zensah Compression sleeves you could wear, however it was 100 degrees. Not exactly sleeve wearing weather unless you need them:)

Amphipod also had a booth there with sports bottle belts. I looked at these things and they are really cool, you can position the bottles anywhere you want on the belt, so it is easy to run with them. I def would have tried one of these out if I had not already had the Asics on. You could only test one thing out because they took your drivers license to hold during the race. 

Another sponsor there was Activate. Activate is a multivitamin sports drink. What was cool about this was that the powder was in the top of the bottle and you twisted it to release it into the water. It also tasted really good, not too sweet. You have to check them out!

Race time...

The object of this particular race is to collect as many tickets as possible. At each business depending on where it is located you get a certain number of tickets, in which at the end of the race you put into a tub and they draw for prizes.

This race was also sponsored by Deschutes Brewery, so upon checking in you get a free beer ticket for pre-registering online. Also if you buy a 1st Thursday tshirt inside the store you get a free 1st Thursday beer mug and are entered into the $550 grand prize drawing. (If you already owned a shirt, you could buy anything in the store to be entered into the drawing). The shirts cost $24.99 and if you are wearing one of the t-shirts in the race you got double the tickets at each stop, doubling your chances to win one of the prizes they were giving away. So of course we bought a shirt:)

Go Time...

I am guessing that the girl doing the M.C.ing worked for Road Runner, she was fantastic at getting the crowd pumped up. Being a people person, I was def impressed with her.

 Anyways so at 6:30 they dropped the very large sheet with the stops on it.

Basically the first row was the name of the business and how many tickets you got there, the second row was the intersection/street it was near and then a map with the stops labeled on it, so you could map out what to hit first. They did give you a Ziploc back upon checking in with a piece of paper and a pen so that you could write all of the places down. We chose the phone picture route, lol! 

You had exactly one hour to finish the race. Time started as soon as they dropped the map. The furthest stop was 2.5 miles away and was worth 5 tickets. Quite a few people ran just the longest distance esp since if you were wearing the tshirt you would get 10 tickets at this spot. So they would have to run the 5 miles in under an hour and be fine. We chose to stay close and do all the shorter distance stores.

 We managed to hit up about 6 places, including the secret Facebook spot and the cool down station where they had water hoses you could run under and get tickets.

Here is my loot of tickets. When the hour was up everyone met back up at the store and turned in all of their collected tickets. Then the party started.

 I was amazed at all of the prizes they gave away. Gift certificates for free Asics shoes, Yoga, chiropractic services, Zensah sleeves, 24pk Sports beans, coffee,  Amphipod sports belts, massages, Chick Fil A food, and a ton of other things. And I am not talking about just one of each, I think they gave away at least 6 pairs of shoes. It was crazy. They also had a dance off for a $250 Garmin watch. INSANE! Unfortunately we didn't win anything, but we had a blast.

The after party was at the Blue Agave Mexican Cantina across the street. Road Runner was also giving away a ton of stuff there too. You got a ticket if bought a Deschutes Beer and ordered food which entered you into a new drawing for more free shoes, etc. Also Blue Agave had given a few gift certificates, so a couple people had free food and drinks that night. Although we didn't win here either, it was a great after party. I did talk to to Deschutes beer rep for a while, although I wasn't a fan of the ale they had because it was a little too hoppy for me, it was good to know that they made a lighter beer that I was interested in trying. They don't sell Deschutes beer down here in Alabama, but if you are up north or on the west coast def try them out.

So over all it was a great night with great friends old and new, and a great way to check out businesses that I may not have gone into had I not done this run. I am only in Phoenix a couple times a year, but I went into a Yoga studio called Floo-id, I would love to try. And of course Blue Agave Mexican restaurant, esp since they had a huge Alabama Crimson Tide championship flag hanging in the middle of the bar, ROLL TIDE.

You can check out Road Runner Sports HERE and see when and where the closest adventure run is near you. Its FREE, so you have no excuses to not join in on the fun:)

QOTD: Have you ever done an adventure run? If so which one and what was your favorite part of it?