The 40th Yahoo was held on Tuesday 10th December 2024. 30 runners set off into the cold and dark. The results and a short report appear below.
The Yahoo will return in December 2025.
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The Yahoo is weird, odd and ever-so-slightly bizarre. It is Perth Road Runners’ annual handicap race. It was first run in 1983, and its 2023 renewal was the 39th fixture. It is traditionally held in the ten days or so before Christmas, although has occasionally been delayed into the early New Year where necessary. A Christmas race it may be, but some of the most competitive performances from PRRs occur at this race in the final scrap around the North Inch for Yahoo glory.
As a handicap race, it seeks to provide an even contest for all participants, sending more leisurely/stately runners on their way before the later-starting elite athletes. The contest is held over a 9½-mile course around Perth (containing both the climb of Newhouse Road and some infamously steep slopes in Craigie; clink link for more details). The first runner over the line on the North Inch takes the leviathan trophy for which the Yahoo has become famous/notorious (potential winners are advised to bring a wheelbarrow to the event).
A key feature of the Yahoo is that it is held on an evening in December/January; that is, in the dark. This adds an extra dimension to the race. The course nowadays is marked with flour arrows to within an inch of its life (and generously marshalled). Previous course knowledge is invaluable; a recce, at the very least, is a must. It is not a night for standard club kit: runners (absolutely) must wear reflective/hi-viz/day-glo clothing (and ideally some sort of lighting). The ability to run fast when you can’t see where you’re going is particularly useful. Much of the last mile – ie the section heading upriver/North by the Tay on the North Inch – is invariably and especially dark. A full(ish) moon* helps; without one, the pre-placing of head torches under Smeaton’s Bridge is not unknown. The 2024 race falls close to a full moon, FWIW.
As to the history of the trophy, Club stalwart Neil Muir relates that “the trophy was donated to a group of athletes from Perth Strathtay Harriers alongside a small number of PRRs on a visit to Aschaffenburg [Perth’s twin town in Bavaria, S Germany] in the eighties. The trophy was competed for between the Aschaffenburg athletes and the Perth athletes with the German athletes visiting Perth at a later date. It was then decided that the trophy would become the trophy for the Yahoo. The Yahoo came about as the route was often used by the Harriers as a training route and decided to make it a Christmas club race and called it the Yahoo as a bit of a laugh.” The Yahoo was a Harriers race for many years (as shown here in this photo from 1996), with PRRs invited to compete, until it was effectively handed over to us to run.
A trophy is also awarded to the fastest time recorded over the course by both male and female athletes. Records of course times are not well kept; so far, I’ve struggled to find anything faster than the times posted by James Waldie in the 2022 race and Paige Brown in 2024 (although the course is now marginally shorter by dint of the newly-introduced and controversial Peri-Peri and Feus Rd Hoarding short-cuts…)
[* if you can see the moon, it’s because the sky is clear. If the sky is clear, it’s because there are no clouds. If there are no clouds (and in the Perth midwinter at night), it’s probably freezing. And that means the race has probably been called off as the course is too icy. The point here? Full(ish) moons at the Yahoo are rare].
Above: scenes from the Yahoo 2022
The handicap itself is always a talking point, as it shapes the final winner and finishing order every bit as much as fine runs from athletes. Until recently, participants were invited to submit estimates of the times they would achieve over the course. However, these estimates inevitably involved a major element of conservative ‘sandbagging’, giving each athlete a rather higher chance of a win. What then emerged was something of an inevitable arms race in which estimates become ever-more ‘tactically wayward’/b*ll*cks. The practice of self-estimating was eliminated in the 2021 race in favour of a data-based, independent (if such a thing is possible) and mathematical stab at the handicap.
Essentially and obviously, the handicapper asks the question “how fast will this runner cover the course on the evening?” for all runners … and then staggers each of their start times, seeking to create a utopia where they all cross the finish line together. But how?
- Previous Yahoo form is the best guide.
- Races across the current season are also very useful (all the better if close to the date of the Yahoo).
- An initial step – especially where data are sparse – is to ask “how fast would this runner cover a flat parkrun today at full tilt?“.
- This time is then extrapolated up to 9.5 miles: this step also features a ‘fade factor’. Athletes known/thought/felt/believed to be better over short distances are assigned a higher fade factor; marathon runners have a lower one. [Mathematicians and number geeks may like to know that this is a power applied to the ratio of the two distances: a very low fade factor would be a power of 1.05; a high fade factor is 1.08 or even 1.09].
