Rat Race – London 2007

Event Site: http://www.ratraceadventure.com/
Team: Mark Kelly, Sam Smith and myself

Saturday night: Mean Streets

3 hours and as many checkpoints as possible.

We were a bit lax with our timing and arrived late at registration. Just about had time to drop stuff off at hotel and get to race start. Sam had prepped the map with checkpoint locations and we quickly worked out a route.

Our plan was to go north of the river and pick off checkpoints in an anti clockwise direction taking. The event had an imposed time limit of three hours so we marked some checkpoints as time checks, from there we could go for more or less depending on the time.

Not being a Londoner myself left me a little daunted, especially as I always end up getting lost when I’m walking the golden pavements. Luckily Mark and Sam are veterans of the capital and I felt confident as we set off.

Checkpoints were marked with dibbers; devices that we put the chip on our wrist into until it beeped. Nice and simple but many were unmanned and hard to find. I ran to an early point and asked the marshal where it was and she told me to start looking, felt like an Easter egg hunt but without the chocolate!

Some of the manned points were set up for challenges. The first involved me donning a sumo suit, running up some steps and being rolled back by my team mates. The next was a sudoku challenge, what? Mark and I were clueless but luckily Sam had done one before. The first Ellis Bingham saw Mark climb and ice wall at the back of the shop. Stanfords’ map shop presented us with a map reading challenge. On the return leg mark and I did a parcour challenge on the embankment. Not as tough as I’d have hoped but I suppose it can’t be too dangerous for health and safety.

The event took in many sights including, Scotland Yard, various markets, Covent garden, a hen do, the barbican, British Museum to name but a few. What with many places being opened up for the race we thought nothing of one clue that suggested we head for Buckingham palace gardens. We ran the whole way round the perimeter before asking a policeman if there was a way in. We later found out that there were three dummy points listed on a card, but as we missed the briefing it was lucky we didn’t waste more time.

My favorite challenge by far came as a bonus. We were near the end of the event; tired and up against the clock we had to choose between running to the ministry of sound or getting a checkpoint near the finish. We opted to give it some an go for the Ministry, good effort by Sam who was in pain. I’d always wanted to visit the Ministry and when we got there I wasn’t let down. With classic tunes playing we ran round an empty club collecting flyers. Mark found time to break-dance and I took to the stage. So much fun and sooo funny.

We made it back to the finish two minutes before time, or so we thought. As we’d missed the briefing we’d also missed the fact that the duration was 2 1/2 hours not three. We got deducted a few points but we weren’t that upset.

Sunday: The main event

Unfortunately Sam had taken the maps home on the Saturday night whilst Mark and I had the instructions. So we started with a little lack of planning.

Setting off from Tower Bridge at 7.30 we headed into the streets for another orienteering exercise. Mark had some issues with a sore leg and found it hard to run so we took it easy between checkpoints. Taking it easy gave meant we could spend more time navigating and thus not loose too much time.

Task 1 done and we hit the road on the bikes. First challenge was to ride down some steps. Sam walked down; Mark and I circled a few times, did two steps and then walked. Totally chickened out but they were steep and I didn’t want to risk injury early in the day; well that’s my excuse not sure about Mark as he had full suspension! Next stop – Fuller’s Brewery where we had to roll a barrel down a course then do a krypton factor like jigsaw. I always thought I’d be good at these but my mind went blank. We were left with two pieces and just couldn’t figure it out!

Leaving the brewery we headed for Richmond park. Sam’s ham string started hurting him so we went at a steady pace. We arrived at the park to be presented with and orienteering challenge. 8 points needed to be visited, on foot, covering about 10k. Mark and Sam both were in pain at this time so we did well to make it round all the points. Highlights included seeing wild deer and a vantage point where you could see all the way St Paul’s.

From the park we headed to Twickenham, taking in some stunning views of the Thames along the way. Arriving at the Stadium my stomach turned as I was ropes with people dangling from over the side. After a short queue it was my turn :-S I clambered over the edge, didn’t look down and with some reluctance let go of the rail and clung to the rope. 20 feet from the bottom my gloves had melted through and my hands with them! I can’t say it was enjoyable but I can say I did it! After that we headed into the Stadium itself where we ran we had to do a rugby exercise next to the pitch. It was pretty special being in there all on our own.

Leaving the stadium we headed for the river and the Young Thames Mariner’s Centre. There we were faced with a rope slide, and swim challenge. Believe me by this time the last thing I wanted to do was jump into the Thames. With some reluctance and much swearing, by myself, we all jumped in and completed the challenge.

Time was now against us so we opted to miss the Wimbledon Common orienteering challenge. We, and other teams, didn’t really fancy another bout of running. So off we set to the Thames kayaking challenge located in Putney. We had to do and up/down stream loop of about 1k in fairly rough conditions. I took a single and Mark and Sam took a double. Feeling good I went off hard and overtook plenty of people. On the way back to the bikes we were directed to do a rowing challenge, 1500m on the ergo. No problem I thought but after 9 hours of racing and 500 metres later my legs died. The guys did 500 each and we completed it with no problem. The pubs and clubs training I gave them paid off here!

By the time we’d finished the river had risen, flooding the road. Our exit cut off we followed other racers and dashed for the finish. Time was against us and we were all feeling the aches. We made it back bang on 6, the official end time, but not in time to do the HMS Belfast challenge. I was a little gutted about this but was happier to have finished as a team.

In summary I thought the event and the weekend was amazing fun. I can’t wait to do another. I’d like to race against another team too. The main thing that let us down on the second day was lack of planning but after a while you forgot about racing and just had fun participating.

See the photos