Newcastle Report

Report brough to you from Sleepmonster.co.uk

Testing Times on the Tyne

by Pyro

The third race in the one-day 'Rat Race Nine2Five' series, Gateshead and Newcastle played host to a mix of nervous newcomers and experienced racers for the first Rat Race event in the North East of England.

Gathering in Gateshead's Baltic Square, between and ‘The BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art’ and alongside the 'Blinking Eye' (the Gateshead Millennium Bridge), the racers were immediately immersed in the recent history of the cities in an area which has seen major cultural development and investment over the past few years. This culture would also play a part in the race, showing the enthusiastic Rats the best parts of the twin cities either side of the Tyne.

Wrong-footed from the Off

Having been given their route books at 9.30am, teams marked up their maps for the day, becoming more nervous as the full scale of the course was revealed. But, in true Rat Race style, there would still be at least one mystery involved: As the 11 o'clock start gun went off, the racers first grabbed the sealed envelope which contained the location of their very first checkpoint. The teams quickly ripped open the envelopes and immediately queried their maps and guidance. The early instructions had stated that the Prologue loop would be to the south in Gateshead, but the checkpoint location they were given was to the north, along the Newcastle quayside.

Even more confusion was added when they dashed across the Gateshead Millennium Bridge as a group, and then promptly split, some to the left, some to the right, aiming for two separate checkpoints. At their first location, they found a code letter and the location of the next checkpoint in the loop. Following this took them to the next location and code, and so on and so on, with teams being sent on different but equal courses, and created maximum dispersal and confusion. (Common in Scandanavian orienteering this technique is called ‘gaffeling’). This eventually gave them 10 letters, which they then used to access the Bike pen. Those who failed to collect all the code letters could not access their bikes until 11:40, giving them an immediate disadvantage.

The first Adventure loop headed out east along the streets and cycle ways near the River Tyne, picking up a couple of checkpoints on the way to the first activity at Rising Sun Country Park, site of the former Rising Sun Colliery. Here the racers had to complete a short MTB-O section before continuing east to the coast. Not every team would have it easy on the way though: Victoria Checkley was unfortunate enough to damage her bike before even reaching the MTB-O, and ran back to the Race Village, successfully managing to charm the gentlemen at the G4 Challenge stall into lending her the MTB they had for their display, although one of the guys did remark that "it was a shame this wasn't last week. Since it was only for display I took the decent forks off the bike over the week and replaced them with a cheaper set".

The kayaking stage, within the Tynemouth harbour walls, had its own twists and complications. For the Pairs, a straightforward paddle around the coast and up the Tyne towards the Fish Quay, however for the Teams, 2 members would paddle this while the third ran over to meet with them at the turnaround point. Here they also had the choice to swap their runner for one of their paddlers for the trip back to the beach.

Due to the incoming tide and the swell, later teams were also given a 'short' kayak option with no penalty (for the 3-man teams, two paddled and one still ran to the CP), but this still caused its problems, one team returning to the beach after less than 200m because of a paddler twisting their shoulder as they rode a wave, and the two gents from 'Captain Brubaker's Sweatsuit" taking a swim after turning side-on to the swell inadvertently. Fortunately for them the crew from Red Seal Rescue were on hand and escorted them and their boat back to shore very rapidly, where they could make use of the Sailing club toilets to change into some drier clothes.

From the kayaks, teams left their bikes and ran over the Priory headland to Short Sands, where a topical Olympic ‘long jump’ challenge awaited them, and then into Tynemouth itself for the first 'food' checkpoint. At Marshall's fish and chip shop, they were presented with three closed boxes of chips, one of which contained the SI box. They could pick up, shake, smell and weigh the three boxes, but were only allowed to open one, with a penalty incurred if they failed to pick the right one. Moving on from there, no doubt feeling peckish after the smell of frying food, they returned to Prior's Haven to pick up the bikes, then headed back to Baltic Square via the Tyne Tunnel (the Pedestrian and Cycle tunnel, not the road one!). This tunnel is an almost Victorian experience with vast escalators with wooden steps and echoes all around.

