baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 12th September 2016

Events:

• Wednesday 14th September - Brian's relay and social with food (see below) - Heston Venue from 18:00*
• Monday 19th September - Final Track & Field GP events; 100m and Hammer - Hillingdon track from 18:00*
• Saturday 24th September - World Airline Road Race 10k and 5k - Chicago*

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 (updated 22nd August).

*Club Event Map: [long Google-map hyperlink you would not copy]

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

Difficulty viewing this email?  Read it off the website instead - http://www.barunner.org.uk/News Latest.shtml. Running related gossip and chat: Facebook "BA Runner" (link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/636199849751546/).

Relay Fun Run - Wednesday 14th September Heston Venue from 18:00 followed by social with food!

This Wednesday there will be a fun relay event based around the Heston Venue sports field.  This annual event is a celebration for the birthday of Chairman Brian Forrester.  Joe Nolan hopes to lead the warm-up exercise and then there will be a pairs relay.  Teams will be decided on the day. The relay will include a few laps of the field so just a few km...but if you need to fit a longer run in then you can always carry on round the field or go for a lap of the Heston block.  Make sure that you are back before 20:00 because we have food ordered for the social.  This is an experiment to see what the food is like at the Heston Venue with the new organisation and processes.  We've ordered food for twenty meat eaters and five vegetarians and since I've heard that a few regulars will be absent this means that there will be plenty for some irregulars!  As usual we won't charge for food other than reserving the right to do so for non-members who haven't told us that they are coming.

So please tell me to probably expect you. But turn up even if you don't.

mailto: roderick.hoffman@ba.com

Round-the-Park Tuesday 6th September Harmondsworth Moor: Results

The Round the Block event has been running for well over 30 years, but this year could be the last ever running*. There were 12 runners on the start line to make their way around the course.

For the 3rd time in 4 years that the event has been held at Waterside, Dave Dixon easily took the title in his slowest time today (18:20). The battle for second was a lot closer with Matt Straftful (21:12) finishing 18 seconds ahead of Toby Houghton (21:30) in third. The ladies race was won by Alex Lyons in a time of 30:11.

Many thanks to Ian Cunningham for helping out with the start and finishing duties and to Roderick Hoffman for supplying water and some extra course signage.

Round The Block 2017??  Will there be another?*

Paul Knechtl - 7th September 2016

*A number of the Waterside team have uncertain futures but we shall see.

Athletics Club 2016 AGM Minutes

Take a moment to read the BAAC Annual General Meeting minutes for 2016.  These provide a review of our achievements over the past year.

Enjoy!

BAAC AGM2016 minutes.doc

Steve Hillier

Great North Run Club Results

Club parkrun results for Saturday 10th September

10th September	family & friends	time	parkrun	commentary	grade
Monica	Alonso	27:28	Reading	course pb	60%
Alan	Anderson	31:29	Gunnersbury	run #424	68%
Alice	Banks	26:21	Maidenhead	run #64	73%
Caroline	Cockram	42:24	Bedfont Lakes	run #240	38%
Ian	Cockram	28:01	Bedfont Lakes	run #360, 227th at Bedfont	52%
John	Coffey	26:38	Bushy Park	run #212, 191st at Bushy	70%
Ian	Cunningham	29:40	Bushy Park	run #256	51%
Scott	Davison	22:53	Bedfont Lakes	run #177	62%
Steve	Dodsworth		Sunderland	Volunteer (Token Scanning?)
Linda	Dodsworth		Sunderland	Volunteer (Finish Tokens?)
David	Duggan	28:31	Bedfont Lakes	run #164, 114th at Bedfont	54%
Denis	Foxley	24:43	Harrow	best parkrun this year	69%
Joan	Foxley	36:07	Harrow	run #43	59%
Neil	Frediani	27:04	Bedfont Lakes	99th run at Bedfont plus run report writer	59%
Alan	Friar	26:30	Woodley	run #210, 59th at Woodley	67%
Sarah	Gordon	40:02	Rushmere	park #69, club course rec(F)	47%
Roderick	Hoffman	27:48	Bexley	park #167, club course record	56%
Andrew	Jordan	22:33	Bushy Park	run #118, 107th at Bushy	65%
Kathryn	Keenleyside	38:00	Northala Fields	first time at Northala Fields	50%
Piers	Keenleyside	23:09	Northala Fields	run #142, 6th at Northala	69%
Chris	Kelly	22:58	Reading	run #302, 238th at Reading	65%
John	Lennon	27:58	Riverside	1st run at Riverside, Chester le Street	55%
Kerstin	Luksch	20:36	Gunnersbury	F-1, run #196	73%
Daniela	Mayerova	29:44	Wormwood Scrub	run #35, 4th at Wormwood	50%
Steve	Newell	32:46	Burgess Park	run #234, 3rd at Burgess Pk	55%
Joe	Nolan	30:15	Black Park	run #271	54%
Colin	Russell	23:02	Oak Hill	run #26, 25th at Oak Hill	59%
Benita	Scaife	29:34	Northala Fields	first time at Northala Fields	66%
John	Scaife	29:34	Northala Fields	first time at Northala Fields	55%
Sreeram	Sethuraman	27:06	Upton Court	run #90	49%
Janet	Smith	35:18	Peterborough	run #53, 4th at Peterborough	48%
Gareth	Snook	22:48	Penallta	1st run at Penallta - BA park #286	67%

It is the time of year when some people seem to produce their best times and there are probably several theories as to why that should be.

Denis Foxley (24:43) ran his best parkrun of the year at Harrow.  So fast that he lapped his wife Joan (36:07) and that hasn't happened before.

