Serpiesphere Virtual 5k Week 14 - 11th to 17th July 2020 (and Club Runs)

Hello Serpies,

Well done to the 66 Serpies who ran in last week’s Serpiesphere Virtual 5k. Here are the results of Week 13, a preview of Week 14, and some details of this week’s Club Runs.

There were 18 runners who beat their handicap (i.e. handicapped time below 60 minutes) – good work everyone! But of course, this race isn’t always about running the fastest time you can – running in a beautiful place is a triumph in itself. Anne Bennett was up in the Monsal Trail at the Peak District last week, and she showed us some gorgeous waterfalls!

Anne - Monsal Trail

Thanks to everyone for sending their photos to us every week – please keep them coming!  The link is here:  https://www.dropbox.com/request/DAXAB7cOY3l0rrJEKbKn. Remember – by uploading the photos you have given us and the Club permission to use them.

 

Last week’s Virtual Podium

Congratulations to the following runners for being on the Virtual Podium:

  1. Pip Jones became the first junior runner and hence the youngest runner to win the handicap race, with a time of 29:30 (handicapped time of 57:30).  Fantastic running, Pip!
  2. Sid ‘running is magic’ Wills was back on the podium this week, having run 32:49 (handicapped time 58:42) and also having been instrumental in organising our resumed club runs, as usual! (More on this later…)
  3. Patrick Thielemans ran through the rain and dropped his earpods twice but did enough to secure his first podium position with a time of 22:12 (handicapped time 58:27).

Also, our fastest performers of Week 13 are:

  • Fastest Male: George Suthon won a virtual sprint finish (by 2 seconds) with a time of 16:32.
  • Fastest Female: Victoria Brown reclaimed top spot with a time of 20:48.
  • Best age-graded performance: Martin Carmack beat some usual suspects with his best-of-series time of 17:35 (age-graded percentage 83.9%).

Full results here: https://www.serpentine.org.uk/rdb/showvirtual5k.php?race=13508.

 

This week – How to submit your time

As well as the weekly Serpiesphere Virtual 5k, there are two other races held concurrently this week – the Grand Prix Club 3k Championship and the Summer League 5 miles. We want everyone to enter all three races! You can choose to run these races separately, or at the same time and measure your time when you come up to the required distances (note that all three races have different submission cut-off times).  We strongly encourage you to run the 3k from a standing start (i.e. the first 3k of your run), rather than choosing the best 3k segment within a longer run, in the interest of fairness for the Club Championship race.

For the Serpiesphere 5k and the Summer League 5 miles, you can enter times over the given distances in any part of a longer run, but of course if performance is what you’re looking for, specific runs for the required distances would be the best!

Back to Serpiesphere Virtual 5k time entry:

  • Enter your time before 23:59 on Friday 17th July via this link: https://www.serpentine.org.uk/rdb/showvirtual5k.php?race=13509. Click “self-add result”, then scroll to find “Serpiesphere Virtual 5K” and choose “11 July 2020” (which includes all performances from 11th to 17th July).
  • Take a photo or screenshot that shows your time and distance, this can be a screenshot of your Strava / Garmin result page, or a picture of your watch. As long as the distance is a minimum of 5.00km (or 3.11 miles) and it shows a finish time, it will be accepted.
  • Submit the photo or screenshot at this link (also before 23:59 on Friday): https://www.dropbox.com/request/DAXAB7cOY3l0rrJEKbKn (this link can also be found in the same page as the “self-add result” page). Click the “+” sign on the page to ‘Choose Files’. You do not need a Dropbox account. This will just ask for your name (so we can correlate your performance with the time submitted) and email address (so you’ll get a confirmation of upload).

Email me if you are unable to do so. All members who have not done the race yet are welcome to join - you'll be a scratch runner this week so you won't be on the Podium; from next week onwards you will have a chance to win!

 

The Lockdown Championship

The Top 10 after Week 13:

Runner

Total Score

Hilary Walker

142

Hugh Torry

129

Victoria Brown

127

Andrew Reeves

117

Martin Carmack

117

Stephanie Vaatz

114

Grace Sim

95

Angeliki Despotidou

93

Keith Evans

93

Carol Wu

92

Maureen Seguin

92

 

 

 

With five more weeks to go before we declare the Lockdown Champion, Hilary Walker remains in the lead, but the race is still wide open. The full results are here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qtk70vl4p6sszz8/Lockdown%20Champs%20after%20Week%2013.pdf?dl=0.

 

Serpiesphere Virtual Café – Saturday 18th July – NOTE START TIME & ZOOM LINK

As usual, we will be at the Virtual Café next Saturday.  Everybody will have a chance to do a Saturday morning run (including the club run at Hyde Park, hill sessions in Greenwich or Hampstead, or your own run) before logging in at 11:30am for an hour or so. It has been fun catching up with everyone across the Serpiesphere and doing the usual announcements – we look forward to seeing you there. The Zoom link is here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86215892764.

 

Finally – Club Runs

I’d like to remind everyone that in the past week or so our club runs have restarted every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning, with a new starting point (Hyde Park Bandstand, near Hyde Park Corner) and pre-run group organising. You need to sign up in advance before coming:

 

 

Once again thanks to my co-organisers of the Virtual 5k – Sarah Maisey, Nic Barberis and Pete Mackintosh. Any queries about the race, please contact me or one of us.

 

Happy running,

Hans Ho

Participation Representative (participation@serpentine.org.uk)

Submitted: 12 July 2020

Back