Rat Race - A Rat Whether You Win Or Lose

With under 3 weeks to go until the 2nd annual Belfast Rat Race on 08/09 August, the Dynamic Duo are fresh (?!) from some alternative training regimes and finally gearing up for the event. One of the pair has just returned from checking out "all things rodent" across the Atlantic (Disney, Florida, to be precise! Taking the Mickey?! In her training!) and the other has been rubbing shoulders with champion mountain bikers and seeing how it's really done in Cave Hill – one of the locations visited in the Rat Race in 2008. If only know-how translated into practice! But let's hope some of it rubs off on the team as they start some late training and hope to defend their title of Winning Female Pair in the inaugural Belfast Rat Race last year.

The Rat Race is a physical and mental adventure challenge that uses the cityscape as its playground starting at the City Hall. In Belfast 2008 the event lasted for 8 hours on the Saturday, but in 2009 there is a new format for Belfast with participants able to choose whether to do 3 hours on Saturday evening before the 8 hours on Sunday. The Dynamic Duo have chosen the longer "weekender" option. It is a team event in which participants run, hike, bike, abseil, climb and kayak the streets, structures, waterways and urban landscape, whilst navigating their way around a course that's only revealed to them just before they begin.

The course is designed in different sections and loops that do not all have to be completed, so that people of various fitness levels can participate and get a feel for adventure. The elite teams will clear up the whole course, others will manage only a couple of sections, but everybody gets the same amazing level of fun that the Rat Race promises. Particularly with the special tasks, which last year involved potato peeling (which Andrea still has to practice, but Jen doesn't as she is the domestic goddess in the team), an inflatable bungee run, towing a 4X4 jeep, river tubing down the Lagan and climbing up a margarine-greased ramp. Who knows what 2009 has in store?

If juggling is one of the special tasks in this year's Ratrace, then the Dynamic Duo are set for the podium. Being mothers of two young children (Jen has Charlie 9yrs, Olivia 7yrs; Andrea has Fraser 6yrs and Alex 2yrs) and both working mothers too, it is a task itself to fit in training and events with home and work life. However the two have mastered the juggling act and are keen to show other women that it is all do-able, that the fun and adventure is out there to be had, and that the kids benefit from it all too. Kids love that their mum is racing, not to mention loving to get to call you a Rat! The enthusiasm they see in you, will naturally translate to them and before you know it they just love being in the great outdoors doing sport and seeking adventure too. It's not easy fitting it all in, but it's do-able. Can't get out for a run because the kids are at home? Get them on their bikes and they can cycle along while you run. And a three-wheeler buggy and a kids bike seat means you can always run or cycle with a toddler.

Speaking of bikes, one of the decisions for the team ahead of 08/09 August is whether to go solo or tandem. In 2008 the Dynamic Duo won the event on a tandem bike (kindly provided by Dromara Cyling Club and the only one in the race – but seemingly a trendsetting idea!), which was enforced because one of the pair had only one functioning leg due to injury. Given the choice to be "normal" this year, do we go for it?! Will have a tandem makes us "different" this year if others decide to follow our trend from last year?! Hmmmm, wonder what other human-powered wheeled vehicles we could come up with to use?!

Anyway, whatever the event has store, whatever the weekend brings, come rain, hail, sun or shine, the Dynamic Duo can not wait to join the Rat Race and do what they do best – having immense fun while doing a little physical activity! Winning would just be the icing on the cake….and it's always worth remembering that "The trouble with the Rat Race is that even if you win, you're still a Rat".