Cinciditarod

Cinciditarod is an annual scavenger hunt race that benefits the Freestore Foodbank. Held the first weekend in March during Bockfest, teams consist of five players pulling a (legally acquired) shopping cart. It’s a reverse dog sled race, and the players must stay tethered to the cart at all times.
Teams come up with a theme, wear costumes, and decorate their cart. I was on team Material Girls, which featured five genres of Madonnas through the ages. While there is an award for fastest time, most people participate in the race because its fun, not because they’re marathon runners. Heck, my team ran for five blocks before we got winded and decided to walk the rest of the journey.
Along the 5 mile route, teams trek from Fountain Square to as far north as Findlay Market, as far south as Covington, and up the grueling steep Liberty Hill. Armed with a map and cunning, teams must perform tasks at check points along the way:
— Purchase a $ 25.00 bag of groceries from Kroger on Vine Street.
— Deliver bag of groceries to Freestore Foodbank
— Perform a musical skit
— Eat a sack of pretzels and drink a gallon of generic Sunny Delight
— Complete a trivia sheet about Cincinnati history
— Run an obstacle course
— Get your picture taken by event officials
While all this is going on, other teams may be trying to booby-​trap your team by spraying silly string, glitter, or duct taping your cart. «Who would do such a thing!?!» you ask. Teams like mine, who sabotaged 16 carts this year. Mwahaha!
Our team finished just under two hours, and while we did not win any awards (nor were we trying to) we all had an amazing time.
Tips:
— Bring plenty of water in your cart
— Bring a knife or scissors to cut yourself free from any duct tape sabotage
— Wear layers and bring a coat. You can throw in in the cart when once you’re running and warm. It’s early March. It’s cold outside. You’ll need a coat.
Suggestions:
— Instead of the eating contest consisting of junk food, perhaps we could have a healthy alternative? I’m intolerant of processed foods (like Generic Sunny D) and in previous years people have vomited from eating junk (Cheetos, nutty buddy bars, liters of soda, Hawaiian Punch). How about some veg?
COST:
Registration Fee: $ 45.00 ($ 9.00 per team member)
Grocery donation from Kroger: $ 25.00 ($ 5.00 per team member)

For more information, check out Nathan F’s review. He was on my Cinciditarod team, so I am not going to repeat what he said. But, I want to add some helpful hints that he missed…
1. A little liquid courage is not discouraged as long as it isn’t flagrant. Unless you are going for first place, you will have plenty of time to take a nip at different checkpoints and the running isn’t that hard so a little buzz isn’t an issue.
2. Bring coat, gloves, and hat! You will want them off and on throughout the race. Throw them in your shopping cart when not being used.
3. Bring a boombox along. You will enjoy having your own soundtrack as you go through the city.
4. Plan some form of sabotage against other teams– it makes it more fun! We had stickers with our team name that we stuck on other people and their carts. Most people thought it was fun and funny.
5. Retractable dog leashes were recommended to us, but they were pretty expensive. So, we decided on twine, which worked just fine.
6. Do the skit first and the eating challenge last!
7. You do run a total of 5 miles, but there are many breaks in between. There are very few stretches over a mile. So, even if you aren’t in the greatest of physical shape, you can do this race. We saw many teams even walking the course towards the end.
8. The costumes are amazing! Some of my favorites were– Forest Gump, Big Lebowski, Hawaiian, 80s, Titanic, Teen aged Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc. The more outlandish the better!
9. I recommend getting a all-​plastic cart like what they have at Target. You may need to carry your cart up a flight of stairs and the lighter cart is nice.
10. Just have fun! This isn’t a serious race. Don’t go into it feeling like you need to be competitive.
The Cinciditarod will become a tradition in my group of friends! I recommend anyone, of any age get a team together and run it too!

If you aren’t laughing or having a good time, you’re doing it wrong!
Wow! I never thought I’d find myself running around sans shirt in Unilocal pasties
in 40 degree weather for a good cause (Freestore Foodbank), but I’m so glad I did. *BTW, going topless is rather crazy and totally optional.
Ditto Stacey and Nathan’s tips. Overall, my advice is to just have fun and don’t take it too seriously. There are of course people that treat this like the Olympics, and the prizes are decent (money$$$), but I’d rather just enjoy my time with friends.
Whoever had the silly string really got that stuff everywhere. I saw it at so many points along the route, you must have had a dozen cans of it.
*Very special thanks to the team that let us look at their map (ours might have been stolen??, curses sabotagers, ha ha!), we’d still be wandering around without you.
There were some very creative and hilarious teams. It’s amazing what people can come up with! I really liked the Forrest Gump team. And if you guys are reading this, that team that gave you $%&# about not being tethered, blah blah blah, well they can go (fill in the blank). Oh, and thanks for the chocolate :)
So, next year, rustle up 4 other friends and a shopping cart, and have an amazing time. You only live once…

WOW, if you have never done this go find yourself a shopping cart, 4 friends, and some costumes then get ready for the run of your life.
Even though it was about 45 out and the wind was blowing I had an absolute blast!!! The whole purpose is to raise money for the Free Store Food Bank and of course to look a little silly while doing it. If you’ve never heard of the Cinciditarod then for shame but you and 4 friends tether yourselves to a shopping cart and run 5 – 6 miles through the streets of downtown Cincinnati stopping at 6 checkpoints along the way.
Checkpoints can be done in any order. This is just the order we went in.
1^st Checkpoint was stopping at the OTR Kroger picking up a $ 25 bag of groceries (which yes you have to pay for) and then dropping it off at the Free Store Food Bank down the street. What a great way to help out!!!
2^nd Checkpoint your team had to prepare a 1 minute skit and perform this for judges. Seems like everyone brought a boombox (didn’t know they still made them) and did a routine to music. Ours was fabulous but I’m a little biased!
3^rd Checkpoint was a little Cincinnati trivia challenge. 10 questions about Cincinnati, which gave us a nice little breather during the 5 mile run. Who knew the Filet-​O-​Fish originated in Cincinnati… that’s right, we did!
4^th Checkpoint was an obstacle course, nothing too difficult. But what I didn’t like about this was that only 1 member of the team got to run it. This is the one thing of the Cinciditarod I would have changed. Maybe they should have had us at different points in the course and we tag off, that way everyone could have been involved. I was the chosen one for this checkpoint. First there was a small slalom of 3 cones, then dizzy bat 5x around which kinda sucked, the 5^th time I was dizzy! then another slalom of 4 cones. I finished in just over 50 seconds, I believe the top time was 45… AWESOME!!!
5^th Checkpoint was the eating challenge. I hear this changes every year but the 5 members of your team have to eat and drink what is given to you before you can move on. This year it was a 1LB bag of pretzels and a gallon of generic punch. I’m glad we got the blue, I don’t think I could have handled any other color punch. I polished off about ¼ of the punch right away ate a few pretzels then probably another ¹⁄₅ of the gallon. Thanks team mates for eating the pretzels, that many pretzels didn’t sit too well running to the next checkpoint, and I had to P for the next hour!
6^th and last Checkpoint we ran across the bridge to Newport and had to pose for a picture with the Cincinnati skyline in the background. Nothing too difficult about this one just something fun and a great way to commemorate the race.
Ok on back to the finish line at Fountain Square. Awards ceremony was about an hour after we finished, we didn’t plan or try to win anything this was just a great excuse to hang out with people we like and do something different. Also get in a little exercise while doing it. I think the punch and pretzels canceled out any calories I burnt along the way, but amazingly I was still hungry afterward
Can’t wait till next year!!!