baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 3rd May 2021

For future weeks: inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk.

For Coronavirus related restrictions and advice see News_Coronavirus_Guidance_April_2021.shtml [no changes].

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

This Week's and Future Solo Events

Please help me by sending in your results, for instance by filling in the tables below and forwarding to News@barunner.org.uk. Some events, such as the weekend achievement, will have "Prompts" set up in Facebook. These allow the posting of a single image and some text and make it easy to flip through everyone's entries.

Weekend Achievement (by 5pm on the Monday) or use the Facebook prompt that will be added on Friday:

In-Person Events - please register in advance. Please provide suggestions and offer to organise.

There are no club in-person events this week, but there will be a shared mile next week, in Bushy Park on Wednesday 12th May with a run start time of 12:30. There is also a NOW event proposed for the week. See the diary for details.

Please register your interest for these in-person events even if you are only a possible. Either by email or using the "Signup" option on the diary entry > Roderick Hoffman (register interest) .  Future In-Person events will be added to the diary as organisers put themselves forward.

Winter Five Mile Handicap Series Final #

The fourth and final run of the Covid interrupted winter five mile handicap series was held on Wednesday 28th April.  The weather was fairly horrible, cold (7 deg C) and wet with an easterly breeze encouraging noisy aircraft to take-off over Hatton Road.  The conditions encouraged everyone to achieve their target times with at least a minute to spare and new course records were set by Paul Watt (32:12) and Julie Barclay (35:18).  The two lap course introduced with some haste at the start of the series to avoid negotiating road works has proved popular but may be a few yards short.  With runners now passing the Bedfont Club halfway through it is possible to log times and judge how everyone is managing to maintain an economical steady pace.  Steve Hillier who set off as the tortoise may have been encouraged to speed up initially to avoid being reeled in over the opening furlongs by the inconsistent Roderick Hoffman.  Everyone else was remarkably close to achieving even splits. Chris Kelly was nearest to target on the night but the series winner was Amanda Coombs who had built up a commanding lead during the early rounds and didn't really need the single point awarded for a token one lap appearance (but was also there to take the photo!).

28th April results (in finishing order):

Points table after four runs:

Steve Newell

BAAC Cross Country Championships - Sunday 2nd May Crane Park - Results #

Our cross-country season started and finished on Sunday!  After many weeks of waiting for COVID infection rates to decline, we were able to stage our annual XC in Cranford Park.  Sadly, the whole season’s league matches had been cancelled, but 21 runners tackled the BAAC course before summer finally arrived.    After a month's dry weather, the paths were firm but rutted, and still challenging.

 Adrian Haines led the way, cruising around three laps of the “big field” and woods, being chased hard by Paul Watt and Angus Galton.  Meanwhile, Julie Barclay led a contingent of ladies around two laps.  She made sure to retain her trophy, before setting off again for a bonus third lap.

Thanks must go to a hard working group of marshals and supporters who kept the runners safe and cheered them on.  Tom Rowley provided us with an extra wide start line to ensure social distancing was achieved, while Kay Brandon, Steve Newell, John & Mark Taylor, Gary Rushmer and John Williams shared the marshalling and course setting duties.  Paul Brandon ensured accurate timings were kept, and took the photographs whilst the race was underway, and Roderick Hoffman managed the clock.  It was good to see so many friends and family members enjoying the sunshine, as they encouraged their loved ones to the line.

Steve Hillier

Adrian Haines was running in a long work gap - jogging over from the Engineering base, doing a warm-up lap, doing the race (including lapping me), then jogged back to the base to complete his shift. Jain had MAF run/walked from Chiswick, did the event and then MAF ran/walked back. The 21 finishers is more than the total from the equivalent event last year (10) and the year before (9). Julie, Paul and Graham have done the event for three years in a row. Julie and Graham were each about a minute faster than two years ago though Graham had run faster last year, Paul was nine minutes faster than two years ago and two and a half minutes faster than last year.

Roderick Hoffman

Speedbird Ladies Race Proposal

As a consequence of the Cross Country event having been successful we are seeing if we can organise our annual Speedbird Ladies Race on the same course and format for the evening of Wednesday 26th May. We need first to get permission from Hillingdon Council and Run Britain but in the meantime please put this date in your diaries - ladies to run, men to marshal. We are hoping to be permitted to have fifty runners so there will be space for ladies from local clubs and friends of friends.

