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Autumn is with us and with it the first events in the club league. We’ve had 3. Holmbury was really hard physical work, longish courses in difficult underfoot conditions. Then 2 flatland events: the Broaks has a lot of ‘green’ woodland and this year was just after the first significant rain so was muddy as well, Black Park was more manageable.

At Holmbury, only Barry Breed beat his handicap, and that by a small margin. James and Peter Errington, and Mick Smith and David Heale were the next best. Of the small turnout at the Broaks, only Viv Hodson beat her handicap, by a remarkably similar margin to Barry. At Black Park, speeds were more as expected. Paul Langston and Mick Smith almost tied on handicap, James Errington was again the best junior.

So, in these very early days, only 11 people have run 2 events. Of the juniors, unsurprisingly James Errington is leading from his brother. Of the seniors, Mick Smith is opening up a lead over the consistent performers Hedley Calderbank and David Heale. The full results so far are here.

We’re just entering into one of the busy periods for the SE League. The November events are at Mytchett on Saturday 8th then Epping NW and Wisley on Sundays 23rd and 30th. Mytchett only has limited entry on the day, but entries are open on Fabian4 for the other 2. Note that at Wisley, the Blue and longer courses have been replaced by mass start, gaffled ‘blood races’.

This being the first set of results of the season, it’s the first chance you will have had of seeing the handicaps for the season. We have applied the same principles as before, taking the median* of your running speeds over the last season – or 6 events if you didn’t run 6 last season. If you have any queries about the calculation, please contact me at club.league@happyherts.org.uk. For instance, I did a double take that Mick Smith had a lower handicap than me even though he beat me at 7 of the 8 league events we both ran last year, but looking at the details, unfortunately it’s true.

See you at an event soon
Mike

*Median: if you arrange the numbers in ascending order, the middle one – or midway between the 2 middle ones if there are an even number. But you knew that.