DIAL-A-COMMUNITY BUS
NEWS
2006
Dial-a-Bus Aces the Ythan Challenge!
By Rachel Milne and Alan Brown
A team from Buchan Dial-a-Community Bus raised
over £1000 for the project when they raised sponsorship
and ran the Ythan Challenge in June.
The Ythan Challenge is a 10k multi terrain
fun run round the beautiful Esselmont Estate in Ellon.
Sue Foster and Alan Brown from the Management
committee, Rachel Milne; co-ordinator, Rachel’s husband
David and Diana Osterberger made up the runners. Polo shirts
for before and after the race were provided by PomPrint in Mintlaw
and after 4 months of training race day finally arrived.
For the sake of truth and fairness Rachel asked
for alternative versions of the event…here are two;
Alan’s story
Buchan Dial-a-Community Bus fair broke the
mould when they took Rachel on as Co-ordinator! Over the years
she has come up with some excellent projects and ideas for DACB,
developing the fledgling business into the successful operation
we have today.... BUT when she came up with the idea of raising
funds for DACB by taking part in the annual Ythan Challenge
event at Ellon, I decided she had finally flipped completely!
I became even more certain of this when I looked on the internet
and saw the photographs of last year’s event!
Unfortunately by the time I’d looked
at the pictures it was too late as Rachel had taken it upon
herself to announce to all who would listen that DACB were entering
a team of 4 ‘worthies’ and a stand by – and
I was one of them....
Training for the event has been interesting.
I’d been training anyway as I took part in the Balmoral
10k run earlier in the year, but Rachel and Sue were by their
own admission, novices at the running lark. Over the past few
months we have run many miles – and walked a few in the
early days – and I have been called many unsavoury names
into the bargain as I encouraged, cajoled and occasionally bullied
Rachel and Sue into completing the distances we needed to have
any chance of completing the challenge.
The other two team members, Diana and David,
were both quietly confident in their own abilities, joining
the training runs occasionally when they could.
But train they did and to their credit they
kept going despite pain and discomfort a plenty! Rachel was
the first of the two to get round a ‘trial’ 10k
run, Sue swearing that there was no way she could do it... but
only a couple of weeks ago she did, boosting her confidence
in being able to actually do the Ythan event.
Suddenly it was Saturday and the run was ‘tomorrow’
– as Rachel said when realisation suddenly dawned on her!
Sunday morning saw us all at the Meadows in Ellon, stretching
out ready for the run. Rachel’s Saturday evening ‘butterflies’
were now Sunday morning ‘albatrosses’! Her comment
when she realised David and I were not joking about the TV cameras
being trained in on her as she demonstrated some weird karate
based stretches was priceless, but where TV can ‘bleep’
over things, written words can’t – so I won’t
repeat the colourful phrase!
The start of the run was a ‘gentle’
run alongside the Ythan through Ellon, over the viaduct –
I ran in the middle without looking down as I’m not very
partial to high heights! Rachel and Sue were always in sight
behind David, Diana and I until we reached the first obstacle
in the Esslemont Estate.
How difficult is it to comprehend the instruction to ‘step
over the four lines of tape set about 3 feet above the ground’?
Well after a tiring 3k or so, apparently quite hard as it had
to be repeated three times for one of our number before she
(sorry does that cut down the options of who?) clicked.
The fun really started thereafter... hay bales
upended for climbing over; David and I ended up on top ‘assisting’
the ladies over.
Then came the hills, only wee ones you understand.... hands
and knees were the only way and even then there was need for
teamwork in the form of much pulling and pushing – decorum
went straight out the window here – how do you help a
lady up a steep hill when you are behind ( and below) her?
What goes up has to come down again and as David reached the
foot of the second – or maybe the third – hill I
saw him sink over his knees in the mud we had to plough through.
With a shout of ‘don’t slow down or you’ll
sink’ I charged through, thankful I’d listened at
the start and tied my shoes tight! If they’d come off
in the mud, they’d have been gone for ever!
After the dirty bit came the clean bit –
the course ran through the Ythan itself! The water was only
knee deep to start with and it was easy to slip in gently –
for some! Forever the gent I got into the FREEZING waters of
the Ythan and offered my hand to Sue and Dianna who accepted
and slid ladylike into the river beside David and I. I then
did likewise for Rachel, who accepted and launched herself into
the river like she was jumping off the side of a swimming pool.
The splash she made created a high tide at Balmedie earlier
than anticipated! So much for only getting my legs wet... I
was soaked from top to toe... thanks Rachel!
The wade through the Ythan lasted longer than
we’d expected and just before the ‘out’ it
got much deeper. Don’t know about David, but I was speaking
in a high falsetto voice for a moment or two!
