Maggot Racing
A fun weekend with the OTC. Saturday's programme went thus: map reading - a fun ramble around the countryside; route planning - in which I was accused of being brainy like it's a disease for dividing 5kmph by 1.6km correctly; and range shooting, which was good apart from one random shoot which looked like I'd sneezed because it was about a foot out. Oops. Sunday was a 6 mile Combat Fitness Test - 4 miles an hour with a bit of weight and a rifle. Hard for short unfit girls, who get put at the front. Tall boys who got stuck at the back marched along grinning, enjoying the ridiculously sunny weather and whistling/humming/singing when the PTI was further up chivvying the short arses. Favourite was "The animals went in two by two, hurrah! hurrah!" which sadly we didn't know the words, but got about 10 or 15 people humming/tumpty tumming along to, with me whistling a bit of random descant. Blame Diehard with a Vengeance for that one.
The highlight of the weekend though was Saturday night in the Officers Mess. Given that we were at a training camp this was a flatroofed single-step-up-from-a-portacabin but still, who cares when you have hobbit fighting (smallest people from each company trying to knock each other using only their legs, hands clasped behind backs, disqualified if they stop hopping) and maggot racing, in which I competed mostly because each team's three racers had to down a pint at the start and end of their lap. That was rule 1 of 3. Rule 2 was zips must be done up to the chin. Rule 3 was no biting.
This, by the way, is a maggot:
Having downed the required pint (which put me into an early lead, being the first off for Cardiff ) the course started with 3 sides of the main bar room around the chairs which penned in the spectators before going up the corridor to another conference room bit, crossing a line of armchairs on the way. Once in the conference room there was a line of normal chairs to be surmounted, a table to be ducked under, a pair of armchairs stacked on each other to be turned around at the end before a sprint back out of the room through a chicane of wall and table, down the corrider, back over the armchairs, back around the bar, jumping out of the maggot and downing the second pint.
Due to some nefarious business with the Swansea company people who were running the event I was held up at the jumping in stage trying to get my zip up and finally started hopping 3/4. At the armchairs in the corridor I caught up with the guy in second who was trying to wriggle over them. Adhering to the 3 rules I jumped onto him, knocking the chair over with him and rolling over him on the far side to jump up into second. Having pretty much smashed through the normal chairs and rolled under the table and sprinted back uninterrupted, diving headfirst over the armchairs and bounding around the bar right up behind the guy from Swansea in first I overtook him with the second pint. James, the Cardiff number two, then shot off and came home about 30 seconds ahead of the competition but Chris, number three, was so far ahead he was met in the corridor by the other three coming in the opposite direction and knocked back down by each in turn and despite a valiant effort (and my foot shooting out from the crowd to pin the back of the Bangor bag and drop the guy like a felled tree) finished a close second, being unable to drink fast enough due to crazy hiccups! A tragic occurence, to be sure.
The highlight of the weekend though was Saturday night in the Officers Mess. Given that we were at a training camp this was a flatroofed single-step-up-from-a-portacabin but still, who cares when you have hobbit fighting (smallest people from each company trying to knock each other using only their legs, hands clasped behind backs, disqualified if they stop hopping) and maggot racing, in which I competed mostly because each team's three racers had to down a pint at the start and end of their lap. That was rule 1 of 3. Rule 2 was zips must be done up to the chin. Rule 3 was no biting.
This, by the way, is a maggot:
Having downed the required pint (which put me into an early lead, being the first off for Cardiff ) the course started with 3 sides of the main bar room around the chairs which penned in the spectators before going up the corridor to another conference room bit, crossing a line of armchairs on the way. Once in the conference room there was a line of normal chairs to be surmounted, a table to be ducked under, a pair of armchairs stacked on each other to be turned around at the end before a sprint back out of the room through a chicane of wall and table, down the corrider, back over the armchairs, back around the bar, jumping out of the maggot and downing the second pint.
Due to some nefarious business with the Swansea company people who were running the event I was held up at the jumping in stage trying to get my zip up and finally started hopping 3/4. At the armchairs in the corridor I caught up with the guy in second who was trying to wriggle over them. Adhering to the 3 rules I jumped onto him, knocking the chair over with him and rolling over him on the far side to jump up into second. Having pretty much smashed through the normal chairs and rolled under the table and sprinted back uninterrupted, diving headfirst over the armchairs and bounding around the bar right up behind the guy from Swansea in first I overtook him with the second pint. James, the Cardiff number two, then shot off and came home about 30 seconds ahead of the competition but Chris, number three, was so far ahead he was met in the corridor by the other three coming in the opposite direction and knocked back down by each in turn and despite a valiant effort (and my foot shooting out from the crowd to pin the back of the Bangor bag and drop the guy like a felled tree) finished a close second, being unable to drink fast enough due to crazy hiccups! A tragic occurence, to be sure.
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