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Pennine Winter Handicap 2009/2010 Race 4 Tintwistle - Saturday 9th January 2010
Despite the Arctic weather conditions a small but hardy band of ten truly dedicated runners arrived at a snowbound Tintwistle
to do battle with the elements and with Simon's excellent route.
Despite Simon's comments that the access was no problem, snow was non-existent, frost had never been heard of and there was room for at least 1,000 vehicles to park round the Memorial it was clear from the first sight of the mighty glacier oozing its way down Tintwistle Old Road that certain arrangements would have to change - Mick at the Bull's Head came up trumps with his offer to open up early and hand the back bar over to us for registration and shelter for the event and so it was that one by one the eager contestants set out into icy wind, spindrift and thick snowdrifts from the warmth of the pub. Alan Kirk, with not a stitch of fell-running gear on him but dressed impeccably in cross-country spikes, highly technical bike clothing, sunglasses and winter climbing gloves, used all his skill and the local knowledge gained from a Spartan childhood working the spaghetti fields of Hollingworthhall Moor to come home both first and in the fastest time, followed by Steve Knowles and Andy Butler. It was, undoubtedly, a tough few hours out in somewhat adverse conditions but everyone seemed to have had a good time battling against the elements. Richard Topliss had to choose between possible divorce and missing the last checkpoint and, after consulting his conscience, opted to stay happily married, while Ian Warhurst just seemed to have had one of his very rare bad days. Someone left an extremely odd object in the pub, which I will return to them once I know who it belongs to - it is the centre rotating section of a Silva compass. I've heard of cutting the handles off toothbrushes and drilling holes in cutlery to save weight but disembowelling a Silva compass !!??*! Clearly a highly competitive racing snake lurks among us. The pub was warm, the soup, chips, sausages, etc. were hot, the beer was cool and good and Simon is to be congratulated for putting the day on. Despite having had four of the six events so far, no-one has yet done the necessary three to count - lots of people have done two, so it's all to go for. The show rolls on to the now legendary Goldsmith Gourmet Gallop from Neil & Gerry's on Sunday 14th February - see you there. Dave Jones
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