About

Trent Park Running Club has been holding the handicap (time trial) race for almost as long as the club has been established so dates back to the 1980’s. Initial it was for club members only so they could track their improvement but was soon opened up to guest runners.

It is a 5km race around Trent Park on the last Saturday of the month (except December). However, unlike a normal race, you are racing for a time, not a place. The idea is to improve on your previous time (your handicap). Your improvement is a percentage (improvement divided by your previous best).

Unlike other similar events, these improvements fed into a table and point awarded and prizes awarded to the most improved. As this is a series there is also a series table where the overall winner is the one with the most points.

Number collection is available from 8:45 am to 9:15 am from Southgate Hockey Centre, and the race starts a 9:30 am on Limes Avenue (the Pineapple).

There are a number of changes for the 2022 series and details of these are below.

Changes for 2022

The last “classic” handicap we ran was in February 2020, so almost 2 years since we last ran the normal handicap series. However, we have been the members only “The Plank” socially distance series since then.

From a survey of our members and lessons learned from “The Plank” series we are making a number of changes to the 2022 series. However, the course and will remain the same as we have previously used (we had an alternative course for “The Plank”) and this is below.

You now register via the Webscorer platform but only need to register once for all races, you will need to create an account with Webscorer but this is so your details are saved so it can push these through to all races. There is a tutorial for this on the registration page. We use Webscorer for timing the race live so the race results are available almost as soon as you have crossed the finish line. If you have registered for any of the other series then you need to re-register for this series. You will need to re-register every year going forward.

An important change, the registration closes the night before the race as we need to allocate numbers therefore, THERE IS NO REGISTRATION ON THE DAY.  If you want to run but unsure you can make it register anyway, does not make a difference to us if you don’t turn up. 

After you have registered you will be allocated a number. This should be collected from the registration desk before the race and you keep this number for all future races, so don’t lose it or forget it. Please don’t bring any numbers from the previous series.

We are making some changes to the way the points are allocated. We previous changed from a straight improvement to a percentage to make it fairer across the time range. However, this year we are setting an improvement sealing of 9% to prevent people from playing the system and the odd occasions people pace other runners.

Following our survey and the fact we have not run a normal handicap for almost 2 years, we are resetting all handicap times and will reset these at the beginning of each season. You will need to run 2 handicaps to set your handicap.