For those of you who haven’t heard of SCVNGR, it’s a Boston-based startup that allows users to create and deploy interactive scavenger hunt games hosted on mobile devices. These so-called SCVNGRs aren’t like the ones from your middle school birthday party, and can take you anywhere from a tour of the MFA, to an exploration of the whole city and beyond.

There are a lot of applications and themes for these interactive mobile adventures, one being fitness.

Since the sun was out and the thermometer was pushing 50 degrees, (unlike the last few days during which I seriously considered building an ark) I decided to sign up for a SCVNGR workout along the Charles River yesterday. All you have to do it sign up on SCVNGR by entering your cell number and some other info, then you can make your own SCVNGRs or find one someone else made. I didn’t see much fun in working out to a route I made, so I signed up for SCVNGR’s own, called Exercise Endeavor: Boston.

Unfortunately, I would soon find out that when it comes to a workout, SVNGR is a lot more like a needy girlfriend than a personal trainer.

Before I get into my experience with SVNGR, I should mention that I do not have a smartphone. My phone is, in fact, pretty dumb. That being said, SVNGR does provide options for people like me, resulting in a fully text-based experience. Other alternatives include using your phone’s web browser and a downloadable iPhone app, both of which probably would have been somewhat easier.

Ok, so armed with my dumbphone I head out the door and jogged to the starting point (Harvard Bridge on Mass Ave.) This wasn’t too bad for me since I live about a half mile away in Back Bay. It might not be worth the trek for others, but this isn’t the only SVNGR of its kind, and anyone is free to design one for his or her area.

From the base of the bridge I texted START to the number designated, and waited for a reply. After about thirty seconds I got a return text, but it definitely wasn’t telling me to start anything. Instead, it familiarized me with the HINT command, which prompts exercise descriptions during the workout, and asked me to reply with the word HINT. Ok, helpful I suppose. After sending HINT, getting a reply, texting the word SWEAT, another reply, and finishing with GO, the workout finally began… with stretching!! I had texted five messages so far and, besides the jog to the starting point, hadn’t exercised anything but my thumbs and my patience.

I stuck with it though, and after getting the stretching done, I sent STRETCH, and was instructed to run until I saw a playground. After texting to let it know I was there, and waiting about 15 seconds for a reply, I was instructed to do lunges in a specified area. Once I finished, I texted LUNGE as instructed, but SVNGR didn’t seem to believe me, and asked how many benches there were in my lunge area. I answered correctly, being rewarded with a “fun” fact about how many calories are on the back of a postage stamp. By this time any heart rate I had built up had now faded.

The next exercise was pull-ups in the playground, but I wasn’t the only one inspired to spend some time outside, so I opted out of a creepy inmate workout in front of toddlers and their parents. It was pretty easy to fake — I just texted PULLUP and answered the subsequent question to confirm the number of swing sets in the playground.

I won’t detail every exercise, but things continued like this for pushups, crunches, more running and squats. At the squats, however, my patience gave out. Upon finishing the 3 sets of 10, I texted SQUAT, and received a question so vague that I couldn’t answer it correctly (something about a shape on the pavement).

After fifteen minutes of guessing wrong, asking for hints, and guessing wrong again, I was informed that I did not successfully perform the squat portion of the workout — awesome. I actually wasn’t too disappointed because the squats were a good workout, but I wondered how the creator of this SCVNGR decided that identification of shapes in asphalt is proof of physical activity.

After walking back to the finish for cool-down, I texted WALK, and the workout was over.

So if you haven’t gathered it from my description, my number one complaint with this particular SVNGR workout was that the texting took too long! There were way too many texts to send and half of them weren’t close to necessary. It’s kind of fun to answer questions about the spot you just ran to, but who is cheating on these things? First of all, counting benches does nothing to prove I did any lunges, and secondly, why would I get dressed up in workout gear and run to the Charles just to BS a robot through my phone? Though answering questions about where you are might be fun during a tour of Boston, during a workout it’s frivolous and borderline insulting to the athlete.

So if you’re going to try SVNGR I’d suggest going for tours or other activities. Though iPhone or web apps might make the workout a little less painful, you’ll still have to answer Exercise Endeavor’s meaningless questions. You can try other SVNGRs, or make your own, but on my next workout, the phone is staying home where it belongs.

Despite this difficult single use-case, we think SCVNGR is one of the coolest startups in Boston and you can bet we’ll continue to follow their activity here on BostInnovation. For more on the company, be sure to check out their website, scvngr.com, and follow them on Twitter @scvngr.