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Boys Out on the Town

Marty – Boys in the Buff / 18.07.2007

With the BBC forecast for the weekend changing on a daily basis, it looked like this was to be the first wet Edinburgh Rat Race since the series began. Squalls blew through the event village in Princes' Street Gardens on Saturday morning, soaking those who didn't get under cover quickly enough. As the briefing approached, glimmers of sunshine started to break through, but not enough to convince everyone just yet though!

Jim Mee opened the event, welcoming racers from far and wide - even some all the way from Englandshire - and passed control over to Gary Tompsett for the main briefing.

With a distinguished pedigree of excellent courses, Gary enthused over what lay in store for us; cunningly devised by himself and Bruce Duncan. He added a reminder that we were all likely to get wet (as if there was any doubt) and that Edinburgh does have hills ... lest we forget ...

Maps were marked up and with a change to the regular format, it was an early start at 5pm for the prologue and time penalties kicking in earlier than usual at 7:30pm. There was no time to waste, or to realise that the weather had cleared up and the sun was really starting to break through.

Another session of Body Attack led by Gill Watson as a pre-race warm up; made more entertaining by the propensity of fixed chairs in the main bandstand area. It was aerobics with obstacles.

Mean Streets

At 5pm the Mean Streets event kicked off; rats dispersed into the City of Edinburgh in all directions to all sorts of checkpoints and 'rat traps'. Scaling walls, climbing and hunting through undergrowth and bushes for controls is expected; this year we also had the more unusual tasks of sampling some of Scotland’s finest cuisine - the delectable deep fried Mars Bar; a couple of rounds with Mike (Chris) Tyson, letting a barber go wild on your coiffure and who could possibly resist a lovely girl in her wedding dress!

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