Boxing Day Bogtrot (Relay)

Boxing Day Bogtrot (Relay) on Fri 26th Dec 2025

An excellent day for it, cold but clear with bright sunshine!

Registration went well, pairing runners up fastest to slowest based on their approximate 5km time. Guy bravely stepped up to run despite illness and his 5km time guesstimated accordingly. 
Runners set off in pairs in opposite directions around the 5km route of Burbage Moor. When they met they exchanged their baton and ran back to Ox Stones the same way they had already run. At Ox Stones pairs exchanged their baton again and set off on a second lap in the opposite direction in which they ran their first lap. Batons were exchanged one more time, along with an about turn, and finishing times taken when both pairs arrived back at Ox Stones with the baton having completed 2 whole laps. 

I anticipated this was not going to be a perfect system and that further handicapping may be required. Thus I provided a range of relay batons to distribute. Team batons are detailed in the comments column of the results below. 

The pairing and baton handicap system seemed to work well as after one lap 7 teams were within 40 seconds of each other. Lap one times are detailed in the bonus column of the results table below. The gaps grew on the second lap but all teams finished within a 14 minute window. 

Congratulations go to Hannah Saville and Katie Barnett for taking the win, despite my best effort to slow them down with a 1kg tortoise doorstop baton. Just 41 seconds later was Isabelle Tongue and Mike Nolan, with a slightly larger gap to Julia Nolan and Kev Saville in 3rd place. 
Also a special mention to Lynn Bland and Emily Barnett who successfully completed the whole races without breaking the egg (sans egg box). 

Thanks to Roy and Marilyn Small for hosting the post run social / debrief, complete with Marilyn's exceptional homemade soup. 

I hope everyone enjoyed the race and I plan to organise a similar style event in the summer - The return of the Burbage Baffler! 

Tom