Christmas Pudding Dash

19-12-2009

Thank you to everybody who joined us for the 4th Christmas Pudding Dash yesterday. Always a pleasant event, the race is intended as a bit of festive fun for those who are keen enough to brave the elements!! And we do appreciate those who made the effort with appropriate dress - always a pleasure to see Mother and Father Christmas, the Fairy with the Skanky Tights and, of course the nun with bad habits!!

This year any profit after race expenses will be donated to the Sussex Autistic Community Trust.

It was a bit of a roller coaster ride in the 24 hours leading up to the race and the weather and the Gods did conspire against us. As always our priority was to put on a race that was safe, secure and enjoyable for particpants and spectators and I think we managed to do it. Our decision to change the course so that it was run in a clockwise direction seemed to help ease the potential problems with running downhill on potentially slippy tarmac; and our decision to take out a small section of the course on each lap due to ice on the stretch of road was unfortunate but absolutely justified - the Head Groundsman proving this by falling over twice as he inspected it!! Unfortunately it did mean that the race was around half a mile or so under distance - but the nature of this race is such that a precise distance isn't such an issue. That said we will look to restore the race to full distance next year.

You may be aware that we had tracked down our shipment of Father Christmas medals and pins to the City Link courier depot in Hailsham. We had secured the agreement of City Link's Head Office for the medals to be released; we had spoken with the manager at the Hailsham depot and we had a willing volunteer call round to collect them - but a jobsworth decided he couldn't be bothered looking for the parcel and refused to hand over the goods. This is the second time we have had problems with this company and it is just so irritating. However, thanks to Jackie Patching, Elizabeth Taylor and Helen Tickner for their assistance. Thanks too to Sue Hall, from Hastings Runners and Albert Kemp of Wadhurst Runners for an emergency supply of pins. We did have a small stock of Christmas medals and so managed to make sure that all the youngsters who took part received their medal and a number of finishers also received a medal. We have a note of a number of runners who would like a medal and we will send a small supply to each of the clubs who were represented - if you were a finisher and would like a medal, just drop us an email and we'll mail one to you.

We offer our congratulations to those who won prizes - especially our race winners Adam Clarke from Hastings AC and Lara Bromilow from Milton Keynes AC.

If you have any comments about the race or its organisation, please don't hesitate to let us know - and if you think the race was good enough to deserve a rating, please register your opinion on http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/events/ratingsall.asp?en=50246&year=2009&ugn=5864&sp=&v=2

Thank you to the staff at Ashburnham Place for their hard work on the day and our partners at Podplus and Diligence Media and Marketing for their support and sponsorship.

The results are now available on the Results section of the website.

Our next race is on February 7th 2010 when will once again be organising the Ashford & District 10K on behalf of Ashford & District RRC; on the 21st of February we are staging the Isle of Oxney Hot Soup 5 Mile Dash in Wittersham - and then in March we have the Lydd Half Marathon.

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