The New Year will start with the New Year’s Day 10k in Hyde Park on Wednesday 1 January. There will be lots of Serpies helping out to make sure that the race goes well. Any of you who decide to help out at the last minute will be very welcome too.

The first club handicap of 2014 (and the first chance to get points on the new Tom Hogshead table) will be on Saturday 4 January in Hyde Park. New to the handicap? Read more. If you enjoyed helping out at the New Year’s Day 10k and fancy a repeat, or couldn’t help then but are free on Saturday, the handicappers would love to hear from you. Also on 4 January, the various county cross country championships will be taking place and there are Serpies running in the Kent, Middlesex and Surrey events.

A few of the club’s training sessions have been changed or cancelled over the Christmas & New Year period, but normal training schedules will resume from Monday 5 January. Don’t forget that you can find details of all the sessions here.

On Saturday 11 January, the next ATW Metropolitan cross country league race will take place at Horsenden Hill, Perivale. The Serpie men’s team have consolidated their second place in men’s division one, but our women’s team have slipped to second place in theirs after the Alexandra Palace race in December, so we hope to see a huge Serpie turnout in Perivale. On the same day, a small group of Serpies will be running the 45-mile Country to Capital from Wendover to Little Venice. Then Sunday 12 January offers another cross country opportunity on the notoriously hilly Royston Heath Sunday League course – no advance entry necessary.

Around 40 Serpies are on the start list for the Box Hill Fell Race which will take place on Saturday 18 January, so we may even beat last year’s impressive number of 25 Serpie finishers (and the team prize)! Hopefully a few people will be saving their legs for the first club championship of the year, which is the Dartford 10-mile race on Sunday 19 January.

Saturday 25 January is the day of the Southern Counties cross country championship at Parliament Hill. Entries closed before Christmas, but for those who didn’t enter in advance, it’s well worth going along to watch the race, plus Serpentine’s Malcolm French has been appointed race referee and any Serpies offering to marshal (and get a great view of the race) will be very welcome. On the same day, the Serpie trail running group will be running the Not the Winter Tanners – an unsupported social run in a led group with a choice of 14, 20, 26 or 30 miles.

The month ends with the Last Friday of the Month 5k on Friday 31 January.

There’s more information about lots of these events on the Serpie events planner.

Sally Hodge
communications@serpentine.org.uk