baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 9th October 2017Events:
New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome at all of these events. The full diary of club featured events is on the club website at: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml. *Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] 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 Facebook Page "BARunner" https://www.facebook.com/BARunnerUK/ October DigestsI'm on my travels this month so future digests may be late and/or abridged. Please send me content to include, it makes my job easier, and try to submit by the end of Sunday (I'm in Australia so my Monday evening will be your Monday morning). Inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk. Wednesday 11th October - Bedfont Explorer sessionThis Wednesday evening (11 Oct) there will be an opportunity to explore some routes in the Bedfont area. Maps will be provided on the evening. Please bring a pencil to make notes and reading glasses if required. Your feedback will be analysed {over a pint or two} and an alternative to the established "5-mile" course round Heston may evolve. Please meet in the Bedfont Football Club car park (opposite Duke of Wellington pub) in Hatton Road, changed and ready to run at 6 p.m. We may well move cars down towards Bedfont Green during the evening. This week it will still be daylight (just) but by the end of the month it will be getting dark by about 6 p.m. There is still a possibility that 100% subsidised changing/showering facilities will be available to us in Cranford on a week-to-week basis and negotiations continue. In that case we may continue to use the old Five Mile handicap circuit and the post run get together will be in the Queen's Head where a 15% discount is given on production of a current BA Clubs membership card. But be clear that on Wednesday 25th October there WILL BE a timed run of about five miles in the LHR area with a staggered start aiming for a 7 p.m. finish. There will be a shorter option for those who just want a brisk walk. We hope to be able to provide more detail by next week's digest. Steve Newell Cross Country Reminder for this SaturdayA quick reminder of the first matches of the winter cross country season on 14th October:
Hayes & Harlington Runners EventsI've sent the Hayes and Harlington Runners a list of some of our events and this is there reply to us. Please feel free to join them at their events.
Roderick Hoffman (roderick@rhoff.org.uk) WARR Results and PhotographsWARR EventWithout doubt this was a great World Airline Road Race. Yes, it was hot and humid. Yes, the beers in the headquarters hotel were silly prices. Yes, it would have been nicer to have had a larger BA team (total this year 15). But all in all it was a great WARR. There were just under 1,000 entrants from around 60 airlines. Most of the old (and older) faces were present along with a number of new runners. Dave O'Connor (Aer Lingus and 2015 host) and I (2010 host) thought we had the Team Captain's meeting wrapped up between us with our "33 WARR events attended" but we were trumped by Ghana Segaran (2017 host) with his "34". And amongst the team captains there were captains at their first WARR including from Norwegian and Air China. T Shirt PartyAs usual most airlines had brought with them specially designed team shirts
for the T Shirt party and competition and this year BA was no exception.
Roderick had produced a design for front and back and Clara had arranged for
these to be printed in Singapore to keep costs reasonable and avoid excess
baggage. We had decided that the Singapore climate justified ditching
tradition and going for a vest rather than a T-Shirt and the design worked well
on a light yellow shirt that would reflect the sun but be different from other
teams' cheaper looking white shirts. The design on the front featured the view
from the "Gardens by the Bay" of a very green Singapore and the race course
going past many of the familiar Singapore landmarks. The back listed all
of the WARR events held to date in a sweeping "S" for Singapore. It
certainly looked different from the offerings of other teams. Qantas
suggested that the evening's dress code "included sleeves" so our vest shouldn't
be allowed in - but that was only in jest. The results of the competition
were announced in reverse order - third:
Thanks to Shelly and Jacqui for modeling the shirt. RacesI don't think you could have had a better 5k circuit anywhere in Singapore - starting and finishing at "The Float" the route took us around Marina Bay including crossing the Double Helix bridge, running into the Gardens by the Bay, alongside the Marina Bay Sands Hotel (the funny triple monolith with ship on top) and past the Merlion fountain.
