The March Handicap turned out to be a thrilling race with 18 runners out there for the last of the dark night events…..next month is traditionally the handicap busting yahoo as folks can again see the racing lines. Anyway to the March event….10 runners meeting or beating their handicaps and 9 enjoying the thrill of the blanket finish.
We were pleased to welcome one event newbie in Helena Frisby and also to mark the welcome return of Liz Marshall to her first handicap event since Aug 2019…..both a bit unlucky to find the handicapper was not in a generous mood!
Ric Pike (7’33 net) was our winner on the night, prevailing over Steve Oliver (7’31 net) in a proper gun-to-tape footrace as the handicaps matched them up….btw Ric was faster up the hill and Steve was faster (or less risk averse) on the downhill. Third place was John Mills (8’02) who in a similar matched footrace just managed to catch and pass Karen Hazlitt (8’04) in the final straight. Indeed a feature of the night was the clusters of similarly handicapped runners starting more or less together and enjoying real head to head racing around the whole lap.
We had two athletes going sub-7 with Matt Grote (6’44) and Ed Gurney (6’47) continuing their thrilling sharp-end rivalry for the third event in a row. Karen Hazlitt (8’04) was our fastest lady with Liz Marshall (8’07) and Melissa Callister (8’08) keeping her honest.
The overall standings are still a bit meaningless but early trends are emerging and familiar names again creeping towards the top of the leaderboard. John Mills, Karen Hazlitt, Steve Oliver, Ric Pike, James Bailey and Jack Rowland are currently making up the leading pack.
A quarter of the way through the year and there are still 11 athletes in with a chance of achieving the fabled 12 out of 12.
New to this and wondering what it is all about? A monthly handicap race (on the first Thursday of the month) around an urban 1.14-mile loop in the Harestock area of Winchester. In handicap racing, the starts are staggered according to handicap, and the faster runners thus chase the slower runners to the finish…..the fastest in the club and the slowest in the club can literally be racing side by side at the finish line. It’s a bit of fun that fits perfectly as a race effort rep to round off a threshold session or as a pickup interval in a block of tempo work. All are welcome, and all running speeds can be catered for. More info here: Harestock Handicap