A race with a difference was held in Edinburgh last weekend, The Rat Race is ‘urban adventure racing’. The ‘Mean Streets’ on the Saturday evening can either be entered on it’s own, or entered along with the Sunday events as the full Rat Race.
When Steve Booth and Richard Meade asked me if I was interested in joining the Edinburgh AC team in the ‘Mean Streets’ category, I jumped at the chance to experience ‘urban adventure’. Hopefully one of the many EAC runners who completed the full Rat Race, will add their comments on that competition.
The race starts at 5.00pm, but there is a race briefing 1 ½ hours before hand. This is when the course information is given out. We were given a list of about 30 places across Edinburgh and the team got together to plot these on a map and try and decide how many we thought we could get round in the time allowed. You are allowed 3 hours, but from 2 ½ onwards, you start accumulating penalty points so it is a case of deciding if you can gain more points by running to more check points or heading back early and not receiving penalties. The event is not just about fitness, but strategy and thinking on your feet. A further complication was that different checkpoints can be worth different values, and this information is not given out until after the actual start. Some check points also have adventure activities which must be completed before you can collect your points.
When we were getting ready to start I managed to highlight that I was a complete novice at this type of event Team mates – “why are you not putting on your rat race t-shirt”? Me- “I’ve left it in the house” Team mates “You better mark the points on your map” Me - “Would that be the map that I’ve also left in the house because I didn’t think I would need it”. I did think it was strange getting the goody bag before the event.
After the start, Steve ran to get the sheet with the point’s value, while Richard and myself headed towards our first target. Our strategy was to cover as much ground as possible and not spend 10 minutes trying re work our plan to concentrate on the high values.
We started by picking up some checks in the city centre, old town and then heading south via the Meadows to Commonwealth Pool and Holyrood. This was all an area I knew pretty well, so the map was ignored while we relied on local knowledge. It soon became apparent that the team with Kim and Graham had almost the exact same plan, as we kept bumping into each other all the way round. They were in the full two day event so not actually our competitors, however, you would not have known that by the way Kim kept trying to throw us off the trail!
The first couple of activities we came across involved word puzzles, so they were quickly solved, the first active event was at Meadowbank. There were two checks in Meadowbank, we knew the second involved climbing, since Steve and Richard were not too keen on heights, I volunteered for that and they took on the first challenge. This was 100 meters on a space hopper! Sounds easy, but probably was one of the most difficult, the space hoppers were very small and with both my team mates being well over 6 feet, the space hoppers were not actually touching the ground, so it was more like 100 meters of standing jumps. Their hamstrings were screaming by the end. We then headed to the climbing wall and discovered a very large queue waiting to do this event, we quickly figured about a 20 minute wait so cut our losses and headed off to Lochend and Easter Road for our next checks. We were now heading out of my local knowledge area and Richard and Steve took over the navigating. I had been slightly disappointed not to have a go at the climbing wall, but when we got to Leith Links I did get the opportunity to climb as the check was at the top of a climbing frame. Someone has to explain to me how kids are supposed to do this, as with my reach it was still pretty hard getting up and down. However, Kim has obviously been at the zoo studying monkeys, as she started after me, and was 100 yards down the road before my feet were back on firm ground.
We were now running through a very nice part of Edinburgh, Neds in every pub doorway and very understanding locals, Us -“excuse me can we get past” local - “**** off” Us – “we hope you have a nice day too”
Next activity was at Alien Rock where we all had to tackle a fairly simple climbing wall, after this we were back to Leith where the most daunting challenge awaited. I never quite understood it when the marshal said he needed two eye-brows!!! By the time I realised what they meant, Steve was already in the chair taking a hit for the team, what a star. Meanwhile Richard and I were both debating how we could not possibly go into work on Monday with one eye-brow. So Steve got the matching pair, did I say he was a star?
Off to Ocean terminal after that and we ended up at a BMX bike track. After Steve’s performance, I knew what was expected so I was straight onto a two foot high bike with no saddle worth speaking of, heading up an 8 foot wall. I relied on the fact that if I went fast enough I would probably get over the ledge before gravity kicked in and sure enough just made it. Coming back down was actually more difficult as you had to launch yourself down a sheer drop!
Western Harbour was next with the check at the top of a tower block, unfortunately we were not allowed to use the lift. We were by now getting close to our time limit and had to think about heading back, but we could collect a few more checks on the way. However, tiredness, dehydration and energy levels were becoming a problem and this was where we started making some mistakes, we got a bit lost, and found dead end street after dead end street before getting back on track. My legs also started to stiffen up badly at this point, so I was doing all I could to keep up. There was one check that was actually an internet page, since we passed Richards house, he nipped in with Steve to see if he could investigate that option so thankfully, I was able to jog slowly up the hill and towards the finish while waiting for the others to catch up. They appeared in no time and we had a final sprint to the Ross Band Stand to finish in about 2 hours 55 mins. Steve’s GPS had us covering well over 18 miles of running, add on the extra activities and it’s no wonder we were feeling a tad tired! I had expected to be running about 10 miles, so it was considerably more than I had prepared for. The thought of getting up early the next day to do more of the same just gave me added respect for everyone taking part in the full event.
The after race party and prize giving was on the Sunday night and it was just as well we turned up, winners of the Mean Streets category – Edinburgh AC.
Steve was far quicker up to the plate to take the hit for the eye-brow removal than he was to collect the prize, so I had to take that hit ;-) I call that a good team balance…………
A great team performance and I was really pleased to be a part of it, I’ll certainly be back for more urban adventure next year.
Now over to Kim, Graham, Jenny, Will, Martin, or anyone else who was there, for a write up on the full event…..
July 22nd, 2008 by 
martin 
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