From Ottawa 2009 City Chase Winners - Mike Bessuille & Mike Reade

1. The route is very important.  You don't want to end up crisscrossing the city inefficiently.  Plan a route - but do that quickly!!!! (Don't spend 20 or 30 minutes trying to decide on a route, before going to your first Chasepoint!).
   
   
2. Be prepared to RUN.  We're not great runners, but we've often found that we're better off running than waiting for a bus or subway, depending on how long the wait for the bus is.   This is a race, after all.
   
   
3. Get help!  That includes friends on the phone who look things up on the internet, but it also includes asking strangers for directions on the street, asking strangers to help you complete a Chasepoint, whatever!  (Just don't ask them for a ride!)  But without a skilled and dedicated internet team helping plot our route, we wouldn't do nearly as well as we do - especially in cities that we don't know very well.
   
   
4. Be creative.  When you need to take a picture of a certain type of car, taking a picture of a brochure or magazine photo of that car is valid.  At Nationals when we needed a picture of one of us "eating a live animal", an ant or small bug will do just fine.
   
   
5. Don't bring a lot of "stuff".  When I race, I wear running shorts and carry a water bladder, my blackberry, a pen and paper, and a map.  That's pretty much it.  No backpack filled with extra clothes, no food, no bathing suit "just in case I need it".  If I need to go swimming, my underwear will do just fine.
   
   
6. Don't try to pre-plan too much.  The race is completely unpredictable.  The most planning we might do is to say, "if there's a Chasepoint at location X, this is a good bus-route to get there".  Don't worry about the race beforehand!  There's really not much you can do to plan in advance.  Just think on your feet!  (That's what this race is ALL about).
   
   
7. Just DO it.  That's especially true for the challenges.  Mike and I have a lot of success at challenges because we just do whatever we need to do, even if it's scary or gross or difficult.
   
   
8. Be NICE to the other racers, the organizers, the volunteers, and the public.  They will help you!  Some teams aggressively try to win and step on other teams to do so.  But we've got a lot further by being nice and helping other teams; you never know when they might return the favour (by telling you where a Chasepoint is, whether a Chasepoint takes a long time, that sort of thing).
   
   
9. If you want to win, be prepared to skip a Chasepoint if it's going to take a lot of time - especially for Chasepoints that are relatively serial and have a lot of "setup" or safety issues.  (On the other hand, if you're not out there to win, then by all means, do the fun Chasepoints!)
   
   
10. Have fun!  CityChase is an amazing experience.  Enjoy it!