By Justin Mitchell, WTOP

WASHINGTON –Hundreds of costumed characters met up at the Fairgrounds outside Nationals Park on Saturday afternoon for the 5th Annual DC Challenge.

Billed as “the country’s largest adventure race,” teams were given a list of clues and dispatched throughout the city to find the clue locations and to take their pictures with the found subjects for proof.

Team themes were all over the place — WTOP spoke with superheroes, leprechauns, mimes, Honey Badgers, and the “Shell-Raisers,” a group of friends and former James Madison University students who now live in Washington or Northern Virginia.

At one point, the crews got their clues, counted down from ten, and were off, free to get to and from where they needed to go using any means necessary — except for motor vehicles.

Back at the finish line, organizers waited — stopwatches in hand — while team captains arrived. The winners clocked in at just over an hour, while most started pouring in just after two hours.

Follow @WTOP on Twitter and on the WTOP Facebook page.