Winter Handicap, Quayside 04/02/2013

Report by Dave Kear

On a cool, breezy evening with a little light drizzle in the air, the runners set off into the wind from outside the taped-off frontage of the Copthorne Hotel.  There was a general air of chaos all round as stop watches went wrong and runners struggled to take off warm tops at the last minute, but fortunately everyone made it safely to the turn, and then back to base again.

Tom Tinsley, well on the road to recovery, took advantage of his current handicap to win the ‘Cup’ comfortably.  Following Tom in was the newest member of the club, Izzy Hodge and then two of the oldest-established, Kenny McCormick & Ben Hull.

In the October handicap, the ladies bagged all of the first four finishing positions.  This time they excelled again, gaining six of the top ten places.

The best times on a difficult evening were recorded by Matthew Kingston (25:06), Jeremy Smith (25:19) and Paul Hughes (25:25).  Leading the honours for the ladies were Charlotte Spencer (28:00), Sarah Kerr (28:20) and Sarah Bowen (29:05).

Matthew was finally forced to relinquish his hold on the ‘Shield’ for the aggregate points score over the last 4 handicaps.  Paul Robinson, with the fourth fastest time of the evening (25:39), clinched an 11^th place in the race, thus taking him to the top of the table.

Once again, a big thank you to everyone who helped out, and a special thank you to Lorna, who spent a considerable amount of time and effort finding us a post-race venue and organising food orders at very short notice when Kim at the Café de Vie found himself short-staffed.

Members of the Claremont committee will be interested to know what you thought of the evening at the Three Bulls Heads, and whether you think we should be looking to make bookings there in future.

The next club handicap will be held towards the end of April on the Town Moor course.