Mission Beech

So we had our first official beech challenge last weekend and I must say it was definitely a fun and exciting adventure. It all started in my improv class last week when I mentioned to everyone that we had beeched Al Franken. Of course, no one knew what I was talking about so I had to explain our wonderful photography game. To my surprise, my instructor was quite amused. So much so, in fact, he offered all of us a "Beech Challenge"...







Meet Greg, everyone! Greg was in my level one improv class which ended last month. He has since decided that he loves improv, but he's not going to pursue level two improv with us at this time. My instructor John Haynes thought Greg to be the perfect target for this Beech Challenge he was proposing. What exactly was at stake? John said whoever could beech Greg, would get the next level of class for free! And I won't broadcast exact amounts, but whoever was successful was going to save a bunch of money.

Being the Beecher I am, I told Megan about the challenge I had been faced with. With our combined efforts, a tip-off from classmate Nick and Megan's magic internet skills, we were able to track down Greg enough to speculate his presence at a 5K race in Chanhassen on Saturday morning. Let's see how things panned out...




We traveled to Chanhassen early Saturday morning in hopes of finding Greg at the Dave Huffman Memorial 5K race.





And he was there! But I discovered that Beeching Greg is a lot of work! I had to follow him at a distance for quite some time…




And even though he had just run roughly three miles, he still was aware of his surroundings enough to recognize me in my disguise (aka hat and sunglasses). So I did a ¾ Beech with him as he was talking to me. Can you say awkward? I can!



(note: the above Beech is ¾ because Greg was aware of my presence, however I still was able to pull off a pretty good face considering the predicament I was in…)


Just when we were about to give up on Beeching Greg, we found him hanging out with some fellow runners (one of which has a hat way cooler than mine). And so the Beeching attempts began…




And then success! We Beeched Greg!





Yay!
Special thanks to my friends Megan (my awesome photog) and Matt (lone creepy dude with a video camera) for helping me out!




So in the end we were very successful! I turned in the previous photographic documentation to John, and after laughing with an adequate amount of surprise, he granted me my level three class for free! Yay!

But I must say the real hero in this whole exciting adventure is Greg. I mean, he was a target and didn't even know it and he didn't even think twice about "randomly" seeing me at the race. I got to meet his wife and kids who were totally cool (his wife, by the way, totally knew something was up as every time Megan and I looked over at her, she had the glint of suspicion in her eye... good thing she doesn't know what beeching is) . The only thing I felt so bad about was our hasty departure from the race after we captured the beech. Greg still has no idea he was involved in such an elaborate social adventure... well not until I send him this link and he finds he has recently gotten more attention than he is aware of. So, I just want to say thanks to Greg for being such a good sport in all of this. You just got beeched!