Idiotarod 2012: Cartmcgeddon

Posted on January 30, 2012 by missalix

You may have seen a few references on this site to my participation in the 2009 Idiotarod, and though I haven’t written about the years in between, this was actually my fifth year in a row running this costumed shopping cart race.

This year was my own highly anticipated theme idea of Andrew W.K.art! We all dressed in all white like Andrew W.K. and partied hard! Our cart decoration was pretty minimal, just the name of our team in AWK’s font. Oh, and bloody noses like the I Get Wet album cover! We also blasted our favorite songs of his through some speakers we kept in the shopping cart too, which pumped us up as we traveled between checkpoints.

What’s nice about the start is that there’s usually enough time to be able to check out the other carts and costumes of the other teams. Here’s a few I took photos of the other team costumes and carts that I liked:

This year’s Idiotarod compared to the other four years I’ve participated in had both the smallest turnout and yet the longest route. Normally there’s five checkpoints over a span of five miles, but this year there were five checkpoints over a total of about 12 miles. The distance to the second checkpoint was 4 miles in itself, so most teams broke one of the main rules forbidding runners to use any other form of transportation other than pushing the cart themselves. We hoped that the next checkpoint would be a bar close to the park we stopped at, however the next checkpoint was 1.5 miles away. We slowly made our way there following another team and were stuck at a really odd Scientology checkpoint when some other people who were with the race but not involved in setting up the race found us and told us to just go to Union Pool and to not even bother finishing the checkpoint, since by this time we had just enough sunlight to get us out of the sketchy Queens/Bushwick industrial border before sundown. We arrived to Union Pool with still one last checkpoint mission to accomplish, but at this point we were pretty beat and they just told us to have some drinks until we moved to the bar hosting the after party. Fine with me.

I did like our first checkpoint, where instead of having the usual 20 minutes to scramble around and complete silly games or tasks, we had an hour to grab a drink and some food, make a valentine, and participate in a dance “competition,” which was really just following one of the members of Clan McGeddon as he led us through an 8 minute dancing workout. The rest of the checkpoints didn’t actually have us do anything, which was a bummer.

BUT! May I add one of the most exciting parts! After the race there is always an after party and awards ceremony where racers celebrate the end of the race. I hadn’t been to the after party the past few years but since the race was smaller this year I figured I’d go and support the other teams we’d befriended, and what do you know but team Andrew W.K.art won Best Special Effects Makeup! I had no idea we would win anything, but since this was my 5th year racing I was so excited inside!!

The trophy is proudly displayed on top of our bookcase in our living room! So even though some complained that this was the “worst Idiotarod ever,” and though the 12ish mile route was completely ridiculous and kind of terrible, and even though I was way too sore for two days after, I still had a good time and this won’t dissuade me from running again next year!