Monthly Solo Challenge for May - Green Belt Relay! #

This month's solo challenge is to run distance runs on each of Saturday 15th May and Sunday 16th May. This is to be the equivalent of joining in the Green Belt Relay team event which would have been held that weekend. Chris Kelly is organising a semi-official non-official team to ensure that between us we "do" each of the relay stages at the correct time on each of the two days. If you are willing to do the longer runs then let Chris know and he'll incorporate you in the team and if there are enough of us we'll setup a WhatsApp group to share how the team is doing. But others only need to do a minimum of the shortest run on the Saturday (7.5miles) and the shortest run on the Sunday (6miles).  I'll also set up a Facebook prompt so that you can share in advance what you are planning - you may be able to do your "solo" runs together.

For added kudos you can do your "Stage" run starting at the time in the table above and relate it in some way to the location mentioned - even doing part of the official course - details of which can be viewed from this page on the Green Belt Relay site or click on the map above for route details, though note that some paths may turn out to be closed and there will be no specific GBR signage.

Roderick Hoffman

From Facebook

Harjit Jhooti spotted Jasvir Singh running the Wimbledon Common Half Marathon on Sunday. Jas finished in 2:34:11 with about 405 others, marshalled by wombles.

And I suppose on a similar theme, today I joined a small team from the Hillingdon Litter Pickers Facebook group and we collected 30 bags of litter and other rubbish from the M4/Parkway roundabout next to Cranford Park. The leader of the team lives locally and ran the Concorde Ten several times, so we had plenty to talk about.

Roderick Hoffman

Letters to the Editor

Some may remember Caroline Akazou who was running with us a few years ago. I met her last week - when I was half way round Simon's Orienteering event in Twyford. We just had time for me to apologies because I was doing a timed event and for her to remind me that she was "Caroline".  Fortunately Simon was able to add the "Akazou" and I've exchanged emails with Caroline since. She said that she is still employed by BA and currently doing a run 2021 challenge. "I thought 2021km in 1 year was probably a stretch, so I opted to do 1021km instead. Currently ahead of target as I have clocked 160/140/130 (approx.) for the first 3 months, and on track for 120-125km this month. I’m not doing any particular events, just getting out when the time and inclination hit me and to fit around the family. I do enjoy the digests and at some point hope to get back to doing slightly more sociable running when I am not being a taxi service to the kids!"

> To the Editor

Meet the Committee - Simon Turton

Reunion 5k #

London Marathon Events have been asked to organise the Reunion 5k as a mass participation running event as part of the government's Events Research Programme. This is to assist the return to safe operation of all mass participation events (so, for instance, including parkrun). The chosen venue is Kempton Park in Surrey and the date is Saturday 15th May with various start times. For details and entry please visit the website.

# Although this event clashes with the club's Green Belt Relay run we are happy to support participants hence will credit entrants in our round-the-block participation competition (provided someone tells us!).

BA Athletics Club Records - Steeple Chase

Hurdles again this week, and largely as an excuse to print again the picture of Caroline Yarnell. 

To qualify as a record the event has to be competitive and accurately measured and the participant has to be a paid-up member of the club and wearing a club vest (or in an in-house organised event). Members for whom BA is a second claim club may need permission from their first claim club for them to run in a BA vest and claim the record (so the same performance cannot be claimed by two different clubs).

If you know better please send us your claim - we want to get these in the best shape possible. New records or questions: Stats@barunner.org.uk . 

Roderick Hoffman

* Since leaving these shores for the country with the biggest jumpers, Caroline has continued to compete in the steeple chase event - the photograph shows her at the World Masters Championships in Perth in 2016 where she'd be a match for any kangaroo.

** Andrew Eynon's performance at Woking on 15 July 1998 was described as "lonely" in the Round-the-Block. Presumably that was because he was well out in front, rather than the only runner of the event. The team won both the men's and ladies competitions that evening. 

Blackwater Valley Path

Another watery run completed....

Following on from running the Basingstoke Canal in four chunks, we have now run the length of the Blackwater Valley Path in three legs of approximately 8 miles each spread over three consecutive Sunday mornings.

The river/trickle starts in the Rowhill nature reserve in Farnham and the path continues 23 miles to Swallowfield although the river does continue on.

Similar in many ways to the canal it has a variety of surfaces, an urban/rural route and stunning scenery. It starts in a small nature reserve and follows the river through Aldershot, North Camp, Frimley, Sandhurst (along part of the parkrun course) and then through the countryside along fields and past lakes to Swallowfield where we counted twelve hawks circling the field that we were in.

This run does undulate and can get very muddy in places but running in these current dry conditions is ideal.

The various sections are listed at: http://www.bvct.org.uk/blackwater-valley-path/.

If stuck for a run one day, try one or some of these sections,

Paul Watt & Julie Barclay

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

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