Steel City Striders’ Parkrun Cup 2025-6

As the nights start to draw in and we contemplate digging out the high-viz, it can only mean one thing – the much anticipated return of the club’s annual parkrun cup competition. For those who are new to the competition or have forgotten the mechanics of it, it goes something like this…

Basically, it’s free entry to all first claim club members. Entries are now closed for 2025-26.

Each round will take place at one of the city’s different parkrun events – see below for the precise details of which events and when. For lots of us it’s a chance to visit some of the city’s fabulous events that we don’t get to so often.

At each round we draw you to race against another club member. You then get in touch with your opponent and decide which Saturday you are going to race. you will then use your respective times and PBs to have a handicap race-off. Let’s say Neil Schofield has 20.30 pb and Nick Burns has 21.00 pb. At the race if Neil runs it in 20.45 (15 seconds slower than his pb) and Nick runs it in 21.10 (10 seconds slower than his pb) then Nick wins. Hopefully their friendship doesn’t end there!!! It’s worth noting that if you improve your PB during the competition, that will become the new time your handicap is calculated from.

At each round there will three to four weeks to complete your race – see below. We’ll keep an eye on results and publish the winners after each round on Facebook. We end up with a final round where the winner will be crowned. It’s a straight knockout with all the finalists trying to beat or get as close to their PBs as possible. After last year’s really closely contested final at Graves Park, this year we will see the championship decided at Hillsborough. 

Here’s the running order, for this year…

Round 1 – Castle parkrun 18th October, 25th October, 1st November , 8th November

Round 2 – Concord parkrun 15th November, 22nd November, 29th November, 6th December

Round 3 – Graves parkrun 13th December, 20th December, 3rd January, 10th January

Round 4 (semi-finals) – Millhouses parkrun 17th January, 24th January,

The Grand Final – Hillsborough – 7th February