Skip to main content

In the spirit of the Running Librarian...

...I shall detour from my normal random posting on vaguely law and library related topics, and sidestep into my "real" life for a moment.



On Saturday 19th July , I took part in the Edinburgh Rat Race for the 2nd time, doing the Mean Streets Prologue event. The Rat Race is a team event, 3 people with 2.5 hours to make their way around the city by foot, hitting checkpoints and completing fun challenges along the way. the Adventure Class do it over 2 days, with much more crazy stuff on the second day, and the Mean Streets counts as their warmup, taking placeon the Saturday evening.



As a not-very-fit sorta person, I wasn't sure I could manage this at all last year, but I did, and so I was looking forward to doing it again this year. A friend organised the teams, so we entered 6 teams of 3 peeps. I'd never met my team-mates before, so I was worried I'd be slowing them down if they were really fit:  a 20 year old Uni student and Officer Cadet, and a 40ish marathon runner! In the end though, we turned out to work really well as a team...so much so that, 7 miles, 15 checkpoints / challenges (including keepie-uppies, juggling oranges, Wii ski-ing, deciphering anagrams, piggy back traversing stone ball sculptures, running up and down vennels, lanes and streets, climbing Calton Hill and general madness) and 2.5 hours later, we actually ended up being the winners from our group of 6 teams! And from what I can work out from the spreadsheet, 7th overall of the 35 Mean Streets only teams!



Very chuffed with myself, especially as some of the guys in the other teams were VERY competitive!



And as proof, here I am as we started - the current toxic red hue of the head is particularly distinctive methinks, especially when it looks like I'm growing out of someone elses bandana...!
Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
I like to think I provided you with some inspiration...at least to write the blog post, nice hair by the way and congrats on completing the Rat Race again!
5 August 2008 at 16:29
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Careering along

When I look around at the activities of information professional groups, it seems that there’s a disparity. There’s quite often a lot of support and funding available for those who’re just starting out in the profession, but a desert of nothingness for those of us who’re “just getting on with it”. If you’re a new professional, you have lots of groups to support you as you progress in your early career, various prize funds available for essay and report writing, access to bursaries for conference attendance, eligibility for awards for being new and enthusiastic. But what do you get when you’re past that bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed first 5 years (5 years seems to be the approximate cut-off point for becoming “established” and no longer new). What happens when you’ve already received a bursary from an organisation earlier in your career and so wouldn’t be eligible for one now, meaning you’re not able to attend events or training? When you’re heavily involved in a project but not at
16 comments
Read more

What if you don't get back what you put in?

I am, as you may know, a member of CILIP, the professional body for information professionals. There are two main reasons I'm a member. I am a Chartered librarian, and I take my commitment to maintaining this visible badge of my professionalism seriously. I have revalidated my Chartership within the previous assessment system, and I have submitted my Revalidation within the new system. To continue being a Chartered librarian, I must be a member of CILIP (although currently the commitment to continue to revalidate my Chartership is voluntary, and has been so for the length of my membership since approximately 2001). So I continue to be a member. I am a registered CILIP Mentor, and I help to guide those information professionals who are keen to be professionally qualified through the Chartership/professional qualifications process. I could not abandon midway through that process the people who are looking to me for guidance in their professional development. So I continue to be
6 comments
Read more

Losing the professionalism

So, recently, CILIP apparently sent out an email regarding a consultation on a change of brand image, and name. I say apparently, as despite being a member, I never got this email. When I went to the website to log in and check why it wasn't sent to me, it didn't let me log in. I tried a password reset, and that email came through, so it *can* send emails to me...but the password it sent won't let me log in. I’m losing the will to keep trying. Overall, this is kind of symptomatic of how I feel about CILIP, and how useless its IT systems are.... Anyway, the consultation is on changing CILIP’s currently, clunky and meaningless name (picked as the best of a previous bad lot, as David McMenemy showed with this link to the 2000 consultation results ) to something more meaningful and relevant is open. If you want to take part, it’s here . I was a good girl, and pootled over yesterday to take part, and after filling in all the bumph, I got to view the glorious options. Oh. My.
5 comments
Read more