London River Rat Race

Date:            16.08.14

Location:      Royal Victoria Dock, London

Challenge:   10k
The Course: flat running, water obstacles and kayaking

The River Rat Race was in East London along Victoria Dock. I was following the posts on Twitter about setting up the course the night before. Very excited, my day started really early at 6:30am. Remind me! Why did we sign up for the earliest wave? Ah, yes sure, we had Andre in our team who is a serious racer. Don’t get me wrong, I was also running as fast as I could but also wanted to stay with my colleagues if any support was needed. If I review the time now, it was the best wave to start, as there were no cheques at any obstacles. Just when the 2^nd wave was on the course and I ran up the stairs to cross the bridge again, it was busy.

Pic courtesy Rat Race: Obstacles indoor at start and finish.

I loved the obstacles and for my taste there could have been more. Great fun and challenging were the pumped up inner car tires. They were tied together in a line and we had to crawl on them to cross over to the other side. I felt off a few times. Dipped myself into the river. I think I was actually wet the whole race.

Pic courtesy Rat Race: The car tires

Oh, this one was scary!

Scary, but we all did “The Big Jump” (ca. 5 meters high).

Everyone got a swim vest on. At the edge, I looked down and got scared. I never did a jump high like this one before. A few big guys nearly chickened out. No, I never thought about skipping this one. I ignored my fear turned around to my colleagues to motivate them. “Yes, we can jump together!” We all lined up, crossed our arms in front of the chest and counted 3,2,1…

Pic courtesy Rat Race: The Big Jump

With a big step looking straight ahead and stiff like a pencil, I did it! It sounds boring but this is the safest way to do it. Wow, I was impressed what I can do by supporting each other. Or was it the pressure of the peer? We were all happy we did it and were back on the course running to the next obstacle.

Pic courtesy Rat Race

Other obstacles:

-       water pools to crawl though

-       road barriers to climb over

-       metal bar instead of the typical monkey bars

-       sallow water to get into to dive underneath an air-pumped up obstacle

-       The Hamster Wheel but to craws though and swim after wards

-       2-3 meter high slighting down with a meter drop into the water

-       Kayaking: quite a decent distance

Pic courtesy Rat Race: The Hamster Wheel

Very well organised at few obstacles the timing chip as signed out and back in again due to expected waiting time. Looking at my result sheet now it seemed like it didn’t work as well as it was planned. But it was a good idea.

There was a lot of running of cause as it’s a 10km race. Running in wet feet the whole time might cause a few blisters if you getting them easily. I only suffered from bruises at my arm and legs.  Overall definitely a great race and I fancy dong it again next year.

 Team: Jamie, Lauren, Sophia, Sabine and Andre

Cool, few month later I opened the email and saw me on the promo 2015 pic!