The Run to Escape Series: Mission Mount Olympus

Disclaimer: I received a registration to Run to Escape Series - Mission Mount Olympus as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro ambassador and check out BibRave.com to find and write race reviews!

*Photo Credit to fellow BibRave Pro RunNerdGirl*

The Run to Escape Series is a brand new running experience in the world of virtual events! Run to Escape is a set of six challenges designed around a funky modern twist of the Mount Olympus God's and powered by your running. Think running meets Escape Room! Your goal is to help Atalanta get accepted as a God into Mount Olympus. Each God presents you with a challenge to make sure that Atalanta is worthy of her spot on Mount Olympus. Throughout your journey you meet Dionysus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Hades and Athena and finish up with your last challenge from the big guy, Zeus. Each God brings their humor and personality to the audio clues keeping you entertained. Their theme carries over into their puzzles, but don't worry, knowledge of Greek mythology is not a requirement.

Atalanta

So how does it work?

All instructions are thoroughly provided throughout the experience but I will walk you through the basic steps. The first part is signing up for the experience at raceroster.com and downloading the RunKeeper app onto your phone. Once you are signed up you receive email communication for the event through Hermes. In your email, along with a "How to Play"guide, you will receive your first challenge from Dionysus. Through your email, you click to add the challenge to RunKeeper where it will download the audio clues onto the app. When you are ready for your run you then go onto the RunKeeper app, make sure to toggle "enable race mode" so you can hear audio clues, and once everything is connected you go for a run.

Once you are running, as you hit certain distances the race clues will be enabled. You will have a heads up a clue is coming with some harp music (don't have it on too loud or you might get quite the surprise!) and then the God presenting the challenge will give you your clues. Each run has about 4 clues presented and range in distances from 3 miles to 10k.

After your run, you log back into your email and select the God's Post-Run page where you can re-listen to the clues and get started on your challenge. The challenges have a wide variety of skills used and are professionally done by an escape room company called paradigmQ. If you get stuck on a challenge there are always hints available. You can choose to use them or keep attempting on your own until you solve the puzzle. And once you have figured out the puzzle you use the answer to the puzzle to unlock the next run on raceroster.com. Once you unlock the next challenge on raceroster.com you then repeat the process of receiving an email, downloading to RunKeeper, go for a run, use clues and unlock the next puzzle.

What do you get for completing?

Run to Escape Series is a completely immersive experience. It is new to the running world where we are used to signing up for a virtual race and receive a medal and t-shirt through the mail. This is not that. Just like completing an escape room, conquering Mission Mount Olympus and going through professionally designed escape room puzzles is entertainment but on the run. It is unlocking challenges, solving problems, critical thinking and entertainment. The Run to Escape Series is a green event so you won't just get mailed t-shirts, medals and more stuff.

BUT upon completion of the experience you will enter into the God's After Party. In the After Party you will have access to recipes, playlists and discounts from RTE sponsoring brands - Aftershokz, Knockaround and ParadigmQ. Through the experience you can also enter giveaways sponsored by Asics. You don't get "stuff" for playing but you certainly don't end up empty-handed.

The experience overall will cost you $75. That might seem like a lot at first, but take it all in - six runs, six professionally designed challenges, and access to discounts, giveaways, recipes and more. You aren't just paying for one run or one race, you are paying for the complete experience and puzzle solving challenge.

What if I can't complete the challenges?

As I stated above, knowledge of Greek Mythology is not a requirement, it's just the theme of the Mission Mount Olympus challenge. The puzzles are challenging but not impossible and would be appropriate for a variety of ages. If you wanted to recruit some help from your family you could certainly use an extra set of eyes for some of these challenges. If you really do get stuck there are hints available for you to get you a push in the right direction.

I have never done an escape room so when I looked at the first challenge, I'll admit, I had no idea where to start. After looking at one of the hints (there are multiple) I was able to get going on the puzzle. I ended up using hints for the first couple of runs until I got the hang of what kinds of things to look for and pay attention to. If you burn through all of your hints, there is an "Answer Reveal" you can click on that will give you the answer to unlock the next puzzle.

If you are really that concerned about it, just know that there is a very flexible refund policy with the experience. If you are going through and it is not fun, you are more frustrated, you find that you don't really like puzzles, then if you go through at least two challenges you can go through RTE to get your money back.

Overall, I found myself enjoying and looking forward to these runs. I had a little extra motivation to get out for a run when I wan't really feeling it. I was able to listen to podcasts and the clues would stop my podcast and play. It was just the little extra entertainment I needed to get me going. I enjoyed my experience and would encourage you to join in the fun! You can use code: BIBRAVE10 for 10% off of your registration to Run to Escape Mission Mount Olympus.