The Edinburgh Urban Adventure known as the
RAT RACE was really great fun, despite a pretty disastrous start to day 2 when my bike chain snapped within the first 10 mins of the race - not good. Firstly, I didn't have any chain tools or spare parts with me, and secondly, even if I had them I didn't have a clue how to use them. I do now :)
Saturday was spent registering, doing gear checks and generally getting kit ready. At 6pm we got maps and checkpoints for the city orienteering, and it all kicked off at 7pm when we raced to get controls and start chasing some points. Fun activity checkpoints included wheelchair rugby, carrying sandbags up children's slides, scrambling up under Dean Bridge and finding the 'river ninja' under Stockbridge :) Not so fun checkpoints included wasting valuable time on Arthur's Seat (searching for nearly 50 minutes and never finding the checkpoint). In hindsight we should have just missed it out and gone for all the others - a learning process. Still, enjoyed the run and found out a few more great shortcuts in Edinburgh!
After collecting Sunday's map and controls, we went back to Pete's old flat and plotted the course for the next morning. By the time we got back and had a shower we lay down to get about 4 hours sleep before starting all over again!
Sunday Morning - 7:30am: Starting from the Castle Esplanade, a lead runner pegged it down the hill, into Princes St Gardens, back up the steps to the castle and back down again - with 700 'rats' following like a bunch of lemmings. All that before jumping on our bikes and setting off on the course! I was gutted when my chain snapped - at 8am on Sunday morning there aren't too many places going to fix it...
To cut a long story short, I told the others to go on because I didn't want to ruin their day as well, scootered my way to The Meadows, begged the marshal there to help me but he wasn't sure what to do either, phoned HQ and they said I had to be self-sufficient (fair enough I suppose, but I didn't really care if we were disqualified, I just wanted to do the race!) Gradually over the next half hour I acquired various tools, chain parts and advice from passing competitors, which I'm really grateful for. Realised I had the OS map which Pete & Kate would need later, so phoned Gav, who picked me and my bike up and drove me there, where I sat and waited for the others to arrive...still trying to fix my chain! Managed to take the link out finally, put another pin in (borrowed from yet another friendly racer!) but realised there was a large end sticking out which would prevent me from changing gear...so I took it out again in despair. When Pete arrived he did the same thing (although much quicker than I had!), but we were still at a loss because of the 'extra' end until someone told us you just had to break it off somehow. Pete knocked on a nearby house, asked to borrow a hammer, smacked the pin, and next thing I was racing off again! WAHEY!!!!!!!
Over the next 10 hours we were slogging up hills in the Pentlands, orienteering in farmers fields (where hay fever was adding to the challenge!), traversing across and underneath a viaduct in Roslin Glen, kayaking in the River Forth, singing karaoke in a community arts centre, searching for music inside Craigmillar Castle, having a photo shoot in Cameron Toll Mall and abseiling off George I
V bridge. Oh, and forgot to mention us getting hassled in Niddrie (one of Edinburgh's rougher areas) by a bunch of teenagers in a subway tunnel - they were trying to convince us to go the other way
and actually punched Pete in the nose for no apparent reason.
FINSH!! Back in Princes St Gardens we had to complete a 'banana slide' which was pretty amusing - had to set up a people ladder to get to the top and then haul up the ones below. There was a prizegiving and Caribbean Ceilidh in the evening so we raced home (wasn't that part over?!) for a shower and change - dressed up in appropriate garb and then back for a really fun night. Absoloutely shattered by the time I got home but had a brilliant time :)
Labels: the great outdoors
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East of Scotland ladies team playing in Beckenham, division 7 (shocker). However...we won the group so move up next year!! Forgotten what fun it is to play 3 matches a day in sweltering heat :) Really enjoyed it though - my competitive spirit's still there, and I was playing reasonably well, especially considering a lack of match practice in the last 3 years (since NCAA's, May 2003!) It's all doubles which I love, so I was serve-volleying, chip-charging, and generally diving about on the grass having a good time!
