Monday, July 18, 2005
Rat Race - Team Monketeers
As disciplined as Monks, and as ingenuius as Monkeys.
It all started in a queue to use the perpertually disgusting outdoor portaloos. A Brazilian cameraman approached me, and asked if I knew of any Brazilians competing in the Adventure, he wanted to cover the story for his London paper. Seizing the opportunitiy for fame, I told him that my name was Souza (not sue-zaa, but soo-zaa) and he started paying attention. For the rest of the Adventure, we had a personal
photographer. Fabulous.
The Rat Race Adventure Edinburgh is supposedly a charity even for CancerBACUP. I am not so convinced, and think that The North Farce, along with Tiso and Mister Rat Race himself, make a tidy little number. The adventure began on Saturday morning, and we headed out to Princes Street Gardens for an equipment check. Ridiculously unnecessary items were included in the list, such as Push Bike Bell, Whistle, Headtorch, Waterproof Jacket, Map, Water Bottle and Hat . None of which were needed, as we were clearly not needed (other than to improve sales at Tiso LTD) and in the acse of the latter 3, were actually given to us in a goodie back after checkin. Grrr.
So, £80 for the entry fee, £10 to be told for 5 minutes how to use ropes, £15 to hire a harness and hat, £30 on suspiciously non-required equipment such as an OS map for £7.50. This was going to be an expensive weekend. I was already wishing bad karma upon Mister Rat Race for this.
Maps were handed out in a scene reminisent of Bob Geldof's tour of Africa 20 years ago. Right at the beginning it was clear that there are people here who are very very clear in their goals - Winning Is All That Counts. We got the map, and diligently marked off the 30 tasks waiting to be completed. Then we decide to bend the rules a little, and assign Raw to packhorse it back to the Small Flat with all our rucksacks, as they were completely unnecessary for all the tasks on the sheet.
Starting pistol fired at 1900, and Todd and I rush back to the flat, meet Raw outside, and head for the first task: canoeing behind Cargo. The trio who arrived a few seconds after us, rudely pushed in front, and we stood back for a second to make the decision on who was to run, whilst two paddled. Todd assumed the role of photographer, and ran alongside. Raw and I began a frustrating journey which was made inordinately long by our inability to steer in a co-ordinated direction.
I enjoyed ramming another canoe, and pushing them in the reverse direction. Arrrr; my heartys. We completed our first task, jumped (read: hauled ass ungracefully) out
of the canoe, and keenly looked toward Team Captain, master of organisation Todd, for Task #2, soon to be obliberated. “Where’s the map?” “what map” “I though you had it” “why would I have it” “you had it” “Did you have it”. We gave up looking shortly afterwards, but didn’t give up lashing into Todd about his complete lack of competence shown within minutes of the start. Then on to the meadows, where we figured there was something on the map – as far as any of us could remember. Hmm. The only way we managed to navigate was to tail other BlackShirts around, and complete the various tasks straight after them.
A few overzealous Rat Racers asking us along the way “where are your packs, lads?” my response was not sincere. Flipping beer mats was my forte, then something with a Frisbee, then some random checkpoints hidden in the middle of nowhere. Onto Bristo Square, where the organisers had arranged a minor assault course, which was to lay a major assault to my knee. There was a strange climb where we had to get to the top of a flight of stairs, with hands on one side of the railing, and feet on the other. A wise cameraman managed to get a side shot of us doing this, and stuck it on the Big Screen on Princes Street gardens a few hours later. At about 11pm that night, we bore witness to 16’ images of our 3 asses – and nothing else – bobbing up and down within camera vision. I wish that my 15 minutes of fame was less insulting.
After a while of running about, it got tedious tiring, and rather fruitless without a map. We headed back to the Small Flat for some chill time. After half an hour flouncing in the flat, we headed back out towards Dean Village, made a couple of targets, and then bought two double cheese burgers and four hoegaardens each to return to the gardens and see how we turned out. Amazingly, there were actually people even more rubbish than us, despite not stopping, having more motivation, and
having a map. I can’t see how it was possible.Mister Rat Race took his position on the stage and announced the map for the next day was available. We waited until the queue died down, grabbed our copy, and went to bed.
Sunday: 7am wakeup call.
walk up to the castle esplanade, and be noisy, for a noisy start. we cycled, ran, jogged, bustled, and got busy around the city and its outskirts abseiling and rock climbing until we found a 1973 BMW CS (well, ok, i found one, and checked it out) and then we all went to a pub for a large lunch and decided to sod the race, and do some more abseiling. which meant just cutting out a large portion of the race, and not bothering showing up to the more mundane events such as orienteering. we cut to the chase, went to the gyle, and surprised the Rat Race peoples that were waiting. "you're the first people here. Are you an elite team?" "err, no, we kinda missed one of the items on the course". immediately Woman in Red top was disgusted. "what do you mean you 'missed' it?". "well, we didn't really like queueing and we didn't like orienteering, so we came straight here". so they sat about discussing the concept of people actually enjoying the even rather than enduring it, and decided to very kindly let us use the space hoppers to bounce around the carpark. another event completed. we then head into safeway, buy some icelollies and stand around the carpark, having banter with two of the stewards that didn't hold us in comtempt, and standby watching the really keen people appear. These guys were the hardcore, living the Rat Race dream. They held their position at the traffic lights, and shouted "GREEN! GREEN! GO! GREEN!" when it turned amber. God, give me strength.... By this time, my knee had completely given up, and the only thing keeping it midly useful was the strength of Ibuprofen.
Our Brazilian photographer appears once more, and snapped away. I've gotta try and track down his paper now. I hear that the Brazilian part of London is Harlsden, so i'm not so sure its worth the risk heading up there.
Last event, before we went home was abseiling in Murrayfield. Mister Rat Race himself was there to inform us "Guys, so i understand that you've missed a lot of the course. But I'm going to let you finish the last event anyway.". Cheers, scumbag, you've got our money, so give us the bloody rope. Then lots of photos running in and out of the changing room, and a lap offer for the first people that managed to get to the last event. A final pose for the ever present Brazilian photographer as a group looking straight to the camera with a single index finger pointing North for each for us. Message: Brazil, we're number one, so dont look any further baby.
Head back to the small flat, shower, change, relax, flounce about, and eventually head down to the Princes Street garden after party, to find us 3rd last in the overall tournament. Mister Rat Race was clearly not impressed, and penalised us appropriately.
Lots of people stopped us on the street to demostrate their ingenious, novel and keen sense of humour upon seeing 3 dudes with the same T-shirt, and a A4 paper saying "61" on the front.
+ When cycling, one woman asked "are you in a bicycle race?".
+ When running down the street a few people shouted "hurry up" or "you're late"
+ The best, however, was a cockney dude who stuck his tattooed arm out of his Vauxhall to commandingly yell "118, 118, Got your number!".
I'd probably do it again next year, but would train a little harder (ie do some training) first.
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