Monica Alonso (27:28) was at Reading and came away with a course pb and her fastest parkrun anywhere in 2016.

Gareth Snook (22:48) ran his first parkrun of the year at Panallta House Park, Caerphilly.  That's the 286th parkrun venue our members have visited at least once.

Roderick Hoffman (27:48) was at Bexley is southeast London which leaves only Bromley to run of all the parkruns inside the M25.  At the moment.  There seems to be a distinct probability that the London Borough of Lewisham will soon have a less demanding course on offer than the appropriately named Hilly Fields where Neil Frediani holds the club record with 27:14.  All credit to Neil - that time was set on New Years Day and was his second run of the morning.  This year's "Christmas Compendium" will probably be appearing  in the next few weeks.  With Christmas Day and New Years Day both falling on a Sunday it may prove possible to run five parkruns in nine days.

Steve Newell (steve-newell@blueyonder.co.uk)

Updated parkrun stats: www.barunner.org.uk/results/ba_parkrun_park_totals.xls

Steve Newell

Contrasts

• Both Monica and Gareth are in good training for this year's World Airline Road Race in two weekends time. Roderick and others are perhaps not in such good training for the same event.
• John Lennon was in the North East getting ready for the Great North Run - whereas the Dodsworths were already ready. 
• Daniela was, unusually for her, doing the same parkrun two weeks in a row, something Roderick has never done in 222 parkruns. Others, like Kerstin, have done almost all of their runs at the same park (192 of 196).

Roderick Hoffman

Vitruvian Triathlon - 10 September Result

First the weather report:

[from the Rutland parkrun news page]

For any of you who are interested to know what I've been doing with my retirement - and to counteract the image showing me asleep on a sun lounger that Bridget so kindly posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago - I thought you might be interested in hearing about my first Half Ironman that I completed on Saturday. For those less acquainted with triathlons the Half Ironman is 1900m swim, 85k bike and a 21k run to finish it off - or to finish you off to be more precise.

I have been training for this for a while and, just like training for a Marathon, I spent the last week tapering. Triathlons tend to start very early indeed so I went up the night before and spent a restless few hours in a Travelodge bed before rising at 4.15am in order to get to the start and then do all the preparations you need to do for a triathlon - race numbers, bikes racked, kit ready for transitions, wetsuit on etc. etc. Certainly makes turning up for a run seem very straight forward.

Dawn was at 6.29 and at 6.30 we were off. The first part is the swim and I was in the first wave - which was women and old men (55+). I had assumed that the fairer sex would be slightly less aggressive on an open water swim - but how wrong I was as I was kicked; strangled and almost drowned by the swarm of people around me. I thought my best option was to find a little space on the outside of the pack and let them get on with it - and I soon got into my swim stride. The swim is my weakest suit by a long way - so I was pleased when I emerged from the water relatively unscathed and was able to pull on my socks and shoes for the bike ride.

As you may remember Saturday was not the best of days with torrential rain and high winds - so not the best conditions for a 50 mile plus bike ride. The course consisted of two laps - so at least on the second lap you knew where the hills were! I was pleased to find that I started overtaking all the faster female swimmers who had tried to drown me earlier and generally it felt like I was making good ground. As with the running I seem to be relatively strong on the hills so felt I was more overtaking than overtaken. With a bike ride this long you do need to eat a lot and I had a lot of energy bars and shots available and made sure I ate them at regular intervals. After lap one my split time was better than I'd hoped so I just needed to keep it going on the second lap - and avoid punctures and the streams of water flowing down the roads - which I'm pleased to say that I did. Cycle over in 2hrs 42mins, average speed of 18.7mph it was back into transition to rack the bike and swap the cycling shoes for running shoes.

So now just had a half marathon to look forward to! The weather had not improved so there was as much chance of drowning during the run as there was during the swim.  The course covered the same ground as the Rutland Water park run which had been cancelled for the day due to the triathlon. They posted the picture of the course to show their regular runners it had been a good week to miss.

So starting the run no spring in the step, no thought of go out steady and pick the pace up later, just a case of head down and keep going. I had the usual wobbly leg feeling you get when coming off the bike but my first mile split was okay. The run was an out and back course which you did twice - so overall was equivalent to doing just over 4 x 5ks.  I finished the run in 1hr 44mins, which I was very happy with, equivalent to 4 5k runs each in 25mins.

The feeling at the finish was a bit like finishing your first marathon, exhaustion, the thought I am never doing that again, followed by elation.
I had some target times in my head, from an okay time of just under 6 hours, to "would be good", to "best possible". I beat all these and finished in 5hrs 18mins, so very happy indeed.  The race was the English Middle Distance Championships, and I was 10th in my age group.
So I write this report to show I have not gone soft since leaving BA, but have been training hard, and only very occasionally resting between training sessions which was when I was caught on camera, honest.

Richard Ruffell

The Rowley Report

Sunday 11th Sept Julie Barclay/Paul Watt went along to the Henley 10k trial event, not to race just as a nice relaxed undulating run before WARR.  The weather being perfect along the Henley tow path but then they went across fields Styles/ditches and back to the finish at Henley bridge.  Their times were not official but very good for a 10k XC event.  Self-timed Julie ran 44:45, Paul 48:02 over a minute faster than his best 10k on the road.  Their final run before WARR It was a very friendly atmosphere event with a B/B after plus I think what helped Julie decided on going there was a glass of Fizz/Bubbly at the end

Tom Rowley

Next Digest?

Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send it to us at news@barunner.org.uk.

Club website:

www.barunner.org.uk.