Iwan Thomas latest runner to claim free runbritain handicap score
British 400m Record holder Iwan Thomas, a European 400m Champion, World 4 x 400m relay champion and Olympic 4 x 400m relay silver medallist in the late 1990s, was snapped claming his free runbritain handicap score at the Virgin London Marathon Expo yesterday.
“It was about time I claimed my handicap after running three London Marathons and several parkruns!” said the former one-lapper with a new lease of life as an endurance athlete.
Have you claimed yours?
The handicap scoring scheme, which has been in operation since September 2010, gives every runner in the 4,000 UKA-licensed British road races each year a personal handicap score ranging from 0.0 to 36.0. 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.
Here are five great reasons to get involved:
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
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. Be part of ‘Reward Running’ 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
The good news is that you can improve your handicap score even if you don’t break your PB. All racing distances are covered.
All the information you need is on the runbritain rankings site.
Check it out, and if you haven't already done so, sign up. If you're visiting the Virgin London Marathon Expo today we can help you at at the joint runbritain/Run England stand.
Once you’ve completed that simple stage, you can also sign up for April Reward Running; each month runners can win a Reward Running 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.