There then followed some army style crawl nets,
more bales and then the piece-de-resistance – the fireman’s
pole. This took more teamwork to encourage some of our number
down from the top platform – what a time to find that
my fear of heights paled into insignificance alongside that
of some of my team mates... but we all got down one way or another
and onward towards the finish... via more crawl nets, more hay
bales but thankfully not via the viaduct!
Passing the car park in the centre of Ellon,
the encouragement we were giving to Sue finally topped out and
we were politely told to shut up and let her get on with things.
Starting out we’d said we’d all
run together as a team and that’s what we did. With the
finish line in sight we formed a line and holding hands dragged
poor Sue along the final stretch and across the line –
1 hour 33 minutes and 23 seconds to be exact – all 5 of
us.
Within minutes of finishing some daft sod said
‘how’s about next year?’ and surprisingly
everyone said OK!
Rachel’s story
The background to this entire sorry tale is
that this is all my fault! In February, after not being very
well at the end of last year, I was looking for a challenge
to “complete my recovery” …or so I thought!
I have not run since I was about 13 or 14
(and I’m not going to tell you how long ago that was)
so I decided that I should do something really difficult, like
running the Ythan Challenge. But there was no way I was doing
it alone and although they thought I was completely nuts, my
team mates soon agreed when I asked them to join me. What does
that say about their sanity?!
This sounded great…until I realised that
I would now have to train for this event.
That wasn’t fun at first! Alan took my training in hand
and was brilliant at encouraging me (and talking me through
the panic attacks!), pushing me when necessary….and yes
he was an all out bully at certain times. I’m sure that
you’re not supposed to call your Director some of the
things I called Alan during the course of this training!
But strangely enough running soon became addictive and I found
myself looking forward to my twice weekly “boot camp.”
I was so proud of myself after I ran my first 10k in May…what
an achievement for a woman who had sworn never to go above a
gentle walk!
June seemed to steam by and all of a sudden
I realised that “its tomorrow…”
All too soon Sunday morning rolled round and
before I knew it I was standing in a throng of runners ready
to cross the start line.
The first 2 miles or so is just a straight
run up through Ellon, along the river etc, into the Esselmont
Estate and through the woods there. That part of the event was
fine; I knew Sue was less than confident about keeping up with
us so she and I ran gently at the back while the boys ran ahead
with Diana for a wee while.
My nerves were still a little shaky at this point and I know
I snarled at a certain member of the team at one point…I
did apologise later though so don’t feel too sorry for
him!
Once we hit the obstacles the team came into
its own. The hay bales weren’t bad because Alan and David
stood on the top and pulled us girls up (although I maintain
at this point that I didn’t need any more than a spring
and a hand to catch and guide me!) the crawl nets were a bit
the same, apart from the one which seemed to want to wind itself
round my neck! I have a theory that this wasn’t entirely
accidental…
The river was extremely cold; Alan really suffered
here and was convinced that hypothermia may do him a severe
and permanent damage! And yes…I soaked him! I HATE getting
wet and cold and the only way I knew I would do it was to jump;
no way could I lower myself into that ice bath. I resent the
implication that I caused a tidal wave though so ignore his
comments…he only got a little bit wetter than he already
was, and it cleaned the mud off him!
The real problem came next; the hills….
they were sheer and SO muddy. Only climbable on all fours in
places. Not elegant at all…. I’m not going to tell
you where certain people had their hands but if anyone tried
that particular manoeuvre outside this event there would probably
be blood spilled. Meantime David was being a gentleman and hauling
Sue up the hills by whatever he could reach!
And then there was the scaffolding. I was more
than apprehensive about this; I don’t like heights and
the idea with this obstacle was that everyone had to climb up
the scaffolding and slide down the pole; fireman like.
Sue was the star here and managed it no problem, but Diana needed
to be helped down by Alan who put his own fear of heights to
one side for the greater good of the team.
When it came to my turn all I could do was shut my eyes, jump
onto the pole and slide….if I’d looked closely at
how high it was I’d have cried. As it was I’d hung
on to David’s hand so hard that the feeling in it didn’t
return for another hour!
That bit was all taped by the BBC team who
were filming for an episode of “The Adventure Show”
so we may yet be on the TV. Thank goodness they didn’t
shout “cut” and ask us to do it again though!
So all in all, the middle bit was the most
fun…in a sick kind of way. After that it was just a straight
run home.
Except that we were all soaking wet from the river, I went head
over heels over a tree stump which David had just told me to
avoid and we all looked like we’d been wallowing in mud
like little piggies; the guys T shirts are now mud coloured
and may never go white again!
We all ran together all the way back again
and we sailed over the finishing line all five of us in a row;
hand in hand to a round of applause! And we weren’t last!!!
It was a great day and all we needed after
that was to shower thoroughly; my guess is that not one of us
has ever been that dirty since we were toddlers!
Ythan Challenge Photos by
Ted Bartlett
