Wednesday, 6 October 2010

Runbritain rankings..what's your handicap?

  If anyone asks me if I play golf I always lie and say ,"yes", because inevitably the next question is,
"what's your handicap?"  To which I then reply,  "I've got no clubs!"   I do know that the lower the number of the handicap , relating to strokes, the better the player. 
 As if I don't have enough running websites to look at from today I learnt of another.  Probably known to you.  http://runbritainrankings.com/  The site is linked to the well known Power Of 10 site but goes further. It's scoring system uniquely measures our progress (!) and gives a comparison to others coming up with a handicap score.
 As in golf,   handicaps go from "scratch" (i.e. zero or even slightly negative for elite runners) to 36 with increments of 0.1.   Your personal handicap is computed by combining recent best performances at 5k 10k ,half marathon and marathon;  adjusted for course difficulty and weather conditions using what they describe as "their special formulae".   Now I could say my main handicap is my birth certificate but presumably this is taken into account to achieve a handicap of  9.7  
 Why not check it out and let me know yours?   If I receive a few I'll compile a table.
                                                        This is the format of the page


The Progress Group is interesting. My best 5k and 10k times were run in May taking my handicap up and since then it has plateaued.  As Power Of 10 they don't recognise that the Great North West half marathon
ever took place (which I can assure you took place in Blackpool on Feb 21!) so they compute the slower Haweswater.   From the "your rankings" section you can calculate the percentage of runners in front or behind at each distance.  Mine being 14% at 5K,  14.5% at 10K and 12.5% at half marathon.
Are there any other running sites that you regularly look at that you really feel I might be missing out on?

4 comments:

  1. 4.9 - which I think was mainly caused by a 37:02 at Rothwell and a respectable Brass Monkey - I also apparently didn't run GNW Half either - nor Blackpool Marathon!

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  2. 1.0 in order to get down to 0.9 i need knock just a few seconds of my times from 5k through to the marathon. so hopefully this time next year i should be down to scratch.

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  3. 9.4 based on Preston 10Km ( I ran 40 sec faster at North Tyneside - does not seem to register) and a 5km in April

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  4. Mine's at 27.2 which I'm reasonably pleased with at the moment as I'm fairly new to running races and it has dropped a fair bit since I first registered!

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