Ultra runner Megan Lennox is 70,000th handicap claimant!

Ultra runner, Megan Lennox (handicap 10.7) became our 70,000th handicap claimant when she claimed her handicap last Thursday.

Megan, who has two ultra races on her profile page, is a regular half and full marathon runner and also has a smatter of parkruns under her belt. Over the last couple of years, she has shown excellent progression from a handicap of 32.5 at the end of 2014 to a high of 10.6 when she ran the New Years Eve Flitch Way Marathon last month in 3:58:57. In fact, all of Megan's marathons have been under four hours and she achieved her personal best of 3:33:15 at the Bungay Black Dog Marathon in April 2015. She followed this with two 100k races, both around the 12 hour mark - 12:10:19 at Norfolk in June 2015 and 11:55:02 at Stour Valley Path in August 2015. She also ran the Marathon de Sables in 2016 and ran other long distance walking events.

We got in touch with Megan to ask how she found out about the handicap scoring system and she told us that she heard about us via word of mouth and went on to say, "I was drawn to it initially for two main reasons - to be able to 'stalk' friends and people I have met via the running world to see their race results and for me to be able to record my races in one central point.  I know my races are recorded on my GPS watch but runbritian is more of an official record of races I have done. If I eventually try to apply for the 100 Marathon Club, the runbritian site acts as a great way to record some of the events I have done in one place that can easily be viewed by others. It is also an historical record so if/ when I stop running then I can look back and see the miles I managed to clock up and the various events too, although I hope to keep running for many more years."

runbritain's revolutionary handicap scoring system (a bit like a golf handicap!) is designed to give distance runners, of all levels, the ability to benchmark their progress and compare their results across a range of distances and terrains. The system rewards good performances but also factors in the degree of difficulty for slower courses as well as rewarding regular racing and so, to prevent your handicap from slipping you need to turn out regularly for races or parkruns.

Well done Megan - We look forward to seeing how low you can go with your score!

If you haven't already done it, claim your handicap score without delay. The results from the weekend are mostly in and the biggest races this weekend were:

Farnborough Winter Half Marathon - 1,629 finishers * Awaiting confirmation

Canterbury 10 - 1,300 finishers * Awaiting confirmation

Bushy parkrun - 1,291 finishers

British Cross Challenge - 821 finishers

Kent Schools' Championships - 607 finishers

Gosford 10K - 533 finishers

Did you race in one of these races or any other? Do you know what your handicap score is? Claim it today and we can start working towards 80,000!!