The Virtual Race Scores Are In

Last week, Shiplake pupils and staff took part in the College's first competitive virtual 'fixture' against Radley College.

The brief was simple, join the Shiplake Club on the Strava app and run 5km between 6.00am on Wednesday and 6.00pm on Thursday, with winners announced for U14, U16, U18 and staff categories, and the winning school overall.

Race adjudicator, Head of PE, Mr Tom Walter, reveals the final scores:

And the results are in. After a brilliant 36 hours of racing, with over 1,000km of ground covered between the Colleges, Radley won this first challenge with the final score Radley 3-1 Shiplake. 

Whole School Category

Overall, Radley had more participants (+12) so took the point. Incredibly, just 3 seconds separated the schools' median times. Radley with 23.33 to Shiplake's 23.36. 

U14 Category

Radley won the overall median, although worth noting that we had Year 7 and 8 in this category and Radley only had Year 9. However, T Lebeau (18.26) was the quickest U14 runner overall and Shiplake had more participation in the category. A Malcolm (22.00) and C Andersson (23.13) made up Shiplake's top three. 

U16 Category

Radley won the overall median by 30 seconds and had three runners all under 19mins, taking the top three places. T Houghton (19.26), F Middleton (19.30) and H Poustie (21.10) were Shiplake's quickest. Well done for these super fast times!

U18 Category

The rowers will be pleased to know that Shiplake won this category. Our median time was a whole minute quicker. A Hunt (18.34), R Ash (19.05) and J Kirby (19.13) were Shiplake's top three and A Hunt was second place in the category, also finishing overall 5th.  

Staff Category

Despite being billed as a 'warm up event' ahead of the students' race, a total of 52 staff took part from both colleges! We had slightly more, so Shiplake took the participation point. However, in the days leading up to the event, I believe Radley hired a current GB Masters 1,500m runner and one of the UK's best Ultra Runners (2.22 marathon runner) on short term contracts, which tipped the scales in their favour. Despite this blatant gamesmanship, five of Shiplake's staff made it into the overall top 10, but Radley took the top three spots. Score Radley Ringers 2-1 Shiplake Stars.

Thank you and well done to everyone who took part! Every result really did count and kept it close. Thank you also for encouraging the students to get active, which is, of course, the overall aim.