baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 3rd October 2022

Events marked "#" are points scoring for the club's participation trophy - for the 2022 title.

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

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

This Week's 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 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.

Weekly Athletic Achievement (by Sunday evening) or use the Facebook group prompt:

London Marathon 2022 Results and Reports

Let me know if I've missed you off this list of finishers - and also let me know if you started but didn't finish (you'll get a club point, but I won't publicise you as a DNF unless you want to say something about it).

A quick note on Chris Kelly's time - the reason he was so slow from 25k to the finish is that he spent that time marshalling all of the mass runners and spectators - it's difficult to run whilst holding a tape steady!

Steve Taylor: "Run of the year, the London Marathon. It's such a fantastic event, the weather was great, despite the earlier forecast of rain, the crowds were back to pre-Covid levels, the baggage trucks were back in operation and provided you weren't bothered about Lucozade in paper cups it was pretty amazing. The course is just so iconic too. Thanks to the BA marshals for doing their thing at the crossing points. I had a great run, I was hoping for 4:30 with the plan that I would aim for 10 minute miles and see how long I could hold on for. I wasn't really sure if I was up to it. I held on to the pace to about 20 miles and then slowed a bit but knew I had some time in the bank. In the end I finished in 4:28:58 despite stopping for the photo and to say hi to a few people on the way round. Dead chuffed with that."

Petra Otto: "Unlike last year, this Virtual London Marathon was a bit of a struggle because of my ongoing groin pains, and a left foot that always feels as if I fractured it as soon as there’s a workload put on it. Back on ibuprofen, sadly, but I almost feel back to normal again. Having not trained for this virtual marathon, other than the 3.1 miles at parkrun, I really shouldn’t be at all surprised about having taken so much time in completing it! Would I do it all again...? Yes, I really would, if there were another Virtual London Marathon next year. However, I very much doubt that, when the London Marathon is returning back to April again next year. "

There are also several short reports included in the achievements table below. I can include some longer reports from runners and marshals in next week's digest.

I've also included some runner photographs below - there are heaps of marshal photographs to look through on Facebook - if I get the time this week I'll select some for inclusion in next week's digest (i.e. processing the pictures whilst I'm still at home).

>Roderick Hoffman

Track-on-Field - September

Four of us did the Track-on-Field challenge over September but I don't think any of us came out of it well - except perhaps the wiser on understanding our current fitness. The results graph shows on the right average speeds each month since the start of last year and on the left the individual results for each event for the most recent two months which the four of us had run (so September 2022 vs April 2021). We have all got slower - though Chris only marginally. Michael has slowed so that he is now running at exactly the speed I was running 17 months ago! We are all a little older, but certainly in my case I think I should blame a lack of sprint training.

Roderick Hoffman

Fees - Bad News / Good News

Advance notice from our Treasurer that the England Athletic Registration Fees will go up by £1 from next April, to £17. The email from England Athletics discussing this 6.25% increase includes the text; "As the national governing body responsible for supporting the growth and development of grassroots athletics and running in England, we are also experiencing rising venue, event delivery and travel costs. In addition, our insurance cost, a critical element of our support to clubs has increased by 20%".

But a reminder of some good news - at the AGM we debated the BAAC annual fee of £9, unchanged for donkey's years, but we decided that there was no need to increase it. Therefore the fee for membership of the club from next April remains at £9, or increases to £26 if you want to include England Athletics Affiliation (or national equivalents). 

Roderick Hoffman obo Chris Kelly

Recent Activity Achievements

Only 14 club members and friends achievements listed below, but obviously several others ran the London Marathon and even more marshalled as their main activity over the weekend.

Roderick Hoffman

parkrun Results for Saturday 1st October 2022 (and a couple from Monday 3rd October)

36 activities are recorded this week. Please get in touch if your activity is missing.

parkrun Review Saturday 3rd October 2022

Welcome to another guest publication of the weekly parkrun report. Captain Pugwash-Newell is somewhere in British waters and I was expecting to read of a high-seas hijacking as the cruise-liner sailed towards the Isle of Man on Saturday morning with Nobles parkrun calling his name from not too far away. He once booked a cruise that stopped at Jersey on a Saturday morning only to find that the parkrun was cancelled due to the annual flower show: all that planning gone to waste and I suggest that next time he stays on a plastic swan on Gunnersbury boating lake from where the start line is more easily accessible.

There were fewer Club ambassadors around the country this Saturday with members choosing to visit local flower shows or to start Christmas shopping early; maybe a couple had the London Marathon to consider.
Those running the marathon obviously took care on Saturday with some running much slower than usual, some walked, some volunteered and others just decided against it.

