Serpiesphere Virtual 5K - Introducing the Spring 2021 series, and Autumn 2020 series results

It may be January and we might be almost in lockdown, but there is some good news... the Serpiesphere is back!

You can still run whenever and wherever you want, and your time will still be calculated on a handicap basis. But to mark the New Year we've added some exciting twists!

For more details and the results of Race 8 of the Autumn 2020 series, as well as last year's overall winners, read below.

Hello Serpies,

Well done to all those who took part in the final race of the Serpiesphere Virtual 5K Autumn series (12/12/2020 to 25/12/2020). 

New features for 2021

As well as your net time and handicapped time, we'll now also keep track of your best age-graded performance each month. For those of you missing real-life races, this will help you monitor how your performance improves over time.

Look out for our special "A-races" where you will have the chance to boost your ranking in the league table by scoring bonus points, and lucky winners will be selected at random to receive spot prizes! More details on these races will follow, but as a heads up, the first A-race will be a Valentine's special.

Date change

As part of our New Year changes, Serpiesphere races will now run on a bi-monthly basis, with the second race of the month always finishing on the last day of the month. So please keep a close eye on the closing date because it won't always be a Friday!

This small tweak was necessary for us to be able to your monthly age grading, and also for the smooth running of the A-races - these will take place approximately every 3 races but will be announced nearer the time.

The first race is open now and will close at 10pm on Friday 15th January.

How to enter

1. Run 5K, anytime before the closing date. You should run alone, on any route you choose, wherever you are in the world! Just don't choose a route with a significant net downhill.

2. Enter your time before 10pm on Friday 15th January here. Click "self-add result" and then choose "3 January 2021" (which includes all performances from 3rd to 15th January).

3. 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.

4. Submit the photo or screenshot here - also before 10pm on 15th January (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).

5. If you can, also upload a photo of somewhere along your running route. As we're geographically separated at the moment, this is a nice way to keep in touch with where other people are running. There will be special mentions and possibly even prizes for the most artistic photos.

6. Shortly after the race closing time, the Serpie computer system will magically calculate your handicapped time and award your points. You'll score at least 3 points for every race you enter (or at least 1 point if you're a scratch runner), plus extra points depending on your finishing position.

7. As in the previous series, there will a special mention for the 3 people who finish in podium position each race, as well as the fastest male, fastest female and best age-graded performance. At the end of each month, you'll also find out your best age grading of the 2 races that month. We'll create a chart of these going forward so you can track how your performances improve over time.

More information

If you participated in the 2020 series, your handicap will automatically carry over. Or if this is your first time taking part in Serpiesphere, you will be a scratch runner for your first race and then your handicap will be calculated for you.

Please email Sophie if you have any questions or need help entering your time.

Don't forget to follow social distancing guidelines during your races, and don't run if you have any symptoms of Covid 19.

Race 8 Virtual Podium

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

1st Place: Angeliki Despotidou (also our photo winner for this week - see below) takes the podium for the first time with a time of 27:33 (handicapped at 56:38)         

2nd Place: Elizabeth Ayres, back on the podium again with her continuing downward trend, takes second place with a time of 28:11 (handicapped at 58:26)

3rd Place: Andrew Maynard comes third with a time of 24:16 (handicapped at 58:46)                     

Also, the fastest performers of Race 8 are:                             

Fastest Male: Matthew Vokes, yet again, retains fastest male title with a time of 17:37 shaving off 2 seconds from his last race.                                                                                         

Fastest Female: Sarah Pemberton claims this one with a time of 19:32.              

Best age-graded performance: Tony Patterson (scratch runner) knocks this out of the park with the age graded performance of 84.6% and a time of 18:08 in his scratch race!

Full results here

Thanks to everyone who posted their photos in our Dropbox account. We had a great selection of photos from far and wide in this final race of the series. The winner this time around, taken by handicap race winner, Angeliki Despotidou, comes from Athens showing the Greek guards or “Evzones” outside the Hellenic Parliament. (Note: you can see all the other brilliant photos on the Serpies Facebook page).

The Autumn Series Championship

The Autumn series has been a tight and nailbiting race with regular podium winners vying for top place throughout the eight weeks. In the end the there could only be one winner though...

First place goes to Ana Penalver with a score of 132 points. Ana has recently come back from both injury, and having had a beautiful new baby, Paula, in June and has been going from strength to strength as she rebuilds her endurance. CONGRATULATIONS Ana.

Second Place goes to Elizabeth Ayres with a score of 125. Like Ana, Liz has been consistently and dramatically improving her times over the 8 weeks to achieve this impressive score.

Joint third place, both with 103 points goes to Nicola Barberis Negra (one of the organisers of the previous lockdown series) and Matthew Vokes who regularly took the spot for fastest male. Well done both!

Another honourable mention should go to Pip Jones, one of our highly impressive junior members, who has made great gains in recent weeks making it onto the podium multiple times throughout the series. Pip got a total of 102 points, thereby only just missing the podium by a whisker!

 

Score Race 1

Score Race 2

Score Race 3

Score Race 4

Score Race 5

Score Race 6

Score Race 7

Score Race 8

Total Score

Position

Ana Penalver

1

20

20

18

17

19

20

17

132

1

Elizabeth Ayres

DNR

19

19

20

19

17

12

19

125

2

Nicola Barberis Negra

20

11

19

10

13

11

8

11

103

3

Matthew Vokes

12

14

12

13

13

14

12

13

103

3

Pip Jones

19

6

7

11

15

18

19

7

102

5

Andrew Reeves

12

9

10

14

12

12

9

12

90

6

Victoria Brown

12

10

12

10

10

9

11

10

84

7

Sarah Newton

DNR

13

13

10

13

10

9

10

78

8

Benjamin Griffiths

1

15

11

21

16

DNR

10

DNR

74

9

Sophie Taylor

20

10

8

10

7

8

8

3

74

9

The top 10 points finishers can be seen below and the full list of particpant points can be found here.

Well done to everyone!

The Serpieshere virtual 5k team (Sarah, Sophie, Baiju and Pete)

Submitted: 3 January 2021

Back