KADS are entered in the Summer Derby Runner League (also known as the Booths Decorators League or BDL) with 5 races on the calendar from April-August.
These races are (of course) a competition, and give you an opportunity to race against your local peers or try to beat your own personal bests, with end-of-year prizes for age category winners and teams. However, KADS have traditionally treated them as a great way to foster club spirit, celebrating more the number of members turning out than how we perform. The club has a superb reputation for encouraging all of our runners, with our the last finishers enjoying the most finish-line support.
This is how the races work:
These races are (of course) a competition, and give you an opportunity to race against your local peers or try to beat your own personal bests, with end-of-year prizes for age category winners and teams. However, KADS have traditionally treated them as a great way to foster club spirit, celebrating more the number of members turning out than how we perform. The club has a superb reputation for encouraging all of our runners, with our the last finishers enjoying the most finish-line support.
This is how the races work:
- The races are free for members of KADS. You don't need England Athletics (EA) membership to take part.
- The only thing you will need is a club vest or T shirt - it's in the rules that everyone runs in club colours.
- The courses are on trails or tarmac roads, some with short sections of grass. You can run in trail shoes if you like, but road shoes will be fine for most conditions.
- The races take place on Tuesday evenings between 7:15pm and 7:30pm. Start times, dates and locations are in the club calendar, titled 'BDL Summer League'. The races are held across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Parking is often limited so car sharing is encouraged.
- The races are (very) roughly 5 miles long.
- The courses are marked/marshalled so you won't get lost.
- Some courses start on narrow trails so with maybe 300 runners it's difficult to overtake at first, so it makes sense to try and pop yourself into roughly the right place in the pack at the start (easier said than done).
- To race you simply turn up with your KADS top and race, there is no need to pre-register and no race numbers are used so you don't have to hunt down safety pins.
- When you cross the finish line you're given a token showing your overall position. You hand this to whoever in KADS is collecting them and give them your name and age category. They'll collate all the results and send them into the league organisers.
- You'll be racing against members of your own club, and running clubs from the surrounding area.
- In 2021 only one race was held, at Shipley Country Park. The results are here on webscorer.com if you want to see the age categories, which clubs take part and roughly how fast runners were. Sadly results from previous years were lost as the website holding them died.
- The 2022 results will probably also be on webscorer.com and we'll add a link here as soon as we have it.
- The fastest 7 men in each race count for team positions, and the quickest 4 ladies. To be eligible for a league age category award, you need to take part in at least 4 of the 5 events. Again, just because you think you might finish outside these positions, your fellow KADS won't care. We want as many runners out there as we can muster!
- Finally, if you complete all 5 races you'll also receive an award at the club presentation evening in March.