Serpiesphere Virtual 5K – Week 4 (2nd to 8th May 2020)

Hello Serpies,

Thanks to everyone who took part in the Virtual 5K last week. We had 107 runners taking part, including 98 who were in the handicap race – another brilliant turn-out!

Last week we continued to run in all corners of Serpiesphere, and we had a few good photos around London. The pick of the bunch is this one from Jack Corkett, who navigated the Regent’s Canal brilliantly on a sunny day (see below) and propelled himself into the lead momentarily. It was a shame that the rain then kicked in and the other fast improvers pushed him out of the podium!

Regent's Canal - Jack Corkett

Remember to submit any good photos for this week together with your time evidence: https://www.dropbox.com/request/DAXAB7cOY3l0rrJEKbKn. Yours could be in this email next week.

 

Last week’s Virtual Podium

Congratulations to these runners for their Virtual Podium performances in the handicap race:

  1. Andi Szilagyi – with an improvement of over 4 minutes from her previous best time, 5K running time 22:07;
  2. Matt Williams – second podium in as many weeks, this man is getting faster every week with a running time of 24:31;
  3. Svetlana Mastitskaya – one of our most dedicated ultra-runners ran a decent 5K with a time of 27:10.

Also, our fastest performers of Week 3 are:

  • Fastest Male: Chris Wright – 16:27
  • Fastest Female: Tash Sheel – 18:41
  • Best age-graded performance: Hugh Torry – 16:37; age-graded percentage: 83.1%

 

Well done to you all!

 

This week – About your time submission…

I’d like to emphasise that the time submissions and evidence are vital for us to have a fair and credible competition – doing it correctly makes it easier for us as organisers. Although the vast majority of you have submitted times correctly, in the past week we had runners who self-added results on the Serpentine website, but did not submit evidence (which is particularly important if you are one of the faster runners or on the Podium); some sent evidence on Dropbox but did not record time on the website. Some sent random photos from your phone but not your run screenshots! Please can I ask you to do BOTH correctly – email me if you are unable to do so, I’d be willing to help.

Also some of you did a 5k as part of a longer run, which is perfectly acceptable, but please beware that you would have to calculate your run time accurately. I would suggest stopping your watch at 5k and saving that run as a separate activity, before starting your watch again to carry on running.

For everyone’s benefit, here are the steps of time submission:

  • Enter your time before 23:59 on Friday 8th May via this link: https://www.serpentine.org.uk/rdb/showvirtual5k.php?race=13484. Click “self-add result”, then you may have to scroll to find “Serpiesphere Virtual 5K” and choose “2 May 2020” (which includes all performances from 2nd to 8th May).
  • 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. Anything that shows your time and distance would be fine.
  • 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 “Choose Files” or “Choose from Computer”. 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).

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.

All members who haven't 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 Overall Standing (aka the Lockdown Championship)

Last week I mentioned that we would create an overall standing for the Serpiesphere Virtual 5K series to recognise everyone’s weekly effort and participation. We have designed the following scoring system. When we come out of social distancing rules the runner with most points will be crowned the Lockdown Champion:

  • Handicap race position: The bulk of the points are awarded here, with each week’s winner claiming 20 points, runner-up 19 points, down to the tenth place with 11 points. The rest will be given points in tiers – the top 10% outside of the Top Ten (i.e. Positions 11 to 19 this week as we had 98 finishers) get 10; the next 10% (Positions 20 to 28) get 9, and so on; until we reach the last 30% who all get 3 (hence the minimum you get for taking part is 3 points). Scratch runners get 1 point.
  • Net time position: These are bonus points for runners in the top 5 positions (men, women and age-graded performance) for net running time, scratch runners included. The winner gets 5, runner up 4, down to 1 point for a 5th place finish. Each runner can only get points in one category, so for example if someone is 3rd in age-graded and 5th of all men, the 3rd place in age-graded will count (with 3 points), and the men’s 5th place point (1 point) will go to the next fastest person.

We will try to find a way to publish the overall points. With the scoring system in mind, our current Lockdown Championship race leader is Matt Williams, who posed this selfie, rather appropriately, outside of the Tower of London where for centuries prisoners had been confined and isolated (sometimes worse…). Who can take him on this week?

Tower - Matt Williams

 

Serpiesphere Virtual Café – Saturday 9th May

Next Saturday we will once again be at the Virtual Café at 11am to chat, to catch up, and to announce the next Virtual Podium. Zoom meeting details will be shared later this week.

Once again thanks to my co-organisers 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: 3 May 2020

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