The Rat Race Urban Adventure
Street Rats - The Prologue
Rob Howard / 19.07.2005
Race Racing was back in Edinburgh last weekend. The venue in Princes Street Gardens was the same as for last year’s first ever race, set beneath the castle with a stage and grandstand for the entertainment, and the event village set up in the gardens. With a big screen, bands & DJ’s, skateboard and parkour displays there was always something going on and drawing the crowds and helping introduce adventure racing to the masses. And for the teams there was plenty of space for registration and preparation, and some time to enjoy the setting and activities on Saturday after they’d registered, as the Mean Streets Prologue didn’t start until 19:00.There were more teams this time, 139 altogether in 3 classes, with a few Rookie teams just racing in the Prologue, a dozen Elite teams and the majority in the Adventure class. They all had the same street entertainments laid on by course designer Gary Tompsett on Saturday night, as part of a 3 hour street orienteering course around the city centre, incorporating a weird and wonderful range of checkpoints and challenges.
Clutching their marked up A-Z maps teams gathered for the countdown to the 19:00 start and set off in a frenzied mass start as they raced for the slips of paper listing the points values. Then they fanned out into the city in all directions, looking for a Rickshaw, a couple of pubs, a tunnel and Sean Connery!
There were 3 checkpoints in the event village, including a Paintball shoot and the horizontal bungee, which were also used in Bristol. The third was at the bar and called ‘pour the perfect pint�. Teams had been told to carry some money and had to buy a drink from the beer tent, and pour it with less than 2 fingers of froth on the top. The Boghoppers team went there first. “At first the bar maid had no idea what was going on,� said Alan Affleck, “then once we’d poured the beer we asked what we were supposed to do with it! We didn’t want to drink it at the start of the run.� He’d not realised the idea was to do this checkpoint last ... then enjoy the beer after finishing.See All Event Posts
