Absolutely awesome race. I ran the Half Oyster race on Sep 26, 2009 with two of my friends (Team Tree!). The race started a bit early-- at 9 AM.
Unfortunately, we had some bike problems at the start of the race and didn't get out of the gates until 9:35 AM. We knew we were in dead last. We rode our bikes over to the Ferry Building farmer's market and had to find objects that began with the letters in Oyster--orange, yellow lemon, star ruby grapefruit, tamil almond, extra virgin olive oil, and red pepper.
After dropping off our bikes at the transition area, we had to go over to the Lyon Staircase and go through Lover's Lane and find letters on trees. We were completely out of breath at the top of the stairs. We ran along the path, occasionally into the woods, looking for letters around trees marked with pink string. One lady looked at me strangely as I ran into the woods to find my next letter. "Is there supposed to be something back there?" she asked. Finally, we unscrambled our word, which was "Bowling" and headed over to the Presidio bowling alley, where we had to bowl a strike or spare. It was odd bowling while all sweaty and somewhat out of breath.
Finally, after heading back to the transition area, we had to find an ad in the SF Weekly, which then told us to go to the Ghirardelli Square pub, where we had to match four beers. We were very lucky to get it on our first try. We finished in a little under 3 hours, which was not bad, considering our late start. It was an awesome race, tons of fun, and they provided cliff bars, water, and burritos for us afterward.
It was awesome checking in between legs, with people cheering and ringing some cow bell. Definitely check out the race if you enjoy adventure and running around. Having an iphone is a pretty big help. read more