The Rat Race LONDON Urban Adventure Race
City High Flyers
Julia Baron (Team Accelerate) / 01.10.2009
Dan and I made an executive decision in the car on the way there that as George was the student, he would be nominated to do any of the more obscure challenges that might involve shaving, tattooing or generally making any other permanent changes to appearance! George seemed to be happy with the idea, even commenting that he'd always wanted an excuse to shave his head to see what he looked like as a skinhead!
George's dad had kindly offered to let us stay in his flat for the weekend, which was only 10 minutes cycle away from the event start and finish at Tower Bridge, and even more importantly had a sauna and Jacuzzi for post-race recovery!
We arrived at the flat after queuing most of the way into the city and realising that there is little courtesy or patience amongst drivers in London ... cycling around the city at speed was going to be interesting and a bit different from the usual negotiating of roots, rocks and mud!
A quick sorting of the mandatory kit we needed for Saturday evening's ‘mean streets' challenge and we then headed down to Potter's Field's park in the shadow of Tower Bridge on the South Bank, the event village for the weekend. The sun was still shining and there were lots of people about, both racers and members of the public, enjoying watching the bike skills display team, the bungee jumpers, and generally soaking up the great atmosphere. At 3.30pm we had a race briefing and were given our maps and control descriptions to mark up. The maps were A-Z style tourist maps and this combined with my only ever having been to London 4 times in my life made me glad that resident map whiz Dan would be navigating!
The 5pm mass start time soon drew near and before we knew it we were lining up on the front row ready for race Director Nick Gracie's countdown. I was nervous, and rightly so, because we set off at what for me was almost a flat-out sprint! Within 10 minutes I was getting tired and I think Dan and George realised that having a girl on the team, especially one who is not a fast runner, meant the pace was not going to be like that in a male pair. We slowed down (not much though!) to a manageable pace and I went on the tow. This was pretty amusing on the busy streets as it meant dodging around people whilst tied together, and also being pulled across roads without a choice of waiting for traffic.
SleepMonsters
