Santa Spectacular!
The first ever IRHH Santa Dash took place on Sunday 30th November 2008 in Lowndes Park in Chesham and attracted over 280 runners!
The day was a fantastic success and despite the wet weather and muddy conditions our brave participants caught the Christmas spirit and turned out with their family, friends and festive dogs to support The Iain Rennie Hospice at Home.
Our Santas gathered together for a brief warm up with Mix 96 and Lauren Watt from Wycombe Leisure Limited and were joined by Alison Pirouet, The Mayor of Chesham, and Snow White from the local Elgiva Pantomime production. The Dash was started off by Eric Watsham, Chesham's Town Crier, who set our soggy Santas off to fight through the mud and complete the 1.5 mile course. The runners were directed around the route by our team of marshals who advised our Santas of particularly slippery parts of the course and gave them some much-needed encouragement. The dashers finished with a well-deserved mince pie or two - special thanks goes to Sainsburys in Chesham for providing the tasty mince pies.
Congratulations to our fastest dashers who were presented with a goody bag and a certificate, they were:
| Adults | |
| 1st Place | Andy Honour (no 239) |
| 2nd Place | Mick Dolling (no 269) |
| 3rd Place | John Diston (no 47) |
| 4th Place | David Hoar (no 19) |
| 5th Place | Richard Thompson (139) |
| 6th Place | Gary Honour (22) |
| Children | |
| 1st Place | Jack Lisle (no 143) |
| 2nd Place | Robyn Lisle (no 144) |
| 3rd Place | Rohan Montgomery (no 129) |
| 4th Place | Connor Lofty (no 159) |
| 6th Place | Connor Aiton (no 52) |
The winner of the Santa Dash Drawing Competition is Victoria Daniels, age 9, who won a Golden Ticket to The Roald Dahl Museum! To view the winning picture click here.
The event looks set to raise approximately £8000 which is a fabulous result! If you still have sponsorship money to send in please send it to us as soon as possible to help us reach this target!
Many thanks also go to Chesham Town council, Chiltern Harriers Athletics Club, Kate Webber from the Chesham Guide Headquarters and The Bucks Examiner for supporting this event.
We would also like to thank the fantastic team of volunteers and marshals who made the event possible and who braved the miserable weather.
Finally thank you to all the families, friends and teams that took part in the Dash to make our Christmas fundraising event a truly fantastic day - we couldn't have done it without you!
To view and purchase Buckinghamshire Examiner photos of this event please click here
To view video footage of the Santa Dash please click here
3rd December 2008
