Stevenage 5k Series – Preview

The first race of this year’s series takes place on Thu 12th November at 7:45pm (inc Herts Snr Champs). The next two are on Thu 26/11 (inc Herts Vet Champs) and Thu 10/12.

Click here for on-line entries (5 places or less available in all 3 races as of 11/11)

You don’t get many genuine 5k road races, in fact I can only think of 3 spanning between central London and Peterborough (Serpentine, Ferry Meadows Peterborough and Stevenage) The weekly Bushy Park 5k is too ‘off-road’ to qualify as a road race. The Marston Forest 5k in Beds falls into a similar category, as well as not having an SEAA measurement certificate.

All this goes some way to explaining the popularity of the Stevenage series. I think the old course (up to 2007) was a bit flatter and faster. I would say that the new course (2008>) adds around 10s (depending on pace) compared with the old route.

The new route, like the old, is entirely on traffic-free cycle-ways. If the new route has one advantage, it’s that there are fewer tight turns. The key disadvantage of the new route is that the final 1.5k (30% of race) is uphill.

The graph below compares the elevation profiles of both old and new routes. The upper (blue) line is the new route. New route = average gain/loss per mile = 12.07 metres. Old route scores 9.62.

Click on either map or graph to enlarge.