What a day for holding an event at Cheddleton Heath! Probably the coldest day of the winter
so far with the temperature down at -6 when we were setting up. This didn’t put people off
coming with over 50 enjoying the crisp conditions underfoot.
Martin and Eden had planned some good courses which included for the first time a 60 min
score course where all the controls could be visited in any order. This seemed to be much
enjoyed by several newcomers and will likely be a regular course in our future local events.
As always, this event could not have taken place without our band of POTOC volunteers –
Jon on parking, Gordon and Adrian on road marshalling, Paula, Alison and Mike on
registration & download, plus Lil, Jim, Natalie and Denise helping to set up and take down.
John H ran the start, as well as the pre-registration process and map printing before the
event whilst Andrew prepared & published the results later after the snow had come!
Thanks also to Mr Stewart Bagnall for allowing us to use his land and Mr Birch-Machin of
Quadpack for the car park.
John Pigott
Event Organiser

This was my first time planning at Cheddleton Heath and with it being such a small area it was a challenge to make the courses long enough.

I just about managed to achieve this with some careful leg planning and was pleased with the leading times on the 2 hard courses.

Eden took her first venture into planning, doing a good job on the Easy and Moderate. 

Looking at the freezing weather forecast the night before, I was not looking forward to the early start putting the controls out! But it wasn't quite as bad as I had expected.

Mike Derbyshire assisted me with the putting out and we completed the job on time at 10:15.

Waiting for runners to come in at the finish, I was pleased to hear positive feedback about the courses.

The week of cold weather had helped to knock down the brambles so they weren't quite as bad as when I had planned a few weeks before.

I had the idea to do the score course because of the success of the Spunch events at attracting running club members and families.

It was good that 9 did the score and 1 person managed to get all 35 controls. 

We should definitely persist with offering the score course at future events.

Martin Pigott

Planner