- There may then be a slight adjustment (+/- 1 minute max) for the hilly nature of the course; this allows for PRR having both a) runners who regard 30km + 5 Munros as a mere pre-breakfast warm-up and b) those who tremble at crossing railway bridges.
- Finally, the handicapper takes notice of the historic trend mentioned above, ie that it is very tough indeed for a faster runner to work his or her way through the entire field to win the handicap race. To this end, and also to incentivise the club’s top runners to compete, up to another 30 seconds may well be deducted from the handicap for the three or four fastest runners in the field.
- Strava feed is assiduously watched and tracked. Think of an osprey hovering above a shoal of fish, if you will.
- Note that the handicapper takes note of current form. It may well be that, historically, Athlete X could run much faster than they are currently displaying. Albeit with a margin of security, Athlete X is handicapped relative to their current capacity, not their historic peak.
- Newcomers with little track record (plus long-term PRRs sneakily training ‘on the quiet’) present the greatest danger to even handicapping; an additional burden to account for this uncertainty is increasingly imposed.
- For what it’s worth, this approach resulted in an average difference-from-actual-time of 1’19” across the field of competitors at the 2022 race, 2’02” in 2023 and 2’46” in 2024.
Viewed historically, Yahoo winners (see table below; yet to be updated for 2024 race) seldom emerge from the slowest end of the handicap and almost never from the fast end: winners typically tend to be saddled with a middling handicap. They are often new to the race, making it tricky for the handicappers/organisers to assess their likely performance. Once performance capability over the course is known, it is hard to escape the grip of the handicap. Consequently, only one athlete has ever won the handicap trophy twice; for that, you need to look back to E. Hartley in 1993 and 1995!
Trophies are also awarded for the race’s fastest male and female runners. Winners of all the Yahoo trophies can be viewed here (third page down).
Socially, the Yahoo is on the rise. We’re seeking to create more of an after-party (such as is possible on cold, wet December evenings) at race HQ (this being the PRR gazebo/tent pitched on the edge of the North Inch at the race start). Hot chocolate, Christmas goodies and stovies have been on offer since 2022.
Above: Race HQ at Yahoo 2023: starters/finishers, stovie chefs, North Inch marshals and general hangers-around
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The 2024 race saw 30 runners go to post. As ever, that number fell slightly on the day, this year (apparently) due to colds and untoward intestines. The race HQ team – housed within the club gazebo at the start on the North Inch – busily speculated on the likely winner and weaknesses in the handicap, following on from plenty of same on Facebook in the previous 48 hours. As the first starter left HQ, the smart money appeared to be on Michael Wardlaw (“the bookies’ favourite”) or David Stokoe, both being viewed in rich form relative to their handicap.
Ann Reed (#1) set off some 30’30” ahead of Mike McConnell {#32), these two book-ending the handicap. This was one seriously cold evening: the gazebo sides froze solid inside an hour. The marshals’ comms channel allowed marshals out on the course to update HQ of progress, but no clear picture of the race emerged until the leader arrived at Smeaton’s Bridge.
Jo Brinkman (#2) came under the bridge first, having overtaken Ann Reed and been untroubled by any challengers behind. Her impressive run saw her finish almost 6′ ahead of the field, and exactly 9 minutes ahead of her expected/handicap time. Ann Reed also held off all other challengers behind for second place, while hotly-tipped Michael Wardlaw took over 10 minutes off his 2023 time to finish third. Ronan McDonnell and Peter Will made fine runs for 4th and 5th (resp), both beating their expected times by over two minutes.
The Fastest Lady quaich was recaptured by Paige Brown (previously held by her in 2022) in 64:16,this being the fastest time we have on record for a ladies’ Yahoo. Mike McConnell also did some recapturing of the Fastest Man trophy in 54:33; he last won the trophy in 2016 in a time almost 3 minutes slower.
Above: Yahoo trophy winners 2024: Mike McConnell (Fastest Male), Jo Brinkman (handicap trophy winner), Paige Brown (Fastest Lady)
Full results – see link below.
Well done to all runners! A huge thank-you is due to the race HQ volunteers and marshalls (+stove providers, setter-uppers etc) who made the event possible.
Resources:
2024 – Results – 30 ran
2023 – Results – 31 ran
2022 – Results – 23 ran
2021 – Results – 31 ran
2020 – not held (COVID-19)
2019 – Results – 22 ran
2018 – Results – 39 ran
2017 – Results – 21 ran
2016 – Results – 38 ran
2015 – Results – 39 ran