The 10k was first, starting in the dark at 06:00. We had one winner - Michelle (Shelly) Garrett on just her second outing in a club vest finished second lady in the 50 to 59 age category in a time of 52:59. The 5k started at 07:45 by which time the sun was definitely up. I had run in the 10k but was able to watch and take photographs during the 5k. The position I took on the crest of the Spiral Helix bridge was about 500 meters in and I thought that Adrian Haines had started well. There was a youngster sprinting up ahead but behind was Adrian in a pack with two others. The next part of the course was quite technical with a hairpin turn and then a flight of steps - though with a ramp built for the runners. In that section the only main change to the running order appears to be that the sprinting youngster discovered he had set off too fast and was overtaken by Adrian and the others. At 2k Adrian realised that a Cathy Pacific pilot he had been chatting to at the start was handling the course better, well, perhaps Adrian actually told me that he was dead on his feet at that point, anyway the young pilot draw ahead and Adrian did his best to hang on as they ran alongside the Marine Bay Shopping Centre and then past the hotels and Merlion statue. Adrian probably couldn't see that behind him his other opposition was slipping back because by the time he reached my next photography point he had a twenty meter lead on the third place runner and with the finish in sight a second place finish was well within his grasp and achieved in a time of 18:33. Adrian was disappointed with that time since he had beaten 17 minutes over the distance earlier in the week BUT that was a 5,000m track race in UK conditions and without a 12 hour flight and time change - so perhaps he is being hard on himself. Adrian's sister Jackeline (Jacqui) Musselwhite was also running in the 5k, in the non-airline ladies masters category, and came home third in a time of 25:16. I'd also seen Helen Smith at the 500 meters in point keeping place with our veteran American Airlines friend Lisa Stokdyk, in the same age category. Helen hadn't considered herself to be particularly fit for the event but perhaps by running alongside Lisa her confidence built up and although Lisa had pulled well ahead by the end, and another woman had overtaken Helen, she proved fit enough to finish third in the 60 to 69 year category with a time of 30:24. So our team of 15 had captured four awards, five including the T Shirt prize, which was not a bad return in the circumstances. The WeekendNow let us feel sorry for another of our long time WARR friends, Frank Jegers the KLM team captain. A week before WARR Frank had been sent on a duty mission to Rio. That didn't cancel his WARR plans because he figured that he could fly from Rio to Singapore via Dubai. However as we were attending the Team Captain's meeting on Friday, 20 hours before the races, we discovered from Facebook that Frank had failed to get on the Dubai flight and he was only just on his way from Rio, now heading back to Amsterdam. He did manage to join us in Singapore - but only for the awards evening! 24 hours later and he is on his flight home to Amsterdam.
Most of the team are pictured in this photograph from the awards evening. Left to right: Benita Scaife, Dave Rimmer, Charm Romphokaew-Rimmer, Gary Belcher, Piers Keenleyside, Roderick Hoffman, Tim Bellars, Helen Smith, Adrian Haines, Jacqui Musselwhite , Michelle (Shelly) Garratt and John Scaife. Not at the awards: Charlotte Habgood, Clara Halket and Jude Carter-Murphy. Incidentally Jude's appearance was a surprise to us - he is BA crew and he had had his roster changed on him meaning that he couldn't do his intended and entered half-marathon over the weekend. So instead, he looked to see what he could do in his 36 hour stopover in Singapore and spotted the WARR event and entered - joining us for the T Shirt party and the 10k race (and the dash to the parkrun). Hopefully he'll be able to join us again for some events somewhere in the world. More photographs: https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ao4wOv9pbDU1gpx-MGXRkZpG2qYCAA The full race results have not yet been published and will be listed in a future digest. Roderick Hoffman (Team Captain) October 5th Dream Mile resultsMatthew Stratful 06:17 Chris Kelly 06:29 Jeremy Short 06:58 Steve Taylor 07:44 Neil Frediani 08:18 On a sunny, 16c and dry day five of us turned up for the October 2017 Dream Mile. Times were slower than usual due to the strong wind coming towards us. Hopefully a few more will attend for the bonfire night(well almost) run in November, maybe