Rat Race Part I

So Saturday dawned, bright and, well, slightly rainy actually. My first task was to return to the bike shop clutching my inner tube to complain that they had sold me one labelled 'kids bikes'. They only slightly patronisingly told me that inner tubes are all the same and I could use it on any bike. Then the girls arrived for our last kit check at12 and Jo told me I'd got one with the wrong sort of valve.

Despite this inauspicious start, we had between us all the necessary paraphernalia and walked with it into town to register. Our climbing harnesses were checked with Jo's being taken off for a special inspection because, being the one Al gave her 10 years ago when he bought a new one, it looked a little the worse for wear. Luckily it was pronounced serviceable and we filled in lots of forms promising not to sue the organisers if we fell off a rock or drowned and telling them who to call if we did fall off a rock or drown. Then we carried all our kit back to my house and returned to Princes Street Gardens by bus with nowt but Lucozade Sport to sustain us.

At 3.30 we were given our instructions and map of Edinburgh, and we spent the next hour marking up the points we had to visit. The idea is that you run to various places and perform tasks to collect points. The number of points per task isn't released until the run starts at 5pm, but we decided on a strategy of heading quickly out of town to Leith, performing lots of tasks there, and then working our way back into town. There was a new time penalty system in place whereby if you took more than 2 and a half hours you got points taken off. The longer you took, the more points per minute you lost. It was all very complicated. Oh, and you get a wrist band with an electronic widget on it which you stick in socket at each place to collect your points.

At 5 o'clock Team XX were off! We headed straight for Calton Hill, and frankly I was knackered by the time we were half way up. At the top our task was to jump along a series of rocks without falling off (and suing the organisers). This we accomplished, but a very rude team of girls behind us were yelling 'Come on!' and 'Hurry up!'. Silly bints - if they wanted us to hurry up they should have got there first. The same team later nearly knocked Jo over running round a corner without apology. We did not take to them. In fact, I will name and shame them: they were team number 22. No team spirit prize for them.

We charged down the hill to Gayfield square, where all we had to do was stick our widgets in the socket for 10 points, then down Leith Walk to Pilrig. Here there was a short queue for the children's playpark challenge where each team of three had to work their way around the inside of a rope climbing frame while sadistic marshalls twirled it around. We did this, collected points and, with Lee feeling a bit sick, set off down Broughton Street to Tiso in Leith. Jo was navigating, Team XX style: 'Left here past Al's flat! Then cut through Ben's car park!'. Thank goodness there were lots of points in Leith and we hadn't been forced to venture into the alien territory of the west end.

At Tiso we successfully located the points socket in one of a series of tents and headed for Ocean Terminal. Here one team member had to climb up the totem - a series of ropes, ladders and beams two storeys high. Lee volunteered and completed in double quick time, like a little monkey (only better looking). Whilst watching her, I noticed another team sporting ridiculously shorn hair. One of the nearby points was a barber shop and I feared I remembered Al telling me of a previous Rat Race where a team member had to have their head shaved to collect points. Interrogating the newly-punked individual proved my theory. Hmm. Head shaving was not a usual part of Team XX's grooming routine. But it was worth 30 points. We resolved to drop in, since it was nearby, and see what deal we could wrangle.

With Lee safely back on the ground, we headed to the lift (10 points from the marshall in the lift) to the top floor of the shopping centre to the boxing gym where we did 20 push-ups, 150 punches to a punch bag and 20 lifts of the medicine ball each to collect our points, then scarpered down the stairs and out through the car park to the barbers. Lee and I explained to the guy wielding the clippers that we would rugby tackle him to the ground if he took more than a tiny amount from Jo's hair at the back. He barely touched the clippers to her neck before we squealed 'That's enough!' so shrilly that he capitulated to save his eardrums. Nice work: 30 points and you couldn't even see the mark. Bearing in mind that we saw guys with full on mohicans, wiggly lines and one with a saltire shaved into the back of his hair.

And so we were off to Newhaven, where we searched out a lobster pot on the sea wall and then climbed seven flights of stairs to a new apartment to answer a questionnaire. This was followed by what should have been riding chopper bikes along the cobbled and sloping sea wall, but the bikes were so knackered by then that we just pushed them.

Time was flying by and we headed for a chip shop where the consumption of a deep fried Mars Bar could have gained us 25 points, but we were too late - some places were only operating for a limited time. Thence to the cycle path under Ferry Road and a tunnel where it took us an excruciating five minutes to find the socket to collect our points. We'd actually been on this route on our last practice run and knew it was a fair way back to town so from there we legged it back along the cycle path to Broughton and then up Dundas Street where even doggedly-determined Jo overtook one red-faced Rat Racer who looked as though he was about to have a heart attack. I'd never really thought about it before, but Dundas Street is really quite steep.

We'd been much slower than we anticipated and didn't have time to collect any points in town - we were already collecting time penalties. So it was a last sprint along Princes Street to the Gardens, to clock in and download out points. They were pretty pathetic - 208 (including 57 minus points for time penalties) compared to over 400 points from Lee, Al and Colin's team last year. We'd reached just 12 of a possible 30 places. But it seemed that quite a few other teams had struggled with timing and we ended up 148th (ish) out of 300 teams after the first day.

Pasta, rice and flapjacks were provided and consumed before we headed back to mine with the route for Sunday, which had just been given out. Luckily the Saturday event finished earlier this year, so we had mapped the next day's route and I was showered and in bed by 11, rather than the 2am Al managed last year. If only my neighbours had had the decency to keep the music down: a pair of earplugs left over from a clay pigeon shooting trip did the trick and I slept till 4am, when I woke up and worried about my alarm going off until it did at 6.30. It was time for the next stage.