baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 18th July 2016

Events:

• Thursday 21st July BA Fun Run marshalling (or running 5k/10k for charity) from 16:00 onwards*
• Wednesday 29th July Monopoly event at Heston Venue from 18:00 (see below)*
• Sunday 31st July Ride London Marshalling - Whitehall (see below).

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 early June).

*Club Event Map: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.9078636,-3.6252807,7z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1sz31P-sSECWno.kIIgdFzUuZAo?hl=en

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/).

Monopoly Event Wednesday 27th July

We will be repeating last Summer's Monopoly competition on Weds 27th, at 1800.  This "Club In House Event" at the Concorde Centre is open to everyone.  All ages, from one year olds to ninety-one year olds, are welcome.  It's a tortoise and hare team event.  It will involve up to 40 minutes of running or strolling, travelling from Old Kent Road to Mayfair (within the vicinity of the Heston Venue), collecting houses and hotels.

Teams will be brought together on the day to ensure a fun competition. 

If you would like to marshal instead, you would be most welcome.

See you there - bring family and friends,

Steve Hillier (SteveHillier@msn.com)

The Club's Next Birthday...

The British Airways Athletics Club was founded back in 1981 at the start of the "Marathon Running Boom". Thirty Five years on and the club is still going strong.  It is true that the average age of our club members has gone up and our average running distance has perhaps come down...but not by much thanks to our Ultra Running colleagues.  But as in those early days we still compete at Marathons, 10ks, Cross Countries, Track&Field Meets, the World Airline Road Race and these days we also partake in parkruns also.

We are considering having a formal event to celebrate our 35th year, perhaps in November, please contact the editor or any club committee with your thoughts or ideas on this.  We'll also be interested in an attractive venue - ideas please.

Roderick Hoffman (roderick.hoffman@ba.com)

Results of the 4th Vets league match at Perivale Wednesday 13th July 2016

Steve Hillier MV60:-

• 200m – 36.2
• Hammer – 22.1m

Eddie Giles MV65:-

• 200m-  33.5
• Javelin – 16.96m

Just 2 of us for the last Vets match this season.

Thanks for all the people that supported us, and hopefully see you next season.

Eddie Giles.

Dream Mile Results - 7th July

It was a reasonable day for a run, but not ideal for running a mile! There was a slight head wind and the very muggy conditions didn’t lead to any Personal Bests. Numbers were also a bit lower than normal as we approach the main holiday season, but it was fantastic to see 2 new people joining us for the mile. Not only this they were very evenly matched and were only separated by 1 second at the finish. Gerald McGrath showed a clean pair of heels to opened his account with 6:45, while Simon Cowell recorded 6:46. Matt Foden also made a comeback to record his first time in 2016. Colin Russell was gutted to missed the event and is now hard in training to break the 6 minute barrier next month…

Paul Knechtl

Ride London, Sunday 31st July

Thank you to everyone who helped with the first three London Marathon marshalling events this summer.  These events are great fun, and bring in valuable funds to help resource our club, as well us providing us with guaranteed entries.  We have one more event this summer.

This year's Ride London event will take place on the last weekend in July, and I would like to request your help.

In the past we have provided marshalling teams on both Saturday and Sunday, but this year we are going to concentrate simply on the main race on the Sunday.   We will man a "Disley shuttle" in Whitehall, similar to a London Marathon crossing, but with the competitors coming past us much faster!  Our team operation was successful last year, and it would be great to repeat it in 2016.

Thank you to those who have already put your names forward, but to make this work we need around twenty commitments before the day.  If you would enjoy a day in London watching a high class cycling event at close hand, please drop me a line.

Thank you,

Steve Hillier (SteveHillier@msn.com)

Club parkrun results for Saturday 16th July 2016

Steve is still away so this week's table is again limited to BA first claim club results.

Ray Hampton visited England's Easterly most parkrun at Penrose in Cornwall.  Most of Ray's runs have been at Woodbank in Manchester but he has also run at Cheadle Hulme (as has Ben Chaytow). Sadly Cheadle Hulme parkrun has become the English second parkun this year to be indefinitely cancelled - this time due to "a number of issues" and discussions are being held with the landowners.  But it would be unwise to think this indicates an end to the growth of parkrun - 50 UK events have been added over the previous twelve months so the loss of two is trivial in comparison. And for the first time worldwide there are now as many parkrun events outside the UK than in the UK (about 390 of each, plus about twenty cancellations to in each group each week).  We are doing our best to keep up - with Ray at Penrose, Alice at Bradford and my runs at Stevenage and Market Harborough with Sarah last week we've added four to our total of parkruns run taking us up to about 272, but Steve will need to confirm that when he updates the official stats.

