The fastest parkruns and weekend round up

As reported in yesterday's news, the Great South run was the biggest of our featured events over the weekend and there were plenty more events that saw the runbritain running community out in force. With 650 parkruns on Saturday alone, there were plenty of feet flowing along the pavements and picturesque parks up and down the country with the fastest man's result in Middlesbrough and the fastest woman's in Pontypridd.  

(Our picture features the 24 parkruns in 24 hours by Mallusk Harriers from earlier in the summer). 

From all of the 650 parkruns, Clara Evans (handicap -0.7) was zooming around the Pontypridd course in 16:47 whilst Dominic Shaw (handicap -4.6) had a commanding 14:41 victory at Albert Park to top the men's parkrun performances.

The Yorkshire Marathon saw triathlete and steeplechase champion Mark Buckingham  (handicap 4.8) top the podium in a respectable 2:21:42. Charlene Jacobs-Conradie (handicap 2.1) took the women's title in a PB of 2:46:48.  

At the Cambridge Town & Gown 10K , Joseph Smith (handicap -2.2) was running his fastest ever 10k with 30:01, as did the women's winner Georgina Schwiening (handicap 1.6) with 34:02.

These were some of the bigger events of the weekend:  

The runbritain hanidcap scoring system was launched just over nine years ago and each year there has been an average of around 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 show a peak of 13,264 in 2012. With five more racing weekends to complete this year, we are close to a total of 100,000 since we began.

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 year, #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 check out head-to-head performances with your training partners.

All the information you need is on the runbritain rankings site. Sign up today and see your handicap improve as you target your fitness goals.

Remember there are training programs to help you via our training wizard that will ask you to enter your target distance and your training load (easy, moderate, hard). 

You will then get a tailored training programme from our master coaches, Jackie Newton, MA (Sports Coaching), UKA Level 3 and Bashir Hussain, MSc. (Sports Science), UKA Level 4.