Bartlett new leader of October's Reward Running

Dervish Bartlett (Barking) is the new leader of October’s Reward Running competition with just over one week to go.

Bartlett, who has a current handicap score of 10.9 after an improvement of 4.5 this month, has recorded two 10k race performances since 1 October in Brentwood and Southend.

Previous leader Aimee Cook (Tyne Bridge) is now in second with a handicap improvement of 4.3 and Jonathan White is in third with 3.7.

If you don’t already know, another four spot prizes (Sennheiser headphones) are up for grabs in addition to the top ten winners for this month so there’s added incentive to get involved beyond the adidas mi-coach for the overall winner!

If you haven’t entered Reward Running before, here are a few things you need to know...

...it's our free monthly competition where runners can win a prize if they reduce their handicap score by the largest number of points in the month. At the end of the month, the runners who are in the top 10 of the leaderboard that month will win a prize - an adidas miCoach for the winner, and Sennheiser headphones for the rest.

The Reward Running top 10 consists of the runners who have improved their handicap the most in that month (make sure you’ve claimed your free runbritain handicap first!), but within the top 10, one place is reserved for the most improved in each of the four handicap categories:

1: 5 or under

2: 6-12

3: 13-20

4: 21 or above

There is also one place reserved for the most improved runner that has run at least 10 races in the year before the competition month.

To sign up for Reward Running you must first have claimed your free runbritain handicap, and if you haven’t done so already, here are five great reasons to do that right now!

1. It’s a unique handicap system for running. Just like golf you get a handicap from 0.0 – 36.0 giving runners of all abilities the chance to benchmark their progress and compare their results across a range of terrains and distances. The score automatically updates each time you race (once you have claimed) and rewards regular racing as well as automatically factoring in a degree of difficulty on races that are multi-terrain, hilly or windy.

2. You can be part of the National Running Ladder and check out where your handicap puts you compared to every other runner in the UK, e.g. does your 5k time put you higher than your friend’s half marathon and marathon times?

3. Having a handicap enables you to be part of ‘Reward Running’ (as described above!) and be in with a chance of winning an adidas mi-coach or Sennheiser headphones if your score shows the greatest improvement - it’s free to enter too

4. Find out where your times put you in the official UK road rankings

5. And finally...log your training mileage, watch your progress graph rise and check out head-to-heads with your training partners.

All the information you need is on the runbritain rankings site.