Mark Whitehouse handed over the annual Christmas Handicap trophy he won last year to young Sally Smith, who although only an U15 was clearly more than capable of competing against older athletes. Indeed she showed most of the seniors up by running the 7th= fastest time, as did U17 lady Lauren Proctor who was 6th fastest overall. Helen Singleton continued the fine performances by the girls by being once again the fastest lady with 25m 15s as she finished 3rd fastest overall. In the race itself Chris Ward and Tom Coney made big improvements from last year by finishing 2nd and 3rd, with Tom being 2nd fastest on the night with his fine time of 24m 19s. Nathan Elliot once again recorded the fastest time of the 31 runners who raced over the 4.5 mile course, his time of 23m 39s being almost exactly the same time that he ran last year and the year before! Jonathan Prideaux was 4th fastest and former Olympic 400m runner Alan Slack showed us still has a fair turn of pace with his 5th fastest time.
We had a good turnout in spite of the wet and windy weather an hour before the race, and it was good to see some old friends returning to compete. The handicapping worked out quite well again, with nearly all runners finishing on the track together, apart from a few stragglers.