someone can provide some fireworks with their running performances? Neil Frediani London Marathon OpportunitiesLondon Marathon 2018 - unsuccessful applicantsMany of you will be thinking of pounding the streets of London next Spring. Should your application have been unsuccessful, there might be a second chance...... The BA Athletics Club provides the London Marathon with over one hundred marshals. In return LM provide us with some additional places that we can allocate to our members. We will have a limited number of places to hand out this winter. The BA Athletics Club committee will review applications from people unsuccessful in the main ballot during December, and priority will consider the following criteria:
If you want to be considered for a place, think about which of those categories apply to you! Then contact me on stevehillier@msn.com. Anyone offered and accepting a club place will be expected to pay the normal entry fee for the Marathon, to provide a minimum of two marshals to the BAAC to assist with the 2018 London Marathon and to contribute to this digest with their aims and experiences of training and running the Marathon. The Big Half - Greenwich - 4th March 2018The London Marathon organisation have asked us to help with an additional event, and at the moment we're checking if there is any interest within the club. If you were help, it would obviously strengthen you chances of a future LM place (i.e. for 2019). Please could you let me know if you would like to marshal on March 4th. Thanks,
Club parkrun results for Saturday 7th October
International parkrun day, this year marking the 13th anniversary of the inaugural Bushy Park Time Trial attended by 13 runners back in 2004, was celebrated in UK by 111,351 5km finishers supported by thousands more volunteers. The number at Bushy Park which you needed to get close to have a chance of winning a bottle of beer (or soft drink) of your choice was 1465. Not surprisingly no-one guessed exactly right but there were four members who estimated to within 100. Potential winners are being asked separately to nominate their desired refreshment and the prize giving will be during the Quiz at the Five Bells Harmondsworth on Wednesday 8th November. We had four international contributions this week with Jude Carter-Murphy (23:38), Tim Bellars (25:13), Benita Scaife (35:05) and John Scaife (35:06) all running at East Coast Park in Singapore where they start at 7:30a.m. All had completed the WARR 10km with a 6a.m. start beforehand. More about that event above. Back home, somewhat curiously, we had no runners to represent us in the large crowd at Bushy Park itself but we had plenty of members at one of the other 468 parkruns operating this week in UK. Our fastest runners this week were Chris Kelly (20:43) at Reading, Paul Watt (20:46) at Rushmoor and Julie Barclay (21:28) also at Rushmoor. Three new female club course records were established by Leslie Chamberlin(27:02) at Bideford, Trish McCabe (28:01) at Royal Tunbridge Wells and Janet Smith (37:50) at Yeovil Montacute. Janet is one of our longest standing parkrunners (first run in 2006) with a barcode number comprising only four digits. She is running more regularly now than at possibly any time in the past decade. Ben Chaytow (21:59) enjoyed his best run at Crane Park for six months.
He volunteers as the run director there on a regular basis. Next week we will focus on the club featured parkrun at Nonsuch on 21st October. Steve Newell Tom's Diary
Next Digest?Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send it to the editor, Roderick Hoffman, at news@barunner.org.uk. Club website:
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Singapore;
second: Emirates; and first:…and at this point they started to raise the screen
that had been used for the evening's presentations. Behind the screen was
hung the winning shirt - so what colour and design would it be? The bottom
edge revealed itself and it looked like a white shirt…but a few inches later it
became obvious that it was our yellow shirt - clearly the local judges liked
what they had seen and awarded us the trophy - our first win of this since 2002.
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The
WARR races weren't the only runs we did over the weekend. Immediately
after the finish of the 10k four of our racers leapt into a taxi and made their
way to East Coast parkrun, arriving during the briefing, and managed to complete
a parkrun on parkrun's 13th birthday (see below). Not content with that
John and Beneta Scaife also went on on the Sunday morning to run in the
Singapore Airlines Charity Run 2017 5k.