Despite being 9 months pregnant, and realizing how crowded Knaresborough would be, we decided that we couldn't pass up the bed races. We got a later start than we had planned, and so by the time we reached the train station, it was crazy busy and we saw a mean side of English people that we hadn't seen before. Normally they are so polite and reserved with each other, even in times of difficulty, but trains too full to pick up passengers, and too many people crammed into too small spaces seemed to cause a few of the English to come undone. But we won't dwell on the negative, the positives were great. This year we staked out a spot at the starting line, it was one of the few places still open, and it turned out to be a great place to take pictures and see all of the teams. Then behind us was the river. It was too packed for us to see any of the crossings, but Dave climbed up on a van, lifted his camera up and took a ton of pictures, some of them turned out great, others were of arms and shoulders. There were 80 teams this year of all different ages and make-ups.
Here we are waiting for the races to begin. Since the teams cannot all start at once, it is a timed trial where they start about a minute apart and they race agains the clock. They seed the teams so the ones they anticipate to finish first start first and so on. As we saw teams run by us, you could really tell which "beds" were built better than others. Some were already falling apart or having wheel problems by the time they reached us, maybe 150 feet from the starting line, and it is a 5K race!
In the picture above I can totally picture my nephews Thompson and Forrest putting together a team and running this. Wouldn't that be fun? And get a cute girl to sit in the bed for extra good measure.
All of the teams march in a parade and the beds and participants are all dressed up. For the actual race they pair down to running outfits and the beds, but the Alpine team really kept up their theme and looked totally awesome.
Below are some of the good pictures Dave got of the river crossing. Note that their is a scuba diver in the river to save any unlucky team members. Also, the river is very deep, this isn't like crossing a stream.
Now, time for our kids to have some fun of their own. It was a hot day in the sun and they were begging to go on the bouncy castle (what they call moon bounces here). They had a great time.
Then we made our way through the crowds and back home. All in all a pretty good day.
Despite being 9 months pregnant, and realizing how crowded Knaresborough would be, we decided that we couldn't pass up the bed races. We got a later start than we had planned, and so by the time we reached the train station, it was crazy busy and we saw a mean side of English people that we hadn't seen before. Normally they are so polite and reserved with each other, even in times of difficulty, but trains too full to pick up passengers, and too many people crammed into too small spaces seemed to cause a few of the English to come undone. But we won't dwell on the negative, the positives were great. This year we staked out a spot at the starting line, it was one of the few places still open, and it turned out to be a great place to take pictures and see all of the teams. Then behind us was the river. It was too packed for us to see any of the crossings, but Dave climbed up on a van, lifted his camera up and took a ton of pictures, some of them turned out great, others were of arms and shoulders. There were 80 teams this year of all different ages and make-ups.
Here we are waiting for the races to begin. Since the teams cannot all start at once, it is a timed trial where they start about a minute apart and they race agains the clock. They seed the teams so the ones they anticipate to finish first start first and so on. As we saw teams run by us, you could really tell which "beds" were built better than others. Some were already falling apart or having wheel problems by the time they reached us, maybe 150 feet from the starting line, and it is a 5K race!
In the picture above I can totally picture my nephews Thompson and Forrest putting together a team and running this. Wouldn't that be fun? And get a cute girl to sit in the bed for extra good measure.
All of the teams march in a parade and the beds and participants are all dressed up. For the actual race they pair down to running outfits and the beds, but the Alpine team really kept up their theme and looked totally awesome.
Below are some of the good pictures Dave got of the river crossing. Note that their is a scuba diver in the river to save any unlucky team members. Also, the river is very deep, this isn't like crossing a stream.
Now, time for our kids to have some fun of their own. It was a hot day in the sun and they were begging to go on the bouncy castle (what they call moon bounces here). They had a great time.
Then we made our way through the crowds and back home. All in all a pretty good day.
2 comments:
If you had a pregnant lady who was about to have a hard and short labor, a team of hunks in Alpine hats who could push a guerney through the streets with great speed might not be a bad idea.
I like the way you think!
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