Sunday 11 December 2016

RACE 12 - Saddleworth Santa Dash


The race was new onto the calendar last year, when around 100 of us ran a tough uphill 5km race. This year word had spread and there were around 500 running a slightly flatter course round Greenfield and Uppermill. The weather was better too - last year was on the tail of Hurricane Desmond, this year was a pleasantly cloudy 5 degrees. I'd learned from last year's santa suit experience too, safety pinning some key points to stop it flapping about, which worked well.

The sight of so many santa's running down Uppermill High St was great - we initially headed along a flat section of course towards the far end of Greenfield, a mixture of road and playing field. From there we started to turn back towards Uppermill and began the hill climb, working up towards St Mary's church, on towards Boarshurst and still further up from there. I was tired by the time we got to the top and had to walk for 30 seconds to recover. Quite rural now we had some great views and then turned into a short section of trail before heading back down the hill towards where we had started.

The finish line was in the same place as last year, but far too small for so many runners and it was a little crowded and not well managed. As such, I don't have an official time, but my personal time suggests it was about 28 minutes and 15 seconds - not particularly fast, but good enough given the nature of the race and my lack of training in recent months. I was just happy to be able to run it and to do so with many of my fellow Greyhounds (over 50 of us)! A great race to finish with :)

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