Handicap: Tom Hogshead Trophy and Stratford Cup winners
Congratulations to David Martin and Andrew Roberts, the 2017 winners of the Tom Hogshead Trophy and the Stratford Cup respectively.
David won after a closely fought year of races, only just beating Adrian Kerr into second place. Stefano Carniello finished in third. Andrew, meanwhile, continued his dominance of the Stratford Cup, winning for the third year in a row. Both David and Andrew will receive their awards at the next Handicap race on Saturday, 6th January 2018. Congratulations!
The Tom Hogshead Trophy is awarded at the end of the year to the first claim member with the highest points scored from the best eight out of a possible 12 Handicap races. The Stratford Cup is presented to the Handicap runner who achieves the highest average age-grading in the Handicap over six races in each calendar year, beginning in 2015. The Handicap results are published on the Serpentine website. You can also see the Handicap course records.
For those unfamiliar with it, the Handicap is a race of 6,975 metres (4.334 miles) which is a course of twice round the Serpentine and Long Water, starting and finishing near the boathouse. Unlike other road races you may have taken part in, the start of the Handicap is staggered according to individuals' past performances, so that all runners finish the race at about the same time. This is the brilliance of the Handicap race – both fast and slow runners have a chance of winning! If you would like to read up about the history of the race before giving it a go yourself on 6th January, there is an excellent Serpentimes article by Diana Valk, which I highly recommend.
The Handicap Team of Tom, Dorothy, Nicola, Luke, Diana, Simon and Andrew are looking forward to welcoming lots of new runners as well as Handicap 'veterans' next week.
Happy running!
Eda Korkmaz
Club communications
communications@serpentine.org.uk
Submitted: 30 December 2017