Back at Baltic Square more activities awaited the teams in their 'Working Lunch'. First of all, find the SI box in the bottom of the inflatable ball pool, an activity which caused much hilarity amongst the older competitors.

Alongside this were a short climbing wall challenge and the famous horizontal bungee. The marshals here had some of the best roles of the day, watching the determination on the faces of the racers as they fought against the stretch of the elastic, techniques varying from all-out speed to rugby-scrum style crawling, via one competitor using a 'chimneying' style movement, bracing off the sides of the run.

Bridge on the Tyne

Last up before the second Adventure loop was the big thrill of the day, and many racers favourite moment. The guys and girls from A.C.E. ropes team had rigged a huge 120ft free abseil from the icon of Tyneside itself, the Tyne Bridge

For the experienced this was simply a large but fun diversion, for the inexperienced this was a jaw-dropping introduction to abseiling.

Climbing over the rail at the edge of the bridge was nerve-wracking in its own right, and as the marshals had a nervous moment themselves as Elise Armer climbed over the rail, descended two meters... and then stopped. She sat comfortably in her harness dangling from the bridge, and shouted to the rope technicians that she was okay, but would like to wait for her team mate and father Geoff, who at 62 years old was undertaking his first ever Adventure Race and also his first ever abseil. The pair then descended together, Elise in her third race coaching Geoff in his first.

With the central activities despatched, teams then headed west on their bikes once more, first stopping at the Shakamaka milkshake shop for their second food challenge, where they had to taste identify the milkshake (it was Jaffa Cake, by the way). Once at their next destination, the Metro Centre, they had to drop their bikes and make use of the separate map they received in their goody bags to navigate to the Berghaus store within the huge shopping complex.

Once there, the checkpoint was to be located, not as easy when it is hidden in the bottom of a Berghaus Freeflow Velocity rucksack on a wall display. Returning to the bike drop, then continued on for their next round of activities at Whickham Thorns Outdoor Activity Centre. Here they had four challenges to despatch - a High Ropes course, a Bouldering challenge, a short section of Orienteering and a combined Assault Course and Archery challenge. The weary, and also now muddy, teams left here buzzing from the High Ropes and Assault course, and returned once more to Baltic Square for the 'home stretch' of the race, the Mean Streets quiz and the Epilogue.

Stairway to the Finish

The quiz took the form of 14 questions about certain specified locations, such as "what is the number of the Fire Hydrant halfway along High Friar Lane?". Teams incurred penalties based on the number of incorrect answers they gave: less than 4 correct gave a penalty of 60 minutes, where as 8-14 correct meant no penalty.

Teams who were lower down the rankings were advised that they could skip or shorten the Adventure loops, and so many took the option of moving straight from loop 1 to this, and wisely so. For those not pushing to complete the full course they could make the most of the quiz and possibly gain time on teams who would be rushing to complete it later on.

For the final fling Course Planner Shane Ohly had come up with a short but exceedingly strenuous exercise. "This is my absolute, absolute highlight of the course" he stated after the race "but I've lost count of the number of times I've been called 'evil' because of it!".

Starting from the base of a set of stairs on King Street, racers ran a series of 5 sets of stairs leading from the Quayside up towards the centre of Newcastle. Not only were all of the checkpoint units at the top and bottom of these sets of stairs, but the whole activity was timed, with penalties mounting up for any times over 10 minutes! "Until Friday night I had no idea how long this would take" remarked Shane "I'd planned it all out but had never actually run it at race pace, so at 1am Saturday morning I went out in my running gear with a big headlamp and ran it, in amongst all the stag and hen parties". Needless to say, any racers who had managed to avoid fatigue up until then had certainly not managed to avoid it after!

The weary racers returned to Baltic Square for a big finish, and to make use of the Baltic bar and Cafe, where Race Director Gary Tompsett presented the prizes for the category winners.