Will you be our 100,000th claimant?

Did you race over the last week on the road, trails, cross country or even indoors in an endurance event? Make sure you sign up for your handicap score today and see if you can be our 100,000th claimant! 

There are running events happening all over the country every week including more than 500 parkruns.

Did you race over the last week? By training and racing regularly your runbritain profile will maintain a healthy score and if you plan to peak for a target race, we hope you will improve it by a significant amount and make your way up the National Ladder. Don't forget that the National Ladder not only ranks you in the UK overall but by gender, age and postcode too.

The runbritain handicap scoring system was launched almost 10 years ago and, each year, there has been an average of around 10,000 runners 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. We are very close to a total of 100,000 claimants since we began and hope to achieve this in the next week. (99,870 at the last count!) 

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 Spring - Autumn each year.
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-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 100,000th claimant!

runbritain manager, Gavin Lightwood describes the key points on the scheme that was set up in 2010 in partnership with the Power of 10 website team and Geoff Wightman: " The runbritain handicap scheme works similar to a golf handicap and as well as giving a current score, between scratch and 36.0, the free personalised running biography page includes a runner’s current national ranking by age band and postcode, their position on the national ladder, a progress graph, their strongest distance, a head-to-head comparison with other runners and downloadable training schedules to improve their score next time they race.

A runner’s handicap score also updates automatically every time they complete a licensed event. Again similar to golf the handicap will go up if race times are not recorded and so it acts as an incentive to keep racing."

Since it was launched, the runbritain handicap scheme has generated an average of 30 sign ups a day which has now taken us to the magical 100,000 mark. This has mainly come about through word of mouth recommendations and is testimony to how the handicap scheme is appreciated by runners of all abilities and is used as an incentive to keep racing. 

Here’s to the next 100,000!