Belfast Rat Race
Buzzing Round Belfast
Gary and Brooner / 21.08.2008
The City and City Council was most welcoming to the event and opened it's doors to 120 racers for this inaugural event. Keen to show off the city's assets to the max, the race took in the towering Cave Hill, the harbour side and some very green parks and the central River Lagan, and not least numerous city centred control sites and activities. Some of these were quirky of course - a renowned trait of the Rat Race.
The Nine 2 Five event format crams what would normally be 2 days of Rat Race Prologue and Main Race activity into 8 hours on a Saturday, making for a very intensive workout for body and mind. That is; Prologue, Main Adventure Loops, then Epilogue.
The Prologue
The Rat Race weather luck played it’s part again, with the torrential rain clearing from the skies in time for the 11 o'clock start. The first challenge faced by teams was a rush around the event village trying to find out the answers to seven devious questions, the answers to which could be found all around them.
Some were easy enough to find out, such as the number of benches in the park and number of pods on the Belfast Eye but some required a bit more searching to uncover. Some teams even resorted to asking the on-looking Lord Mayor of Belfast for the answers to some questions!
Once they had done this they were given their prologue sheets, and set out onto the streets of Belfast to find a number of checkpoints scattered across the city centre. Some were easy enough and in interesting places, such as the one on Alex Higgins' tree outside the Crown Bar - Belfast's oldest pub, while others involved a bit more of a challenge. These included playing a Wii game in Zavvi and catching up with a leprechaun (Andy Mein you cannot hide) who was to be found running around the main shopping streets, much to the amusement of the Saturday morning shoppers and a bus load of American tourists.
Adventure Loop 1
Come midday it was back to the bikes, and off to Cave Hill where competitors faced a physical ridge run over the top of the 1200ft hillside, offering racers a wonderful panorama over the city (and a look at all the places they would encounter over the following 6 hours) if they stopped to catch their breath. After a descent through the woods it was back to the bikes, and a blast back into town to tackle some potato peeling. Little known to the participants these potatoes were then chopped, boiled, mashed and made into a fantastic 'champ' meal for the finish.
SleepMonsters
