The Rat Race LONDON Urban Adventure Race
Mean Streets of London
Rob Howard / 30.09.2008
The sunshine had brought out the crowds and Saturday afternoon’s preparations for the prologue took place amidst a sea of sightseers and curious spectators beneath the gleaming windows of City Hall. The crowds were enthralled by the antics of the MAD bike display team and a few had a go at the rope scramble and abseil on the Indesit Moon Challenge, but the teams themselves would not get to complete that until the end of the race on Sunday.
First they had to race the Mean Streets Prologue, starting at 17.30 on Saturday, with a time limit of 2.5 to 3 hours (penalties started after 2.5). This took them out into the streets of the capital to see what race director Nick Gracie had found for them to do … and it was the usual mix of historic and iconic locations, bizarre (and sometimes embarrassing) challenges, and hidden corners of the city that even the locals probably don’t know about.
“There are 40 checkpoints this time,� Gracie said, “but in a smaller area, so there is plenty of choice and the navigation is hard, but it’s easier for the slower teams who don’t want to go so far.� The historic included Charles Dickens House, the oldest house on the South Bank, the Tower of London, outside the Bank of England, a statue of Issac Newton and Temple Church (now best known from the DaVinci Code). There were a couple of repeat visits from last year too, including the glass floored 3rd Space Gym, a stop at the Crisis offices (the race charity) and a chance to cool off at Ellis Brigham’s indoor ice climbing wall.
Regular Rat Racers now expect a ‘shave CP’ somewhere in the mix, but the description ‘Sweeny Todd’s Challenge’ may have put a few off! This was by the Fullers ‘Old Bank of England’ pub – a location between the site of Todd’s deadly barbers shop and Mrs Lovett’s infamous pie shop (and above the vaults where the crown jewels were hidden during the wars.) Luckily Rat Racers had a choice of what to have shaved and came out alive!
The vague CP names gave some hints as to what the challenge might be and there was an indication of how long it might take on the control description sheet, but the stop at ‘The Real Fight Club’ took longer than the 3 minutes that was planned. Here the racers had to don boxing gloves and work out in the ring with trainers, throwing punches and working up to combinations, and being yelled at all the time and made to do push-ups while they were waiting. Then it was onto the gym floor for more exercises and the trainers were taking no prisoners and giving everyone a hard time – they all left having worked up a good sweat and were glad when the final instruction was bawled at them; “Get out of my sight – go to the beep lady now!�
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