The Rat Race EDINBURGH Urban Adventure Race
On the Streets Of Edinburgh
Rob Howard / 19.07.2008
When Jim Mee introduced the Rat Race briefing from the Ross Bandstand stage in West Princes Street Gardens he reminded the 500 racers gathered in front of him that this was the 5th Edinburgh Rat Race. Scotland’s capital is renowned for its architecture, culture, history, scenery and the sports of rugby and football, but to UK adventure racers it is the home of urban racing and even after 5 years race planner John Laughlin still had new locations and activities lined up – as well as a few old favourites.Many of these will be on Sunday’s course, but Saturday night is the Mean Streets Prologue, when racers get to run through the Saturday night crowds of tourists, shoppers and revellers, exploring the city on foot. After a morning of torrential rain which flooded the paths among the stands in the event village, there were still a few drops of rain falling as Laughlin introduced the race. “There has never been any rain on a Rat Race,� he said, “and there won’t be tonight, not on my watch!� And his optimism was well placed as by 5pm, when the race began, the rains had passed over.
Between the 3pm briefing and the start all the teams had time to mark up their A-Z Maps for the prologue and try to figure out a possible route and what some of the activities might be. They were given 33 checkpoints in all, 13 of them with challenges of some kind, marked with symbols to show if they were ‘comedy, skill or physical’. Some were easy to guess, others less so.
With a big crowd watching, the count down to the start began and on the ‘go’ the racers streamed under the inflatable start banner and up to the control give-out where there was mass confusion, with teams separated in the melee. When they sorted themselves out the majority set off up the steps and onto Princes Street, but others chose to different exits and different routes and in no time the field as scattered.
Nearby checkpoints took an early hit and some canny teams avoided these for fear of possible queues. There were a good selection of checkpoints close to the city centre, but two close to Princes Street did not open until 5.50 and 5.45, which caught a few teams out. These were a juggling challenge at Juice Almighty, who were very hospitable hosts and gave racers free smoothies while one of them attempted to juggle. Race marshal Pyro said, “Some of them were surprisingly good!� See All Event Posts
