Claim your handicap and you may be the 80,000th to do so!
Did you race over the weekend? Claim your handicap and you may be number 80,000!
With fewer big races last weekend, there were fewer opportunities to record a performance but we still had new handicap claimants.
The race that saw the highest numbers, at the weekend, was the Conwy Half Marathon with 2564 performances recorded.
Others over 1000 were:
Hertfordshire Half Marathon - 2,011* finishers
Brooks Brighton 10K - 1,938 finishers
Gosport Half Marathon - 1,651* finishers
Start Fitness North Eastern Harrier League - 1,355 finishers
St Neots Riverside Half Marathon? - 1,169 finishers
* Provisional results
Some of the weekend highlights included a £1700 win for champion weight loss runner Colin McCourt (handicap 0.1) who risked having friends tattoo their names on his frame should he fail to run his target time in 2017 of sub 16 minutes. His successful windfall came at the Podium 5k. In 2016 he was running 24:00 for 5k.
The runbritain hanidcap scoring system was launched just over seven years ago and each year there has been an average of almost 9 - 10,000 signing up to the system that tracks race and parkrun performances and gives every runner in the UK a handicap score that reflects fitness and commitment levels.
The number of sign-ups per year showed a peak of 13,264 in 2012. With six more racing weekends to complete this year, we may hit our 9000+ target for 2017 and are heading towards a total of 80,000 since we began, having hit 75 000 earlier in the year.
Some of the benefits of the runbritain handicap scoring system:
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 a part of the European Athletics Innovation Award winning #clickyourclock competition. This competition rewards runners who reduce their handicap score. The competition runs from March - October each year. Last month, #clickyourclock was presented with the overall prize for innovation at the prestigious European Athletics Golden Tracks awards night,
3. 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?
4. You can check out where your handicap puts you in your age group and postcode.
5. You can find out where your times put you in the official UK road rankings
6. You can 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. Sign up today and see if you can be our 80,000th claimant!