The Skipton Cup

🟢🔵The Skipton Cup – a 5k Competition 🏆🟢🔵

 The Skipton Cup competition is a series of 5km handicap races for club members, held at Frenchfield, Penrith

🗓The first event will be held on Wed Sept 4th 2024 at 6.00pm. It will be a mass start 5km, 3-lap clockwise (ie opposite direction to parkrun 🥴) race around the perimeter track of the main field at Frenchfield, with trophies (awarded on Club presentation night in Nov) for the first three men and first three women finishers.

IMPORTANT – You will need to wear a race number – so you’ll need to register and collect your number before the start – we aim to be at Frenchfield from around 5.15pm so please be as early as you can – we aim for a 6pm start. Please bring safety pins if you can – we have a limited supply. And that race number should be worn for each subsequent handicap event you attend – see details below

On each of the 3 subsequent Wednesdays (ie 11^th, 18^th, 25^th), there will be a 5k handicap race on the same course– details are given below. There are awards in the various age categories for runners with the top 3 fastest times across any/all of the 4 events in each of the following age categories –  Open (ie 18-34),  v35, v40, v45, v50, v55, v60, v65 and v70+ for both men and women – so even if you can’t make all of the events, there will still be something to aim at. We will be publishing a leaderboard covering these age cats after each of the 4 races. Category Age applicable is as on the day of the initial Skipton Cup race – Sept 4^th 2024.

Note:

• Age Categories will apply across all 4 events – your best time at any of them will be used to establish prizewinners.

• If you are a prizewinner (ie first 3 male and female) in the initial Skipton Cup 5k mass start race, then you will not be eligible for series Age Category prizes.

• Your initial starting time for Handicap Race #1 (Sept 11^th) will be based on your Skipton Cup 2024 (ie Sept 4th) time. If you miss that event, we’ll work out your handicap start time using next-best estimates based on fastest ‘recent’ parkrun times, ‘etc’ .

• You need to be a member of Eden Runners to take part.

HANDICAP RACE SERIES (11th, 18th and 25^th September, all 6pm start)

Handicap race #1 – Sept 11^th.  The runner with the slowest 5k time will start first, and the fastest-timed runner will start last, separated by the time difference in their respective run times in the preceding race(s). The Handicap times will be adjusted after each Handicap Race as improvement is achieved. Please note your Handicap time cannot decrease! Points are awarded at each race for finishing position i.e. first place 1 point, second place 2 points etc.

Handicap races #2 and #3 (Sept 18^th and 25^th) are then run on subsequent weeks and points will be  awarded in the same way.

The overall winner of the handicap series will be the person (male or female) with the lowest total points over the three Handicap Races.

Prizes will be awarded to the three runners with the lowest number of total points. The lowest wins The Skipton Cup trophy itself

If you miss any of the three Handicap Races, then points equivalent to the last placed finisher  plus one point will be added to your total points for that event.

Can’t stress this enough – the whole point of this competition is to promote friendly competition whilst rewarding genuine improvement across the series….and if you win a prize in the process, well, great!  Participation is also at the core of the Skipton Cup race series so please try to attend as many as you can – they are great fun!

The events will be available to book on TeamApp – booking yourself on would be greatly appreciated so that we know who’s coming along.  Runners are encouraged to wear club colours please

Apologies for the necessarily and long post. If you’ve got this far and have questions, please go back to the start and re-read these notes, have a bit of a think, and perhaps a quiet word with yourself. Then, and only then 😬, if you’ve STILL got questions, comment on here or send me a pm 🙂 . I’m always happy to answer any queries. No, really 😬

 Get your running shoes on – it’ll be great to see a good turnout – these events really are for ALL MEMBERS OF ALL ABILITIES, so come and have a go! Your support is really appreciated

🍀Good Luck! and remember …..anyone can win the Skipton Cup!