Club Handicap

The club handicap is a race designed to allow runners of all standards to compete together by applying a time penalty to the faster runners. The faster the runner; the bigger the time penalty.

Well done to everyone who ran the 1st "no watches" handicap on Tuesday - here are the results.

The race is run over a 4 mile course, starting outside Waitrose in King Harry Lane; down to the King Harry pub; right along Watford Road; right into Ragged Hall Lane; all the way along to the Holly Bush pub, sharp right into Bedmond lane; under the motorway; right across the field to Mayne Avenue; up Mayne Avenue to King Harry Lane; and the classic sprint finish back to Waitrose.

The slowest runner starts first; the fastest starts last. If the handicaps are worked out correctly, all runners will cross the finish line at the same time.

There will be a trophy for the winner (the first runner over the line), and medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Trophy and medals will be presented at the club dinner in November. Runners will be allocated a race number & start time at the start.

Please pin the race number to the front of your running vest (please bring your own safety pins) The race is intended to be a low key event; there will be minimal marshalling; no roads will be closed; there will be no official finish times. All runners are individually responsible for crossing roads and staying safe.

Date: Tuesday 22nd May 2012

Time: Race starts at 7:15pm

Venue: Grass verge near Waitrose at the corner of King Harry Lane and Mayne Avenue

Anyone not wanting to race, can still participate by marshalling. We need about 6 – 8 people to marshall. The race is all over within 40 minutes so the marshall task is not too onerous. If you can marshall, send me an This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Download Race Info & Map (PDF)

Autumn 2011 Handicap (Results)

Well done to David O'Neil for winning the handicap. A great run, finishing in 32 mins 37 seconds with a race pace of 7:57 mins per mile.  Beating his expected race pace an incredible 1 min 21 seconds.

Second place was Brendan Cachman in a time of 34 : 02 and an impressive pace of  06:35 mins per mile. With Carol Ransom in third place in a time of 34:33 and a race pace of 07:22 mins per mile (She will soon be moving up from running with Jim's group to join the Elite runners!!!)

The fastest runner on the course was Paul Adams at a race pace of 05:16 mins per mile, but the handicap had him finishing in 25th place with a time of 36:12.

The biggest complaint was from President Sally, who was initially given a very generous handicap, but after several objections from other runners, her handicap was corrected. She still managed to beat her new predicted race pace by 00:19 per mile with a very impressive average pace of 06:09 mins per mile, finishing in 37th place.

Well done to Danny Digweed, Lizzie Gill, & Ciara Moriarty who all ran with 3 seconds of their expected race pace

Overall there were 53 runners. 49 of these runners beat their predicted race pace (I need to make more agressive handicaps!) All runners finished within 7 mins of the first place runner. If you exclude the first 4 runners and the last 4 runners, the remaining 45 runners finished with a 3 minute window.

Download results below