The LA Urban Iditarod: Team Noah's Ark

This past weekend, a bunch of friends and I participated in the LA Urban Iditarod. Modeled loosely on the famous Alaskan sled dog race, the Urban Iditarod challenges teams to dress up thematically while pushing a shopping cart around Los Angeles. It also has elements of a pub crawl so you could stop to, uh, hydrate at various points along the way, though I think most of us were pretty sufficiently “hydrated” before the race began.

We prepped the first night by loading up on carbs (beer has carbs, right?) and getting crafty. I’m pleased to say I have such crafty friends. We used a cardboard box to turn our shopping cart, an abandoned Kmart cart that Allison located on the street, into a boat to correspond with our theme, Noah’s Ark.

Unicorn Jessica (who we decided must not have survived the great flood), Noah Eric, Elephant Allison, Zebra Matt, Flamingo Katy, and I donned our costumes, headed to Venice, and joined other thematic teams like Jamaican Bobsledders, Mario Kart characters, Octuplet Mom and kids, crayons, and Where’s Waldo in a non-competitive race for intoxicated glory. More than anything, it’s about causing a ruckus.

Someone would yell “MUSH” and promptly hundreds of costumed people ran down the streets with their carts, befuddling and amusing the pedestrians, and generally angering the motorists who found themselves trapped or delayed. Since no one really wins this Iditarod, I didn’t think it would actually be too grueling, but we were full on running at points, which was fun, don’t get me wrong, I just wish I had worn shorts and filled my water bottle with actual water rather than clear rum.

You can see the Noah’s Ark crew run by about 20 seconds into this video:

(Nice form, Matt.)

Our team was quite popular, because we had a well-executed theme, so plenty of people took our picture. As Noah, Eric was a phenomenal leader, leading us in apropos chants like “Any two will do!” and “Forty Days and Forty Nights!” He even got into a full speed oceanic battle with the cart decorated like a pirate ship, knocking it off course. It doesn’t hurt to have God on your side.
The whole race itself took half the time it was scheduled to, thanks primarily to the police. Each time we’d sto at one of our “hydration stations” they’d follow and monitor us before insisting that we move along. I had intended to purchase a drink from each bar we stopped at for completion’s sake, but we never stayed at a spot long enough to make that happen. I’m not sure I agree with the police’s rationale that a traveling pack of hooligans is less threatening than a stationary pack of hooligans, but that seemed to be their approach, and so we continued mushing down the Venice streets and boardwalk.

To the police’s credit, the officers were reasonably cool about the chaos we created. As I understand it, last year the Santa Monica police arrested people and actually went as far as impounding people’s carts, which I’m sure no one went back to claim. This year they just tried to intimidate us a bit without actually taking anyone on; I imagine if they had tried to enforce anything, it would have produced more problems than we were already creating. That said, I thought the police helicopter that followed us overhead throughout was excessive and hysterical.

Perhaps in homage to sled dogs, everyone finished the race at the local dog park, where we took over and quite conspicuously gorged ourselves on alcohol. It was like being at a giant frat party with Jager, bags of wine, and keg stands.

The police surrounded and monitored us, but let us congregate and drink in the dog park for nearly an hour before finally shutting us down, which someone taped:


Just as it was ending, I went to greet my friends from high school, Bill and Briel, who caught up with us after the race. After giving them both hugs, I was about to assure them that I wasn’t that drunk (which I sincerely believed) because it was understandably weird for sober people to meet up with a few hundred severely intoxicated people when I walked backwards into a cement block on the ground and fell over flat on my back. Whoops.



I fell two more times that day, once on the beach, and the other time while I was quickly pushing Allison, seated in the cart, down the boardwalk for some post-race shenanigans when I lost control of the cart and accidentally tipped it over, dumping out all of its contents, including Allison, which caused quite a scene for passersby. That one really hurt later, too.


Overall it was the perfect afternoon of frivolous diversion.

EXTRA: I found Steven Larson's blog, which features this crazy picture on his site (I posed for that, I guess?):
As well as one of Jessica grabbing Allison's butt, haha...
He has an extended gallery if you'd like to see a ton of photos from the festivities.