We hold seven winter handicap road races and five summer handicap trail races. These are an ideal way of checking out your running performance throughout the year.
The winter handicap starts in the Peter Driver car park by the disabled parking bay and takes a five-mile mainly flat route via Pine Grove, Gravel Road, Corringway, Queen’s Road, Velmead Road, Kings Road, Albany Road, Connaught Road and Aldershot Road and finishes by the lamp post in Pine Grove just past the end of Gravel Road, which is about 0.5 mile from the club hut.
The summer handicap starts and finishes outside the club hut on the Peter Driver Field and follows a 5.8-mile circular undulating route along established tracks across the army ground, which pass close to Caesar’s Camp at its highest point.
There are annual awards to the male and female club members who score the highest combined score for winter and summer races.
Runners are set off at handicap times based on their previous time for the course or if they are doing the race for the first time it will be based on their time for a recent 10k race. Each race has a ‘scratch time’, which is time that the slowest runner is expected to take.
So for each runner, the handicap time (i.e. the elapsed time from starting the race to setting the individual runner off) is the scratch time minus the previous time for the race. E.g. for the summer handicap the scratch time is 63 minutes so a runner completing the previous race in 53 minutes would have a handicap of 10 minutes. The winter handicap has a scratch time of 50 minutes.
The latest Winter Handicap Series started in October 2022
The results for all five races, held on 20th October, 17th November, 26th January,16th February & 16th March respectively, are here:
WinterHC_2022_23_R1_R2_R3_R4_R5
The points table for the Winter Series is here:
Winter Handicap 22-23 Total Points
Congratulations to Ryan who sped his way to first place with 23 points, Nick coming in second place with 19 points closely followed by Kevin & Tim in joint third place with 18 points each.
Watch this space for the start of our Summer Handicap 2023 Series!
The Summer 2022 Handicap Series that started in April is now complete
The results for all the races are here:
Summer Handicap R1_R2_R3_R4_R5_R6_2022
The summer handicap points score is here:
The Winter Handicap Series started in October 2021
The results for all 7 races held on 7th / 21st October, 18th November, 9th December 2021, 20th January, 17th February & 10th March 2022 respectively are here:
WinterHC_2021_22_R1_R2_R3_R4_R5_R6_R7
The points table to date is here:
Congratulations to Stevyn who romped away to first place with 42 points, Nick coming in second place with 27 points closely followed by Jamie & Ian D in joint third place with 22 points each.
The Summer Handicap series started in April 2021.
Results of the all five Summer Handicap Races in 2021 held on 22nd April, 20th May, 17th June, 15th July & 19th Aug. are here:
Summer Handicap R1_R2_R3_R4_R5_2021
The final winter handicap results for 2020/21 (noting that Races 4, 5 & 6 of the 2020/21 Winter Handicap Series were virtual challenges) are here:
WinterHC_2020_21_R1_R2_R3_VR1_VR2_VR3
The overall points for the 2020/21 Winter Handicap season are here: Please note that the scoring reflects changes introduced under Covid restrictions.
Scoring is as follows and is based on finish order.
| Rule | Points | ||
| 1st place | 8 | ||
| 2nd place | 6 | ||
| 3rd place | 5 | ||
| 4th place | 4 | ||
| 5th place | 3 | ||
| Scratch Time & Under | 2 | ||
| Finished / Junior | 1 | ||
| 4-race bonus | 1 |
The summer handicap route starts and ends at the club house and is an off-road event taking in much of the army ranges. The full route is below. (Click on the image for a larger version).
The winter handicap is run on well lit paths around Fleet. It starts in the Peter Driver car park and finishes at a lamp post near the corner on Pine Grove. The full route is below. (Click on the image for a larger version).
