Mens Health Survival of the Fittest - Edinburgh
Survival on the Streets of Edinburgh
Bruce Duncan / 21.10.2009
This weekend I took part in the last of a series of 3 Men's Health Survival of the Fittest Races. The first two were held in Cardiff and Nottingham where friends of mine had both taken part reporting having had a great race.I woke early on Sunday, and headed down to Princess St Gardens to get set to race in what I think is my first ever 10km race! These are 10km races with a difference however. Spread over the course, at approximately 1km intervals are a succession of obstacles, some small, some big, but all designed to slow you down and knock you out of your rhythm.
The start was a mad rush down the Royal Mile, with 300 people out of a total of nearly 1500 starting every 15 minutes, to leap over a load of straw bales, then down a narrow alley way to the station. A short very sharp climb up some stairs known as Jacob's Ladder, took us to Carlton Hill, where we had a bunch of military style obstacles, cargo nets, rope swings, tyres and monkey bars to climb over, under and through. Running down from Carlton Hill back towards the lower end of the Royal Mile, we were met with some huge tyres, and 2 wrecked cars we had to crawl through, followed by a skip!
A long run section followed to get us to a wee waterslide in Holyrood Park, this really cooled you down before a long run all the way up the hill of the Innocent Railway tunnel. We were then confronted with a spider's web of ropes to try and untangle our way through followed by some firemen hosing us down as we ran up another hill.
Arriving in a building site just off the Cowgate we had a series of jumps and scaffold towers to clamber over before running all the way up to the top of a disused building to do some dancing, and then back down again. Stairs are a real killer and really give you a huge lactate build-up.
Follow this with a run up a steep close to the Royal Mile again, and I think it was here that my heart rate maxed out at 199bpm! The obstacle here was an inflatable box, which is tricky to get into, let alone get out of again! Out of the box and the slippery wall greeted us, a 45degree slope with a lot of margarine on it. Having experience this many times in the Rat Race I used my usual tactic of running fast at it, which luckily worked to a huge cheer from the crowd and I overtook 3 people. See All Event Posts
