The Rat Race LONDON Urban Adventure Race
Capital Bananas
Marty Lee. Team Top Bananas / 01.10.2009
With Nick Gracie at the helm again for the weekend, we were in for a good race and more exploration of the capital city from the perspective of rodents!
Top Bananas were represented by Jon, Andrea and Marty and although it was a long trip down from Scotland, the weather and prospect of a good weekend of racing made the journey worthwhile. With a lot of familiar faces in and around the race village, the atmosphere was very laid back and more akin to a racers reunion event than the precursor to a two day race.
Saturday night's Mean Streets lived up to their name - with a larger course area than the last couple of RR's, this event included dummy controls and although some of the elite were close to clearing it, a lot of strategy and luck was required to avoid possible queues. With around 1000 people out on the streets, some checkpoints were going to get busy no matter how well managed they were.
Jon took the helm for our navigation and we were quickly off and over Tower Bridge; after previous years of racing here, we had checked out the bridge times and found that it was due to lift at 7:30pm - right at the point the penalties start and when we could conceivably be trying to get back across it to the finish. Our plan was to head off over the bridge early on and return by one of the other crossing points.
Before too long, I was suffering; although that's normal in most races, this was much earlier than expected and it was a combination of Andrea pushing and Jon towing that got me around the rest of the CPs. Where we went and what we did is a bit blury; I remember a Karaoke, some bowling, a pole dance, kayaking and Jon eating a pizza, but the rest of the night's activities were mainly seen as 'thank god I can stop running for 20 seconds' instances. It was just after 7:30 when we got back, and although we were tired, we knew we'd got to a good number of the CPs - enough to be sitting in about 6th/7th as it turns out.
Food and sleep are marvellous things, and while my body could feel the effect of Saturday night, I wasn't feeling as drained anymore. The early morning sunrise over the East End brought some warmth to the process of marking up the maps, but the blue skies alluded to the bright and sunny day ahead.
SleepMonsters
