About
On the first Sunday of the year, and alternate Sundays thereafter, we hold our infamous interclub cross country league. Runners from Killamarsh, Clowne, Worksop, Retford and Handsworth come together to brave the snow, frost, mud and puddles to be crowned champion (but mostly to enjoy the post-run buffet).
The league was originally set up as a way to encourage people to keep running throughout winter and to give everyone something to look forward to in what can be a bleak couple of months. Who doesn’t get excited about freezing cold puddles and mud so thick you risk losing a shoe?? It has since become a staple of our winter calendar with runners of all abilities welcomed and cheered over the finish line.
Races are held every other Sunday morning for 5 weeks with each club taking a turn to host on their “home” turf (mud). Routes are around 9-10km over tricky terrain – trail shoes are highly recommended! After each race runners and marshals are welcomed back to a local venue for a well earned buffet, central heating (essential to thaw out!) and to wait for the results to be announced.
The trick is then getting your trail shoes dry before the next race. Some people even go to the effort of cleaning off the (copious) mud… each to their own!
Rules
- Club colours must be worn by all runners
- Minimum age on the day of the first race is 16
- Each club must provide 2 scorers to help at the finish line for their home race
- Courses are to be fully marshalled by the home club
- £2 donation per race per runner (this is then donated to charity, the choice of which is chosen by a different club each year)
- In order to score, all runners must be paid up members of their nominated club (1st or 2nd claim)
- Each year captains are chosen for the men’s and women’s teams. Captains collect subs, hand out race numbers and ensure everyone knows the race details (when & where etc.). Most importantly they rally everyone together to ensure we have enough runners to make up each team
Scoring
The club with the lowest score is crowned the overall winner, with additional prizes for the lowest scoring male and female teams. Although we all race together, scoring is based on a mens and womens race.
Each individual runner is allocated a score based on their overall placing in the field e.g. 1st = 1 point, 30th = 30 points. If you are 1st female but 5th overall, your score is still 1 point as the scoring is based on gender.
Under this system, even if you do not come top 7 for your club you stand the chance of beating a runner from another club who may be scoring – increasing their score and improving the chances for our club #everykestrelcounts
For each club the score is made up as follows:
- 7 men and 7 women from your club will contribute towards your score
- No more than 2 from each 7 person team can be 2nd claim (2nd claim must still be paid up club members)
- There must be at least 3 vets (over 35) in each 7 person team (meaning your whole team could be vets, but a maximum of 4 can be under 35)
It is also worth noting that if any team does not have the requisite number of runners (7) then they are penalised by scoring maximum points (e.g. 80 if there were 80 runners in that field).
NEW RULE for 2022, after the first 7 scoring runners the next 10 runners home for each club will DEDUCT a point from the overall score! For example – if our first 7 women clocked up a score of 112, but we had 5 additional women running in our team (12 women in total), we would deduct 5 points for a score of 107. There is a maximum of 10 points deducted from the overall score (10 for the women, 10 for the men).
This means that to maximise our chances we need at least 17 men and 17 women to run for our club. The idea here is to encourage more runners, of any ability, to take part in the series. Even if you tail walked it you would be helping your club.
killamarshkestrels.co.uk 