Heanor is always a difficult course and the large amount of rainfall in the build up to the race did not help matters. With a harsh uphill’s, knee deep mud and hazardous descents we knew we were in for a tough day. Spurred on by the thought of the Christmas Nawaaz we had 14 runners compete on this most gruelling of courses. The woman’s race was first off and leading the way was captain Frances Arnott coming in, in a stunning 11th place. Next in was Hannah Shaw in 40th followed by Emily Sidaway in 43rd and then Holly Pan in 64th. Excellent work by all four to get round and compete in a tough field. The boys then followed led by James Best with a fantastic performance to come in 25th. We then had Toby Austin in 33rd, James Gibbons in 58th,clearly helped by his outrageous warm-up from the train station, then April Klukowski in 74th, Dan Mladenovič in 80th, Luke Mathews-Patience in 93rd, followed closely by Luke Hopper in 95th, Peter Parkinson in 138th and Peter Rudd in 213th. A special mention to Peter Rudd who thought that the course just wasn’t hard enough in spikes and opted for trainers, yet still managed to slide his way to the finish. Unfortunately Lewis Warren was ill and unable to complete the course but fantastic effort in trying to get round. Another excellent showing from UOLRAC and looking forward to the next one in Nottingham!