Congratulations to Joe Nolan who at yesterday's Black Park parkrun 7th anniversary was presented with an award (wine & chocolates !) for organising the monthly pacing and developing a finish token sorting tray that makes the process easier and quicker.

Last week Natalie Ruffell did a great time at Amager Strandpark (19:47 - her parkrun PB) in Copenhagen, knocking over five minutes off my club best time for that parkrun and country.  But that got me thinking about which club members have the fastest time in each parkrun country:

So, of the twelve countries that parkrun is currently established in, we've had runners in eleven and the fastest performances in each country are held by nine different club members - only Dave Dixon and I hold a brace of records, Dave because he is well fast and me because I am well spread. Let me know of any errors or omissions - I've done this manually and attempted to consider all performances by runners who were at that time BA first or second claim runners. In the club map the parkruns done are shown in red (and often hide behind not-done green parkruns! "You can't see the wood-done for the trees").

Also last week a club friend Caroline Yarnell ran at Southport parkrun (23:51) during her tour of the UK from her now home of Sydney.

Roderick (roderick.hoffman@ba.com)

Coaching Corner ! - Ten Tips to Prevent Running Injuries (part 1 - tips 1 to 4)

1. Improve and maintain your flexibility

• Daily stretching is essential to improve and maintain flexibility, which in turn will help improve performance and prevent injuries.
• Stretching should be done after you warm up your muscles – usually about 10 minutes of warm up should be enough.
• Stretching should never be done in a hurry and should include all joints and extremities. Each stretch should be held in place for 30 seconds without bouncing.
• It is helpful to include sports specific dynamic exercises like high knee drills, skipping, bounding, arm circles, and cross body arm swings.

2. Include strength training in your running program

• Strength training improves a runner’s body strength and overall athleticism. This in turn reduces muscular fatigue that leads to poor performance and injuries. Runners will benefit from a program of 2-3 strength training sessions per week.
• Strength training exercises should focus on all muscle groups including the trunk and upper and lower body.
• Weight lifting, plyometrics and hill running are all effective methods of increasing strength.
• Focus on improving strength in the offseason and pre-season and maintaining while in season.

3. Stay hydrated* and eat a well balanced diet

• Avoid heat exhaustion and dehydration by pre-hydrating two hours prior to practice or competition with 16-20 ounces of fluids and another 8-10 ounces after warm-up.
• Take in 6-8 ounces of fluids every 15-20 minutes of exercise.
• Within two hours after exercise, re-hydrate with a pint (20-24 ounces) of fluid for every pound of weight lost during exercise.
• The best fluids to take before, during, and after exercise are a cooled 4-8% carbohydrate solution.

4. Warm up and cool down before and after all runs and races

• Before practices and competitions it is important to warm up. The faster the workout or race, the longer the warm up needed. A warm up of 5-10 minutes helps to flush out lactic acid build-up in muscles and prevents delayed muscle soreness.

Joe Nolan

* Ed: Need to re-hydrate some more? Don't forget Richard's leaving drink on Monday evening - details in last week's digest.

The Rowley Report - Olympic Performance

I ventured to the Olympic Stadium with Paul Watt/Julie Barclay on Sunday 17th as Paul was attempting his longest running event in the Great London 10k.  Not being an actual race suited the purpose of choosing this event with the added experienced of running the final 300m on the Olympic track.

The weather very humid so caution was priority.  A well organised event that is 1 lap around the very hilly twisting area outside the stadium.     And with the mass entry they have three start waves of roughly 1500 in each plus mass family/children’s run after.

The Concorde 5mile was Paul's longest run before, in 41.16, Julie and Paul's plan, having been practicing when running the parkrun 5ks,
was very equal careful 5min. splits up 9k, if successful up to then try and see what is left in the tank.

Julie watching the clock and steadying things if up/down.  All went perfect every k being spot on up to the 9k.  Julie took off and was leading by 20/30m but Paul on the same training schedule thought “I should be able to stay with her” and made a wonderful effort to draw level and entering the stadium together gave me a wave and watching the final 300m was fun - neither would not surrender to each other, both enjoying the challenge and atmosphere and the gentlemen organisers' “Ladies First” upbringing half worked?? - they gave Julie as 996th and Paul 997th
BUT given the same time of 49.22.  Paul/Julie planned to try for 50.00 mins. so SUCCESS.

A very nice bit of HI-TECH was as EVERY runner came into stadium from under from the stands their name/club appeared on the giant screen
for 10/20 secs. just a nice novelty.

Tom Rowley

A ***** recommended event.

Next Digest?

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

Club website:

www.barunner.org.uk.