Southwest Alumni in Summer Race

From the Southwest Patch your online source on up to date news in the area: http://southwestminneapolis.patch.com/

Last weekend, a team of three recent grads from Southwest High School and one Robbinsdale's Armstrong High School took second place in what's surely one of the most unusual five-kilometer road races Minneapolis has ever seen.

In this madcap dash across downtown, Gus Price, Sam Hills, Matt Dole and Ryan Heltemes didn't even know what the course would be. Instead, they and the other 90 teams taking part in the Challenge Nation Urban Scavenger Race were given a set of 12 brain-twisting clues and tasks that had to be completed before they crossed the finish line.

"It was a lot of fun," Hills told Patch on Tuesday, while trying to hold back his laughter. "One minute you're sprinting like crazy and the next you're chatting up strangers and getting people at a bus stop to jump into the air all at once, while we took a picture."

Believe it or not, Hills said, trying to organize strangers into peculiar group photos, while panting and dripping with sweat in the searing heat is not as awkward as you'd think.

"People were surprisingly willing to help us out," he said.

The least cooperative was a police officer filling out paperwork in his parked cruiser. Desperate for directions to a particular fire station, Hills walked up to the front passenger door.

Pasting on his brightest smile, Hills rapped on the door and asked how to get to the station in question. The officer, Hills said, frowned and buried his nose in his papers, probably sick of questions from members of the 90 other teams combing downtown that Sunday.

"He deliberately tried to ignore us, but I wouldn't stop nocking—or smiling," Hills said with a laugh. "Finally he gave up."

But they weren't just up against the clock and Challenge Nation's puzzlemasters. Just as Hills, Heltemes, Dole, and Price were stepping away from the cruiser, they saw a group of other racers lurking nearby, watching their move and waiting to tail them.

"We were like 'Aaah! Run way from the other teams,'" Hills said.

This same scene played itself out one other time as the team coursed through downtown. Trying to dodge another pack who they suspected of piggybacking off of their breakthroughs, Hills and the others pounded around a corner—and over a 12-foot wall. Good thing all four used to be successful athletes at Southwest.

"As we were going into it, we didn't expect the event to be nearly as big as it was," Hills said. "We imagined it as a random gathering of people, who wouldn't take it too seriously."

In the end, they finished this concrete scavenger hunt-cum-steplechase in a hair over an hour, winning second place and a $100 bill. The next day, it was back to their day jobs at Southwest's Super Summer program, and then back to college in the fall, but Hills said he hopes to reunite the team for another try in summers to come.

Thanks to reader/blogger Mary Ann Schoenberger for tipping us off to the cool stuff her son Sam and his friends were getting up to this summer.