Team Blackheart/Outer Edge head west for Rat Race Perth

The team was invited to race the Perth Rat Race Adventure after winning the Melbourne race of the series last November. Jodie Street joined Kathryn Ewels and Rob Preston for a hot weekend in the west.


Rob's report continues....

Day 1
The first stage on Saturday was "the Mean Streets", involving a 3hr rogaine around the CBD collecting simple controls, and others involving harder challenges. The difficulty, besides having no local knowledge, is that some challenges are only open for defined time periods so it is very hard to plan an efficient route.

We started off heading to Oxfam and Paddy Pallin. For some reason we changed our plan quite a bit after that and headed north to the indoor climbing and to the far point at some pool where 2 members had to jump of the 3m spring (note we had dropped Troy deHaas from our team because if he weakness around water and we could have got away with him). We were losing bits of time looking for some CP's because the description normally involved a road junction was anywhere up to 500m from the CP- this certainly made it harder for the visiting teams.

Headed back through the start finish for some karaoke- I chose my fav Uptown Girl by Billy Joel. Not a good choice cos it goes for ages. Then headed west to the short kayaking leg. This was actually pretty funny as only two people paddled but both were blindfolded and had to be guided by the remaining teammember. We passed a few teams here so our paddle training in the Red7 double must finally be paying off.

Then south to a few more sport challenges- lawn bowls and AFL ball kicking. We now had a bit less than an hour to go and not that many more CP's so we changed our mind about getting one on Heirisson Island. Bad move as we wasted heaps of time looking for it and then had a long run back to the city. Got a few more points before finishing with the boxercise challenge.

We ended up with 720, in 6th place behind the winners with 800points- which equates to 30mins handicap for Day 2 race. I was pretty impressed with our distance covered, much more than some of the other teams. Daltons team didn't crack 20km so obviously had a better route than us! Crucially we missed 2 big scoring CP's- the pizza eating which was on our original plan but missed it when we adjusted route, and the karate, which we didn't think we would make in time, but probably would have.
GPS route- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/24716789

Day 2- mostly on mtb around bike paths along Swan River. We started in the mall again, with a quick search for shopfronts and objects in the mall. Kathryn is bloody good at these ones and it didn't take long before we were finished and onto the bikes, I think in 2nd place behind SA Ambulance. What were you doing WA teams!?

We weaved our way through the city, past WACA, past that park we had an NOL race in a few years back, to the golf course where i cracked one right out of the centre. We over-rode the one on a log in the river and lost about 5mins and were passed by a massive group of teams that must have been travelling together. Unfortunately soon after there was a bottleneck at a stationary rowing challenge and we were knocked back to 15mins off the lead.
We did the next half quite well and caught back up to the leaders when they were searching on the wrong side of the ride for a control. There were 4 teams together coming into the very short kayaking section. Was 2nd out of the water but first back on the bikes and lead all the way to Queen st wharf where we got passed because I was looking on the wrong wharf. We couldn't quite catch up again before the untimed abseiling section at the clocktower down near Barrack St wharf. It was nice to relax for a while while the other teams abseiled. Then a quick ride up the hill to the finish. Funniest moment was seeing someone puncture as they rolled off a gutter 2 seconds after clocking back on after the abseil and hence have to change the tube for a 1km ride, or run with the bikes.

Officially we finished 4th, 3rd Mixed team, and 2nd on Day 2. Not a bad effort against some good teams in an unfamiliar city. route- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/24716788

The team would like to thank the Rat Race organisers for a great weekend, and especially looking after us with a free flight. Hopefully we can return next year and with a bit more knowledge of Perth we could give it another good shot.

Results

1  S.A. Ambulance 138 7:06:25 TA M 3:00:00 1 4:06:25 5
2  Goats on Parade 111 7:16:38 TA X 3:11:37 3 4:05:01 4
3  Woop Woop 98 7:24:05 TA X 3:07:45 2 4:16:20 6
4  Team Outer-Edge/Blackheart 86 7:34:08 TA X 3:30:58 6 4:03:10 2


Race report and Full Results