Shropshire Winter fell series – 2019/20

Fell races Race Reports

Normally you have to run 4 races in the series to count in the final category positions but this year, since the last race in the series was cancelled because of the corona virus, it seems that three races was enough to be up for a category prize, though all 521 runners who even competed in just one race have been included in the final results. Top of the Croft list was Tim Jones 1 (to distinguish him from some inferior Tim Jones!), in 25th place, and his best 4 races gave him a total of 286.70%* (ave: 71.52%). Gary G was next in 35th overall, and first M70 (257.07% ave: 64.26%), followed by Flora in 39th, and 3rd F55 (248.94% ave: 62.23%). I was 65th and 1st (and only) M75 (202.97% ave: 67.65%), ‘followed’ by Eric, who actually had the highest average percentage score of us all, but he only ran two races (150.76% ave: 75.38%). Tom was 3rd M70, and also only ran two races (those who run more than 4 have only their best scores counted, so are rewarded for their input) so was slightly handicapped. Our noble chairman Sam (heaven, and Jackie, forbid that our venerable president should be cavorting over the Long Mynd!) showing an example by running the Cardingmill Canter, a club championship race, scored 63.06% in her one appearance.

It was an unusual winter series, with a lot of wind, some rain (though few races suffered from rain during the event) and finally the corona virus, which cut the season short. It also looks as if the summer series will be a total ‘washout’.

  • *The percentage comes from averaging the times of the first ten runners, then calculating the following runners’ times as a percentage of that top ten average. Thus, if the top ten average 1 hour, and a slower runner finishes in 2 hours, their percentage will be 1/2 x 100 = 50%.

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