Sunday dawned bright and, yes, actually sunny! I discarded my sweatshirt and waterproof as excess weight and headed out of the door with only my official race shirt between me and the elements. And a bra and pants, of course. And leggings.
Actually, a lot of thought had gone into the pants as the race website had warned that one team member would have to swim 100 metres. Neither Lee not Jo was particularly keen on this idea, especially as the swim was described as 'full of beasties' (or so I thought: in retrospect it seems they just didn't fancy stripping off in public). I had therefore dressed in the expectation of having to strip off, in my best big pants. Even bigger pants, with built in padding - as purchased from the bike shop where such items are considered desirable - were packed as spares in my rucksack. Along with climbing helmet and harness, emergency blanket, water, ibuprofen, compass, whistle, Lucozade, cereal bars, chocolate and oatcakes. I also carried three bright yellow ostrich feathers which I'd bought as Lee had said it was difficult to tell everyone apart in matching race shirts and helmets, and as team mates we had to stay within 100 metres of each other.
So off I set at five to 7, pausing only briefly to force down some cereal and a banana and consider deliberately setting off my smoke alarm to punish my noisy neighbours who had kept their party up until 5am. But I am too nice, and considered the feelings of my much better behaved neighbour upstairs and so refrained. I didn't even kick their front door as I cycled past.
Cycling to Princes Street I was overtaken by a fellow Rat Racer who called a cheery 'Good morning!'. Shit - the day hadn't even started and already I was being falling behind.
I rendezvoused with Lee and Jo and distributed the feathers, which we attached to our rucksacks. There was a quick briefing and then it was straight into the 'dispersal exercise'. This was the organisers' way of splitting us up so that Edinburgh was not forced to take the full brunt of 600 Rat Racers hitting the streets simultaneously. First we set off in a circular run that squeezed us through a narrow gate back into Princes Street Gardens - this pushed Team XX back to the last third. Then we had to get a look at a map of where four clues had been distributed around the gardens and split up to retrieve them. As Chief Runner I was assigned two of the four, which were luckily quite close to each other. Jo fetched hers ok. But Lee had volunteered to fetch the furthest away and as all the other teams streamed out of the gardens and we were left without her, Jo and I started to worry that she'd fallen down a well or broken an ankle. Luckily she'd merely been waylaid by a locked gate, but this mishap left us at the back of the field as we headed out on foot to the New Town, where we had to collect points from four different sockets. Some teams were back and collecting their bikes before we'd even left the gardens! And to add insult to injury we didn't even need Lee's clue: the clues were parts of an aerial photo of the New Town and the nearest points were on other bits.
Points duly collected we were allowed to pick up our bikes and set out on the 'proper' part of the day - exhausted already! Running with a rucksack with all that kit is my least favourite thing in the world.
We headed for the Grassmarket and then Chambers Street, where we had a choice of riding our bikes down a steep set of steps or carrying them. Having heard from my work pal Julia, also in a team, about her unsuccessful attempts to practice riding down steps, we took the walking option. From there it was the steep uphill of Old Fishmarket Close that provided another technical difficulty as Lee's chain decided it didn't like low gears and promptly fell off. She valiantly hoicked it on again and spent the rest of the day not going below 3rd gear (as did I, since my bike didn't seem too keen on the idea either).
Shortly after this I witnessed a girl from another team get a spectacular puncture with a loud pop and thought 'I'm glad that's not me'. Ah, the karma as, having carried the bikes down the steps of Warriston Close and cycled on to George Street, my front tyre went 'phssst'. Well, we were already about the last team out there, so we decided to regard this as God's way of telling us to take it easy. I watched in awe as Jo did a Formula One pit stop act on my inner tube, replacing it in about three minutes while I said helpful things like 'Is it supposed to look like that?'. Just as we were ready to set off again a bloke on a racing bike stopped by to see if we needed any help.
'No thank, we've just changed the inner tube.'
'I've got a racing inner but not a mountain bike one I'm afraid.'
'It's ok - we've already changed it.'
'Your back tyre could do with pumping up too - I've got a pump.'
'Really, it's fine, we've got one, we'll do it at the first queue.'
He seemed almost put out that we didn't require his services. But at least we were back on the move.
So to Haymarket and on to - ah bliss! - a cycle path. We toddled along, enjoying the shady trees and counting the bridges we passed under as the instructions demanded. After eight bridges we hauled the bikes up a steep bank to clock in for some points and then continue along the top of the overgrown path. We were right at the back so most of the vegetation had been trampled, but there were still nettles and brambles enough to snag Lee's bike and cause her to fall in dramatic slow motion into a spiky bush.
We joined a path alongside the River Almond - it was time for my dip. Luckily it was turning into a hot day and I was nice and sweaty and about ready for a wash. The water was chilly but a bit of energetic kicking kept me warm until I reached the lovely slippery muddy bank downstream where we emerged. In the meantime, my teammates had to carry all three bikes up some hideously steep wooden steps - as I swam round the bottom of a cliff, they were hiking over the top. I think I definitely got the better deal on this one, even if I did have to stand around on the river bank in my wet undies for a bit. I'd worried about my lack of specialist skills to bring to the team (Lee and Jo both being better climbers and kayakers than me) but it seemed that the ability to get changed in public, as honed in dozens of surf trip car parks, was in fact a key skill.
We continued, with me in nice dry padded pants but a damp bra, to Cramond. Here we left the bikes and walked (swiftly, but nowhere near running speed) across the causeway to Cramond Island. The island has various old bunkers on it left over from the war (the causeway itself runs alongside old submarine defences) and our first task was to don climbing helmets and 'storm the fort' by climbing up dangling ropes to a concrete balcony while enthusiastic marshalls threw eggs, bananas and flour at us. What a great job! I want to be a marshall next year! Luckily they had almost run out by the time we got there and apart from a near miss with an egg we were unscathed.
We headed for the north east corner of the island to find a 'prisoner' who, when we found him, looked cold and bored but gave us points and a clue which allowed us access to the next challenge: one team member had to climb a section of cliff. Jo volunteered for what she later described as 'an easy traverse'. I think this means a sort of sideways climb. Lee and I sat at the top and ate cereal bars. Julia's team had also reached this point and we had a quick chat before heading back to the mainland.
It was only about 11am!
No comments:
Post a Comment