2023 bring an exciting new handicap race to the Strider Schedule, Sunday 10th September, we are introducing the 5 mile handicap. There are more and more 5 mile races popping up in the calendar throughout England and we want to help the Striders prep for these as best we can. This will be carried out the same way the as the 10k handicap with only having one race.

The race will start on the public footpath outside Ridlins Track and take the same course as the 10k leading out along A602, past the football club and up through the show ground turning right down Six Hills Way, under the underpass back up Six Hills Way, left under the next underpass towards St Nicholas School, turn right at the show ground and then back again following the same route back to the start.

There will be awards for the first 3 back and the fastest woman and man on the day.

To be involved in the first ever Stevenage Striders 5 miler handicap click here.

Each runner is given a target time based on their current form. This target time is used to work out the order in which runners are started, with the slowest runner going first and the fastest runner last. Each runners handicap is calculated by taking the difference between the slowest runners start time and the runners start time. As each runner finishes, the race stopwatch time is noted against their name. Their actual race time is calculated by taking the recorded stopwatch time and subtracting the runners handicap. The winner of the race is the runner who beats their target time by the greatest margin.