Serpiesphere Virtual 5K – Race 5 Results and Race 6 (April Fool and Easter Special) Instructions

Race 5, which was combined with Stage 3 of the Tour de Serpiesphere, had a record turnout for this series with 98 runners taking part. An impressive 37 participants improved on their previous best time, achieving a handicapped time of less than 60 minutes.

If you decided to join the Serpiesphere again this week after a break away, welcome back to the competition!

Hans has already announced the results of Tour de Serpiesphere Stage, but as you know, the Virtual 5K is a separate competition with our own set of winners.

Race 5 Virtual Podium

We saw another very competitive leader board this week, with the hotly contested podium places changing hands many times. In the end we saw the top spots shared between Serpiesphere regulars and season debut runners.

Congratulations to these 3 runners:

  • 1st Place: Claire Law takes the gold medal in her debut performance of the Spring series, knocking more than 2 minutes off her previous best time, with a handicapped time of 57:50 (net time of 30:50).
  • 2nd Place: Steve Lambert, also in his first run of this series, grabs the silver medal just a few seconds behind, achieving a handicapped time of 57:53 (net time of 20:53).
  • 3rd Place: A well-deserved bronze medal goes to Steve Hastings, a seasoned regular of this series, with a handicapped time of 58:06 (net time of 24:51).

Also, the fastest performers of Race 5 are:

  • Fastest Male: Christopher Tsantoulas clinches the top spot for the second time this series, with a great time of 16:46 (handicapped at 60:01).
  • Fastest Female: Mariah McConnaughey takes this title for an incredible third time of the series, with a time of 19:39 (handicapped at 60:39).
  • Best age-graded performance: Andrew Roberts takes this one, for the second time of the Spring series, with an impressive age grading of 88.5%.

I’d also like to make a special mention of our 9 scratch runners this week: Daniel De Palol, Kit Grierson, Damien Abram, Neal Bradford, Gloria Beyer, Ashley Pickerill, Miguel A Guillamon, Andrew Bole and Sandy Jones. We hope you enjoyed your first experience of the Virtual 5K, and will stay to complete the rest of the series!

 

Photo competition

Thank you to those of you who shared your running photos over the first fortnight of March. It’s nice to see lots of sunshine and flowers as we move further into Spring.

The winner of the photo competition this time is Aggela Despotidou, with this beautiful image of horses bathed in rays of sun in Hyde Park.

Head to the Serpies Facebook page to see the full selection of Spring-like photos.

 

Race 6 April Fool and Easter Special – How to enter

For those of you hoping to finish the Spring series near the top of the overall leader board, don’t miss out on entering a time for Race 6 because this is another A-race! This means your points for Race 6 will be doubled, so everyone who enters will score at least 6 points (or 2 if you’re a scratch runner). We’ll also mark the occasion by giving away Easter eggs to 2 lucky runners – the winner with the fastest handicapped time, and another lucky participant who will be selected randomly after the closing date.

Race 6 is open now and will run until 10pm on Wednesday 31st March.

Follow the instructions below to enter:

1. Run 5K, anytime before the closing date. You should run alone or with 1 other person, 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 Wednesday 31st March here. Click "self-add result" and then choose "16 March 2021" (which includes all performances from 16th to 31st March).

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 31st March (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. As this is an A-race, you'll score at least 6 points for entering (or at least 2 points 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: 21 March 2021

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