Club Championship

The 2023/24 Club Championship

At the 2022 AGM the club agreed to change from a January-December membership year to an April-March year. This lines up with the England Athletics membership year and will make admin easier in several ways. The club competitions will also change to be aligned with the club's membership year, so the 2023/24 Championship will begin with races in April.

The 2023/24 Club Championship

The format of the Championship in 2023/24 is similar to previous years. All the events are listed in the Calendar with links for further information – Club Championship races are identified with (C). There is also a list of events in each section at the bottom of this page with links for further information.

The competition involves races across three main sections (Road, Trail/Cross-Country and Fell). The Championship comprises 16 fixed races (5 or 6 from each section plus the club mile), but three of the events are local series of races: Spencer's Dash and Loxley Lash (road), and Silkstone Shuffle (trail/cross country). Members can run as many of the Spencer's Dash, Loxley Lash or Silkstone Shuffle series as they wish, and their season’s best time from each will be counted.

Results

Current standings for 2023/24.

Results for previous years: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 onwards

Past Club Champions

Qualification

Qualification for the section Championships and overall Championship is exactly as in recent years: to qualify for each section you need to compete in at least 3 of the section events (out of 5/6 events, including, if you wish, series events, but you don’t have to run the Spencer’s Dash, Loxley Lash or Silkstone Shuffle).

To qualify for the Overall Championship you have to compete in 9 events, with at least 2 of these races from each section. Your 9 best race scores, including the minimum of 2 from each section, will be added together to form an Overall Championship total. If you do the club mile, that can be one of your 9 qualifying events (if it is one of the 9 best scores).

All first claim members are included in the Championship. Juniors running in senior races (where permitted) will be included in the Under 20 category. Members joining (or re-joining) during the year will only have results counted from the date their subscription has been paid.

Scoring

Points are calculated based on their time relative to the overall race winner (male and female respectively). This is exactly the same as the Fell League. If a PFR runner is first overall (ie first male or first female), he or she will get 100 points. If your time is exactly double the winner’s time, you get 50 points: the points are calculated on a scale so the faster you run the more points you get. For the series events, the points are based on your fastest time of the series relative to the fastest race winning time of the series.

The main advantages of this method are: 1) it means that every second you run faster will gain you points (not a lot, but something – unless you are the race winner). Beating another Penistone runner (of the same sex) in a race will always mean you get more points than them – but the bigger the gap you get the more points you gain. 2) you don’t get points as a result of other PFR runners not turning up – you get points for your own performance.

The disadvantage of this method is that your points do depend on how fast the winner is – if Mo Farah or Eilish McColgan turn up to Oughtibridge Chase, the points will go down – generally, less popular races will yield more points. This may help boost less popular races, which is no bad thing.

The Challenge Championship is based on the total points from all events completed (including your best Spencers Dash, Loxley Lash and Silkstone Shuffle). The more races you complete, the more points you will get.

Prizes

Your age group for the Championship in any year is determined by your age on January 1st. Prizes will be awarded for each age group for both male and female categories for each section winners, eg Fell Lady Vet 40.

• The groups are as follows: Male U20, M Senior, MV35, MV40, MV45, MV50, MV55, MV60, MV65, MV70, MV75, MV80, Female U20, F Senior, LV35, LV40, LV45, LV50, LV55, LV60, LV65, LV70, LV75, LV80.
• The Sections are Road, Trail/Cross Country and Fell.
• The Overall Champions will be the Male and Female with the best scores from the 9 races needed to qualify.
• The title of Challenge Champion will be given to the runner who acquires the most points from all qualifying events.
• Run as many or as few races as you want but you must compete in the correct number of races to win an award.

2023/24 events

All the events are listed in the Calendar with links for further information – Club Championship races are identified with (C).

Road Section
Spencers Dash 1	Thu 4 May
Loxley Lash 1	Wed 10 May
Loxley Lash 2	Wed 7 Jun
Loxley Lash 3	Wed 5 Jul
Spencers Dash 2	Thu 13 Jul
Spencers Dash 3	Thu 7 Sep
Vale of York Half Marathon	Sun 10 Sep
Travellers 6	Sun 17 Dec
Meltham 10K	Sun 28 Jan

Trail/Cross Country Section
Higham Hurtle	Thu 27 Apr
Furty Furlong	Sat 13 May
Silkstone Shuffle 1	Thu 18 May
Oughtibridge Chase	Wed 14 Jun
Silkstone Shuffle 2	Thu 20 Jul
Silkstone Shuffle 3	Thu 14 Sep
SY Cross Country – race 1	Sun 15 Oct

Fell Section
Herod Farm	Wed 19 Apr
James Blakeley	Sat 24 Jun
Thurlstone Chase	Sat 8 Jul
Salt Cellar	Fri 4 Aug
Baslow Bolt	Sat 25 Nov
Hoppits Hill	Sun 25 Feb