Start Fitness Metropolitan League

This cross country league provides our main competitive focus. Details about the league as well as information about venues is now available on the league website.Women's start at Trent Park 2018

The league is made up of teams from 21 clubs. These include such well-known clubs as Thames Valley Harriers, Highgate Harriers, Shaftsbury Barnet Harriers and Woodford Green with Essex Ladies. The race venues are all within easy travelling distance of Central London. All of the competitions are on Saturday afternoons – see the list on the Serpie planner.

The league is primarily a team competition. The team scoring the least number of points, according to the finishing positions of the runners, is the winner. There are separate races for men and women. The men's and women's races are ~8km and each meeting includes races for U11 boys and girls (~1.5km), U13 boys and girls (~3km), U15 boys and girls (~4km) and U17 men and women (~4km).

Muddy shoesThere are three divisions for men and three for women. In division 1, the men's "A" team comprises twelve runners and the women's "A" team comprises six. Incorporated within the main races is a veterans competition, with the men's team being six to score and women's team have four scoring members in division 1.

The league is open to all Serpies. Second claim runners are welcome to compete but must be declared before the season starts.

The race programme starts at 12:00 (U11 race). Later races do not have a fixed start time and may start a little late depending on completion of the previous race, but generally the senior women's race is around 13:00 and the senior men's race around 13:45. Please leave plenty of time to get to the venues.

Contacts

2023/2024 Serpentine's contact on a day for participants registration and race number collection - Darren Over. Please ensure that you have your club vest, your membership number and your England Athletics affiliation number with you for registration. 

League sponsor

Start Fitness logo are sponsoring the league, providing prize money, vouchers and bib numbers amongst other things. They are also offering discounts to club members via their websites: www.startfitness.co.uk (10% off) and www.moremile.co.uk (30% off). See our discounts page for further details and the codes to use at checkout.

League prizes

Team trophies are awarded for leading junior, senior and vets teams of each gender in each division. In addition, there are cash prizes from the sponsor for the leading individuals in each category (per race for juniors and at the end of the season for seniors).