The Rat Race EDINBURGH Adventure Race
Seek the Ninja
Rob Howard / 19.07.2006
In Princes Street Gardens, in the middle of the city centre and right underneath the castle the event centre is a mixture of race, concert, exhibition and party – all going on at once. As teams registered through Saturday afternoon the bands had started up on the Ross Bandstand stage and crowds were gathering in the amphitheatre of seats. Visitors were wandering among the sponsor and retailer stalls, having a go at a bike skills course, climbing wall and nearby zip wire. A big LED screen was being erected, and in the midst of all this racers were receiving their Columbia race shirts, which marked them out as the stars of the show.
At 16.30 everyone gathered in front of the stage in race kit to hear the introductory briefings from Jim Mee and Gary Tompsett then Gill Watson of Team Accelerate High5 bounded onto the stage to get everyone warmed up (as if they were not hot enough!) with a few shimmys, shakes and stretches. Anyone looking down from Princes Street saw a small army of black clad exercise fanatics dancing in 90 degree heat!
At 16.00 the checkpoint locations were given out and everyone rushed off to mark up their A to Z maps and try to figure out a route for the 3 hours they would spend racing round the city on a Saturday night. This wasn’t easy. There were 32 checkpoints scattered all around the city centre with no obvious route. 17 of these had activities to complete, with only hints at what was involved or how long it might take. One said ‘Cow Challenge’, which turned out to be throwing a hoop over the head of one of hundreds of brightly decorated model cows scattered all over city (as part of the Cow Parade exhibition) and another read ‘Bar Activity’ - which turned out to be beer mat flipping.
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