baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 6th April 2020

Events:

• Midweek Run - Track on Field @ your course, your time [see below]
• Weekend 11th April - Weekend Solo run [see below]
• Sunday 26th April - Virtual Relay Marathon [see below]

All face-to-face events are off for the time being, but the club continues to operate with Solo runs - these ARE still permitted but see the Coronavirus footnote at end (updated).

New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome at these events. The full diary of club featured events is on the club website at: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml. Last updated: 10th March/30th March but further cancellations expected.

* Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] (parkrun details updated 1st April 2020) / # Club Points event.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BARunnerUK/ (formal "front window" club page), BA Runner Facebook Group (informal "back office", ask to join).

Inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk.

Midweek SOLO Track on Field! (see footnote for Coronavirus restrictions)

April would normally mark the start of the Track & Field season but obviously that start has to be delayed for the time being. However, we should all be initiating our short-distance, speed-work training to ensure that we are ready for when it does launch. So, for that reason this week's "midweek" challenge is the shorter distances - 1,500m, 800m, 400m, 200m, and 100m runs. And notice the use of the word "and" in that sentence, not the word "or". In one exercise session see how many of these five events you can do, at speed and with the objective of better than halving your time from one to the next (so if you run an 8 minute 1,500m, try to do under 4 minutes for the 800m, well under 2 minutes for the 400m, perhaps 50s for the 200m, and 20s or less for the 100m).  You don't have to do all of the events, you can do those you do in any order and you can do them on any day up to next Sunday BUT all the ones recorded need to be done in the same exercise session (you can't do some one day, and the rest the next). This event is called "Track on Field" because it may be that your local parks and paths are too busy to contemplate doing short sprints hence you may have to find a quieter field for them. Obviously you will need a watch and unless you live by a quiet track stadium the watch will need to record GPS distances in meters - and perhaps it would help if you set the auto-lap distance to 100m. Treadmills are allowed, but you must be running or walking.

Send me the results, for instance by filling in this table and forwarding to mailto:News@barunner.org.uk?subject=Track_on_Field::

Name	Date	1500m time	800m time	400m time	200m time	100m time
Comment:

  Submit by the end of Sunday.

Roderick Hoffman

BAAC 2020 Virtual Relay Marathon – rearranged for Sunday 26th April ("London Marathon" Day)

We originally thought we would do this last Sunday but with such short notice insufficient people leapt forward. Not too surprising really. But it is a good idea and it is now rescheduled for April 26th, which most of you will realise would have been the day of the London Marathon. The actual format is still a little in the air because it will depend on how many of us put our names forward. But the principle is that we would alternately run distances that together complete the Marathon distance. We would do this as a team, and we'd use WhatsApp and other tools to know when to start each runners leg. The runners will be free to do their leg on any course and as the start of their regular exercise - so you would not be constrained by distance that day. Note that we had 33 Solo runners over last weekend and between them they covered 245km, nearly six marathons worth. So, we should certainly be able to muster a couple of teams.

I wonder if we can also have a marshalling team? A different person cheering on throughout the time we are running the marathon?

Let Joe Nolan know that you are in (or probably so) by emailing him at:

JoeN@barunner.org.uk

April Solo Mile Results - 1st to 3rd April 2020

The most runners we ever had for the Dream Mile on the Bath Road was 14, at the very first run on 5th September 2013, and equaled on 8th January 2015. Only twice since September 2016 did the event achieve double figures. The inaugural Parkland Mile attracted 7 runners.

The inaugural Solo Mile was attended by 20, yes Twenty runners. There were some close finishers - who knows what would have happened if they had been alongside each other (besides being arrested for contravening social distancing). For the fastest time of the event Paul edged it from Mike by just 4 seconds, further back Simon beat Bob by 2 seconds, Steve Hillier, imagining Joe panting behind him, beat Joe's time by 2 seconds. But the closest was Kelly using her reserve at the reservoir to finish one second ahead of a dashing Janet at Datchet. Perhaps when this is over we can have side-by-side reruns of these! 

The maps are roughly to the same scale and (very) roughly positioned relative to each other. Note that some courses used were multi-loops, others out and back and several straight miles.  Piers and Steve Taylor used largely the same course (it is used for a regular mile event in Ealing) but ran on different days.

Anticipate another Solo Mile in the week of May 7th.

Roderick Hoffman

Surrey League Season Results

These have been announced, outside of the delayed AGM. We had a winner - Mike Dennison, Div4 V60 1st. Barry Walters was 4th in the same category. Paul Knechtl was very narrowly edged out of 1st place in the V40 category.

Neil Frediani

SOLO activity achievement Weekend 4th/5th April 2020

Same again next weekend? Submit your best performance of the weekend by filling in the following form and sending it to me OR replying to the message on Facebook (or any other messaging format to me).

Roderick Hoffman {submit by 5pm on Monday}

Gunnersbury Park Development

Steve Newell has been watching developments at the venue of the Gunnersbury parkrun.

Numbers Quiz progress - We Did It!

The group of us working on Facebook managed to get all 30 of Linda's hideously difficult clues. For those not on Facebook I've filled the answers in a document here.

Linda is busy working on another quiz!

Coronavirus Warning Footnote

In the UK exercise outside is still permitted because it will boost physical and mental health. The relevant law in England states, "No person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse...a reasonable excuse includes the need...to take exercise either alone or with other members of their household". The word "need" is not defined, and you could be challenged on your interpretation. In line with government guidance; whose purpose is your health, the health of those around you and reducing demand on NHS and other services; we advise you as follows:

• Do not conduct a solo run if you are unwell, particularly if you have symptoms of the coronavirus such as a fever, or if you share a house with someone who has these symptoms,
• Do not conduct a solo run if you consider yourself to be, or others consider you to be, vulnerable, such as being elderly OR with pre-existing health conditions,
• Do not travel unnecessarily far to a location for a run - use a local or nearby park or leisure route. Your judgment is needed on this point, for instance it could be that your nearest park is busy with other people, but you live a short drive away from empty open countryside,
• Do not meet up with others to conduct a solo run,
• As you run keep 2m away from all others - by default diverting around them (don't leave it up to them to avoid you),
• Do not push yourself too far, this may weaken your defenses against the virus and/or increase the probability of requiring assistance. We all have different limits so you need to judge what would be too far for you. For club solo relays events we will not include distances of more than half marathon length (21km),
• If government instructions are updated to limit or prevent exercising outside your homes please respect such instructions - we should be fighting the virus, not authority.

If you are unwell yourself, potentially with the virus:

• Put your needs first...
• but please let me (Roderick Hoffman) or Steve Hillier know of your condition/status, BUT we will keep it to ourselves UNLESS you ask us to pass information on.

Next Digest - Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send them to the editor, Roderick Hoffman, at news@barunner.org.uk.

Not for you, no longer interested? remove me please.

Difficulty viewing this? Read it from the website:- http://www.barunner.org.uk/News Latest.shtml.Club website: www.barunner.org.uk.