"Remember, you don't have to be smart to come in second place in a High Trek Adventure race, you just have to surround yourself with smart people."

Recently, thanks to a free entry from Washington Running Report's eNewsletter Trivia Contest, I participated in DC's High Trek Adventure race. The race, a scavenger-hunt-like challenge that had 80 teams scrambling across the city in an attempt to solve nine out of ten clues and photograph themselves next to the solution.

Having resided in Northern Virginia for the last 17 years, my only knowledge of DC comes from running road races in the city. I thought the race would be more along the lines of 'fastest Googler wins.' No one can out-Google me.

My running mate, Liz Bolton, and I worked out our race strategy, and we decided that our competitive edge would be in the costume category. As running partners on in the Pacers Running Club with opposite political affiliations, we decided to go as the most unlikely running mates-Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. We donned "My Running Mate" shirts donated by Pacers, fixed our hair accordingly and named ourselves the Pacers Bipartisan Racers.

Of course, there was the actual race itself and clues to be solved. We took the time at the beginning to solve all the clues first and determine our route from there. We deciphered a clue haiku, found the address for the George Washington University building that shares a name with the Secretary of State, and Googled the address of a nearby jeans store.

While we were not the last ones sitting at the corner of 14th and U Streets determining our route, we were not close to being in the top 70 percent when we finally took off on our adventure. We headed to the Metro, but not before Liz did a headstand in front of the Lincoln Theatre, and we stalked some guy in a Redskins jersey to earn some bonus points. That would be the last time we took pubic transportation the rest of the race.

Then off we ran, yes folks, we ran, to the Spy Museum, ran to an ice cream store, to see Ben Franklin, to the World War II Memorial, to the GW campus, to visit "Dora's friend," and finally back to the U Street neighborhood to try on a pair of trendy men's jeans. We ran, ran, and ran.

I think it was about ten minutes after we got off the Metro stop that I deeply regretted running a 5K that morning. It was about 25 minutes into the race that Liz felt sure she'd bonk the next day at the Philadelphia Distance Run. When we saw teams, they were not running, and Liz was quite sure we were the fastest marathoners among the group. About the time we accosted a girl in a blue GW shirt outside the school bookstore, Liz announced that we could win. Last year's winners finished in 2 hours, 10 minutes; we were at 1:15 with only two stops left. Liz's Hillary wig came off, and I shrugged off the pain in my quads.

We rushed to those last few checkpoints like champions. We passed Babes in Brunchland, who actually wound up in second place, thanks to their bonus points, but were not allowed to place, due to the fact that they had more than two team members. As we ran down the street to the finish line with no opponents in sight, we felt sure victory was ours. Liz got to the finish line first; I examined the face of the woman there for some indication of our win. I saw nothing. We soon learned that we were not the teammates with the fastest marathon times.

But we were not disappointed. We were the second team to arrive, and after bonus points were subtracted from our time, and the Babes were technically disqualified, we came in second overall! Not our gender, not our age group-Overall. This was huge; neither of us was ever going to come close to second place in a regular road race, with or without bonus points. Second Place? We'll take it and the two Timbuk2 messenger bags that came with it. Beevos Best won by a large margin. Our time of 1:48, which was brought down to 1:38 thanks to our bonus points, was eclipsed by their magnificent 1:17. Having participated last year, they came up with a winning strategy to the race, which I am not going to reveal. You will just have to come and run it next year to find out. Hint: When the Babes in Brunchland came in, they looked at the four of us already seated at the bar and said, "Of course, the only two teams that we saw running."

In closing, we had a lot of fun (Thanks, Kathy & Rick!), and we leave the race with the memory of our second place overall victory to keep us motivated when times are tough.

Footnote: Liz managed to not bonk in Philadelphia; my legs still hurt.

For information on High Trek Adventure, visit their Web site. Click here to see the DC results.