Mango Escapades: Barkin' Dog & CitySolve Escapades

Two escapades in one day... how could it get any better than that?!

We began the morning at Cherry Creek State Park in Denver for the Barkin' Dog Duathlon.

This was our first duathlon experience. We thought it might be nice to cut out the swim after our triathlon experience. For clarification, a duathlon consists of a run - bike- run. For this race we ran a 5k, biked 30k, and ended running another 5k. We got there early to get our bikes set in the transition zone.

It was a brisk morning, but the chill didn't last for long. We were off for the first run!

It was a nice course through the park on mostly trails. Then we headed into the transition to hop on our bikes for a 2-loop course. It was another beautiful course except for the less than desirable road conditions that gave you quite a jolt on a roadbike with absolutely no shocks. We were also blown away by the nice bikes out there. Numerous bikers flew by us on their fancy roadbikes, costing who knows how much. Our vintage bikes couldn't quite hang with the fancy wheels, but we love that our bikes have a lot of character!

After finishing the 2 loops it was time for another run. If you've never transitioned from the bike to a run, let us tell you that if feels quite odd. It's like your legs are made of lead, and you're trying to make them go as fast as you can.

That last run took a little extra effort, but we did make it!

We were treated to a nice post race. It was quite fitting for 2 southern girls - barbeque!

Post race also consisted of a couple MANGO samples. Yay!

Mango protein drink - we would NOT recommend it

Mango Peach energy restoring drink - much more highly recommended

Overall, we were fans of the Barkin' Dog!

But the escapade was far from over. We quickly loaded up and headed into downtown Denver for the City Solve. This is an adventure race modeled somewhat after The Amazing Race tv show. About 300 people started at Stoney's Bar & Grill where we received our first clue.

We figured out the answer was B. Oklahoma has the shortest border with Colorado.

This led us to our first destination where a man was waiting with our clue envelope.

Odessa jumped right up to get ours. We were the pink girls for this escapade!

The envelope contained 10 clues to be solved. You could then accomplish each clue in any order that you chose by taking a picture at each check point. There were also a couple bonus clues. We sat and frantically called our connections to figure each one out. Once we had an idea of where we were going for each one we set off for quite the Denver escapade. Following is each checkpoint as we accomplished them:

At Fado's we had to find the name of a city in Ireland that you would order on your burger - Mayo! Only then would they take your picture with the Yelp sign.

Solving a crossword puzzle led us to Tilted Kilt to take a picture with one of Denver's bravest!

Rockie's hat #1

Rockie's hat #2

Rockie's hat #3

It turns out we didn't quite read the Rockies hat clue correctly. Apparently we were suppose to have 3 people in Rockies hats in 1 picture, not 3 separate pictures. Oops!

Odessa's dad and some very friendly people on the 16th Street Mall Bus really pulled through to help us find this one.

We took our chances at Yahtzee at the Horseshoe Lounge

We were given a much needed electrolyte drink after trying our skills at Quarters. We were not good, but the drink was great! We would recommend it!

The final checkpoint!!!! We were exhausted to say the least. We had no clue how much walking would be involved in this City Search!

Back at Stoney's we were very proud of our accomplishment! There were times when we honestly wanted to quit and we weren't even sure we would find all of the checkpoints. But we pushed through and never gave up! We earned our shirts and are now much more familiar with downtown Denver.