Intro:

Highlights from the 2014 Great Knaresborough Bed Race.

Script:

The 49th Great Knaresborough Bed Race, held in Yorkshire in the north of England, was run on Saturday.

The event is part fancy dress pageant and part gruelling time trial over a 2.4 mile course, ending with a swim through the icy waters of the River Nidd.

Before the bizarre bed race got underway, the Mayor of Knaresborough, Tony Handley described the event as unbelievable.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Mayor of Knaresborough Tony Handley (standing next to his wife, Mayoress Lori Handley):

"Looking around, it's just grown and grown and grown. The enthusiasm for it and the creativity is just unbelievable. I mean some of the outfits - fortunately we're not judging because I don't know how you can but the work that goes in to some of these beds is just and they all lift off, of course, that's the amazing thing."

First staged in 1966, the Bed Race has spawned other similar events in the USA, Germany, New Zealand and elsewhere in the UK.

Each year the race features 90 teams of six runners and a passenger - that's 630 people sweating around the course.

The 3.9 kilometre route is challenging, to say the least.

It takes the teams up a steep grassy bank and through parkland, along the scenic Waterside.

Competitors then pass through the dramatic Nidd Gorge, up the steep Castle Ings, around the cobbled stones of the Marketplace, down the High Street and Bond End, and across High Bridge.

The last stretch is on the rough ground of McIntosh Park before the notorious 20-yard (18 metres) swim across the fast-flowing Nidd.

The fastest teams do the course in around 14 minutes, sometimes quicker, and the slowest come in well under 30 minutes.

This year the overall winners were the Harrogate Harriers but there didn't seem to be any losers on a day which appeared to be greatly enjoyed by all who attended.