Serpiesphere Virtual 5K – Valentine’s Special Results and Race 4 Instructions

Well done to the 62 runners who celebrated Valentine’s Day 2021 by running a 5K! 

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the Zoom social last week – it was great to see your faces after so long and catch up on each other’s running achievements. 

Race 3 Virtual Podium

It was an exciting leader board this time with lots of changes on the podium. 

 

Congratulations to these three runners who finished on top: 

1st Place: Lynne Maughan takes the gold medal with an impressive improvement of more than a minute on her previous best performance, with a handicapped time of 58:59 (net time of 22:29).

2nd Place: Alison Hinton comes second, also making a significant improvement on previous performances, with a handicapped time of 59:11 (net time of 24:56).

3rd Place: Marc Doe grabs a podium place this week, after narrowly missing out last time, with a handicapped time of 59:12 (net time of 19:42). 

 

Also, the fastest performers of Race 3 are:

Fastest Male: Christopher Tsantoulas takes this one with an incredible time of 16:57 (handicapped at 60:12). 

Fastest Female: Mariah McConnaughey didn’t let the cold weather prevent her from holding onto the top spot, and even smashed last week’s performance by 40 seconds, with a time of 19:23 (handicapped at 60:23). 

Best age-graded performance: It’s a double for Christopher Tsantoulas this week, achieving an age rating of 81.5%.

I’d also like to make a special mention of Rhea Colvin, who got her Serpiesphere career off to a great start with an impressive scratch performance this week.

 

Valentine’s Special Prizes

We marked the occasion by awarding £20 Start Fitness vouchers to 2 of our participating runners. The lucky winners were: 

  • Lynne Maughan – who finished top of the podium.
  • Victoria Brown – who was randomly selected during last week’s Zoom event.

 

Photo competition

Thanks to everyone who shared photos of where you had been running during the first fortnight of February. We had another great selection of icy snaps and wintery scenes.

Hilary Walker wins the photo competition this time, with this amazing shot of trees partially submerged in a lake of ice in Hyde Park. 

 

 

 

With temperatures shooting up and the sun making more regular appearances in recent days, I’m looking forward to seeing lots of Spring-themed photos this week.

 

Race 4 – How to enter 

In case anyone needs some inspiration for their next race, Valentine’s Day 2021 marks the breaking of the women’s 5K world record. Beatrice Chepkoech, from Kenya, set a new record of 14:43 in Monaco on 14th February. 

Click here to read the full story. 

Race 4 is open now and will run until 10pm on Sunday 28th February.

 

Follow the instructions below 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 Sunday 28th February here. Click "self-add result" and then choose "15 February 2021" (which includes all performances from 15th to 28th February).

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 -  before 10pm on 28th February (this link can also be found in the same page as the “self-add result” page). Click “Add Files” and find the file you want to add. 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. You’re welcome to run 5K more than once during the 2-week race period, and then choose your best time to enter. If you’ve already registered a time and then manage to improve on it, just click “edit” after selecting the race date, and change it your new improved time.

 

More information

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.

Good luck everyone!

The Serpiesphere Virtual 5K team (Sophie, Baiju and Pete)

Submitted: 25 February 2021

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