Penistone Footpath Runners

Road Running

No pain, no gain

Section Menu

The club is very active in road running, with training/social runs every Tuesday and Thursday from the club of varying distances and paces to suit everyone, along with other less formal runs and training on other days. We like to make the most of the easy access to quiet country roads with great views, and no shortage of hills that we have on our doorstep! For those interested there are also lots of organised events.

  • The club organises the Penistone 10K and contributes to the South Yorkshire Road League series, which many members compete in as well
  • We enter road relays, such as Dam Flask, Rother Valley and Regional and National Road Relays
  • There is a Road section to the Club Championship, with races selected each year between 5K and half marathon distance
  • We maintain Club Records for each age group, with certificates awarded for breaking club records
  • The club has a set of Road Standards, with certificates awarded for different levels of performance in each age group – see below for details

Road Standards

In 2017 the club introduced a series of standards to apply to road distances. The rationale of the standards is (a) to provide a focus for runners on the improvement curve and (b) to provide a motivation for those moving through the age groups whose PB days may be behind them.

Please note these are not minimum standards for members and they are entirely voluntary – the club welcomes all runners of all abilities and has a very wide range within the membership!

The list of Penistone runners and the standards they have achieved is on the Road Standards results site. The list gives current age groups: if you click on any name it takes you to a page on which all the standards achieved at different age groups and the races that have counted towards those standards are listed.

The results site lists the standard times for each age group, sex and distance.

For each age category there is a set of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th class standards to attain. These are based on WAVA age-graded tables. The standards have been adjusted to give consistency across all age groups, distances and standards. The standard times have been calculated as follows:

  1. For the minimum age in each age group (ie 40 for 40–44, 45 for 45–49, etc) the times for each distance that give WAVA scores of 75%, 65%, 55% and 45% respectively are calculated. Age 25 is used for the senior (under 40) age group.
  2. These times are rounded down to (not up, always down) to the nearest 15 seconds for times under 30 minutes, 30 seconds for times under 1 hour and 1 minute for all other times.
  3. The rounded times are set as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th class standards respectively.

This method ensures that anyone achieving, say 1st class, for any distance must have got at least a WAVA score of 75%, and also ensures consistency between ages, sexes and distances.

  • Times run in races at any time since the runner last joined Penistone Footpath Runners (performances from before a break in membership cannot be included) and while the runner was in the current age category count towards the club standards.
  • To achieve a standard a runner needs to complete any 3 of the 6 distances to the required standard.
  • The qualifying period for a standard is the whole 5 years within which a runner is within a particular category.
  • All times must be on UKA or ARC measured courses. In the case of the 5K distance, there is a list of measured parkrun courses which have been certified by an official course measurer; these count towards achieving the standard. 5000m and 10000m track races can also count for 5K and 10K respectively.
  • Certificates will be awarded to all runners completing a new standard at the club's Annual Presentation Evening.
  • The results program obtains all results from the Power of 10 website, including qualifying parkruns. Any races not on Power of 10 should be sent to Paul Fryers and can then be added manually to the results system.

Outstanding Achievements

Many members compete in road races, at all different levels. Most of us are there to take part, enjoying pushing ourselves and/or the social side of racing, but we have had a few very successful runners.

Julie Buckley broke the UK all time record for 5km in the Vet 55 category in 2011, with 17:57 at Doncaster, and held the record until 2017.

More recently, three members have qualified for English Masters Vests and represented England internationally:

  • 2021: Andrew Pearson, MV55
  • 2021: Malcolm Rose, MV65
  • 2022: Dawn Broom, FV55