The basic idea is start runners off at staggered 15 second intervals so that all runners finish at the same time.  This nearly always does not happen as some runners improve or have better days than others.

Points are awarded for finishing position and bonuses.  The Strider with the highest accumulated score at the end of the year will be awarded the Club Championship.  There will be a prize for the top Male and Female.  Remember there are only 6 races a year, generally on the last Tuesday of each month between April and September.

New runners will be given a scratch time and will be weighted for the first 6 runs to allow for their natural improvement in running for the first few months.  This will mean that new runners who previously have been high contenders for previous club championships will not have a disproportionate advantage over longer term runners.

On top of this, there are Position Loading for those who finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd.  

The loading is aggregated so that after a 1st place and a 3rd place, the runners start time will be increased by 1.25% and so on in any one year.  The reasoning is to spread the opportunities for other runners to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

Points Scoring

Points are awarding in two categories, position and bonus.

Position points start simply at 20 for the winner, 19 for second place, 18 for third and so on down to a minimum of 1 point which everyone scores for completing a race.

Bonus points are awarded depending on how close a runner gets to their PB.  As this is the start, many runners will be getting PB's but again, this will be settling down after the first year.  If a runner equals or exceeds their PB, then a bonus of 12 is awarded.  A time over 99% of their PB scores a bonus of 11, and so on down to 90% that scores a bonus of 2.

Please also note that the finishing times are aged-graded to a 5k time to ensure that veterans do not miss out on the bonus point awards. 

There will always be debates on how to run and score a handicap race system and these rules may be changed subtly from time to time.  However we hope they are reasonably fair to the runners, including veteran runners and also take into account the natural improvement of new runners.  Any suggested changes are open to discussion and can be raised with Chris Starmer or any other committee member.

Thanks goes to the Serpentine Running Club, London, who have provided the material for the setup of our handicap race and its rules.