This is a 4 mile road run held on each second Thursday of the month from April to September organised by Will Atkinson. The route is through north Oxford and is a handicapped series where each runner competes against his or her best time. We welcome runners from other clubs, but please email us first to let us know you will be coming.
Note: there has been be a new course since the 2005 season. The start is about 20m beyond the Elsfield Rd on the cycle path and the finish is at the end of the Marston Ferry Road just beyond the underpass. Mark Hirst measured the course with a wheel and marked the Start, Finish points on the ground. It is exactly 4 miles long. Click here to view the course map.
See below for dates for the current season.
How the timetrial handicap system works
The handicap system tries to ensure that everyone finishes at 8pm. The winner is the first person to finish. The first time you run the timetrial your time becomes your handicap time. Next month you will start that length of time before 8pm. If you fail to break your handicap, i.e. you arrive after 8pm, an allowance of 3 seconds will be added to your handicap time for the month after. As you accumulate successive timetrials without breaking your handicap, the allowance becomes steadily more generous; to be precise the allowance is 3 raised to the power of n seconds, where n is the number of successive timetrials since you last broke your handicap. There is a constraint on the allowance so it never exceeds the number of seconds by which you failed to break your handicap. When you break your handicap, 90% of the time by which you broke your handicap is deducted from your allowance for next month and n is reset to zero. After all the calculations above, start times are rounded down to the nearest 10 seconds, to help me cope with the start. Start times will be available on the night of the timetrial. It is your responsibility to note your start time and get to the start in good time.
At the finish you should collect one of Andy Sully's numbered, red finishing discs, record its number on the results list, and with any luck we will be able to match up finishing times with people after it is all over.
To qualify for the final you must run 3 timetrials out of the 5 available before September. The Lineshot Trophy engraved with their name for posterity will go to the first person to finish the final.
There is a list of past winners here.
and a list of the best ever times here.