No new events were added to the list on Saturday and there was very little touring. David Duggan appeared in Germany and closer to home, Paul and Julie visited Mile End in an effort to progress their Londone target. Trish McCabe gave London a rest by visiting Ifield Mill Pond to complete the ‘Old Macdonald’ challenge. A congratulatory mention also goes to Ben Kelly who can now order his red 50 shirt.

This week parkwalk was launched as parkrun seemed a tad daunting for some. The easier sounding name of the same event, it is hoped, will attract more people to join the Saturday morning regulars and to participate in social interaction and community togetherness whilst enjoying fresh weekend air. Paul Sinton-Hewitt was a new-role volunteer today at Bushy Park by being the ‘parkwalker’. I don’t know how many walk at Bushy usually but 50 recorded times of 50+ minutes which shows that it could be a huge success.

A new initiative, with a new pink parkwalk shirt available to purchase, on what is parkrun’s 18th birthday weekend. The first event involving 13 parkrunners at Bushy Park was on 02Oct 2004 which has now hosted 895 events. During this time, it has been joined by 767 other events - some have also ceased - and 2.676 million parkrunners in the UK plus many more in twenty other countries. There surely has never been or possibly never will be a sporting enterprise that has reached so many by improving health and happiness through exercise as parkrun. Happy birthday and long may you continue.

You have read over the past few weeks of various badges such as the Wilson Index, Fibonacci and the P-index and there are others. This week I can highlight another as last Saturday was the 40th parkrun day this year meaning that anybody who has not missed a day so far, has become a Silver Obsessive. There are three ‘obsessive levels: bronze level is 30 runs in a calendar year, silver is 40 runs and gold level is for 50 runs in a year.

Quite a few of us have achieved Bronze status and eleven of us have reached silver which shows a true love of and desire to parkrun. However, we have seven members who in previous years have reached the golden plateau; namely Chris Kelly, Alan Anderson, Ian Cunningham, Roderick Hoffman, Trish McCabe, Mike Dennison and David Duggan who ran an impressive 58 in 2019. A very impressive total is that of Jakob Stenham who has already amassed 45 this year and is presumably chasing his annual record of 62 set in 2019. Being in the JW11-14 category he of course includes junior parkruns but nevertheless, he has still run them. If there were to be a club award for most in the year, I would leave it to the committee to decide between David and Jakob. At present, only David Duggan, Julie Barclay and myself have managed the maximum 40 runs this year making Julie and me 'Silvers' for the first time. We do miss one week as we are off to WARR but will manage a parkrun in Seattle on the way home. Of course, foreign runs also count and David Duggan, having run in Germany, will undoubtedly be running again on Monday on Germany Unity Day.

Well done to everybody who ran, jogged, walked or volunteered this week.

Paul Watt

Matters Arising - Captain Newell

Steve reports that he "didn't just miss the Nobles parkrun by a few minutes, the ship missed the Isle of Man altogether. Gale warnings scared our captain away and we arrived in Cobh, near Cork, instead and not until lunchtime. Very calm here. The last port of call by RMS Titanic and still cashing in on that!"

Matters Arising - Bronze, Silver status

David Duggan does indeed increase his count for the year to 41 with his additional German Unification Day parkrun - which was also a new parkrun for the club, number 680 so we'll soon be chasing number 700. The next club member to hit 'Silver' after David, Paul and Julie could be Murray Hogge, currently on 39 or Make Dennison or Barry Walters currently on 38. By doing all of the special day parkruns it should be possible to total 60 5k parkruns in a year - but like mithril this might only be theoretical.

Another game played by parkrunners (both tourists and non-tourists) is annual bingo, using the seconds in the official parkrun results. To give you the idea the picture is my bingo card for this year. The objective is to get a complete row or column. The shading shows how many times I've hit that number of seconds, though for bingo extra hits count for nothing. So I'm not doing well, needing at least three times to secure a row (e.g. '0', '30' and '50' seconds) or five to achieve a column (the 20s and 50s). Later on this week I may add a tab to the database to enable you to see your card, and anyone else's, for any year the data is loaded for.

Roderick Hoffman

Full club parkrun database - {read access to club parkrun database} - Download and explore.

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

> Roderick Hoffman

Letters to the Editor

I've also heard from David Barnard this week who spotted an article in the Guardian that could interest several of our members - "The science of running marathons as an older person https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/30/science-of-running-marathons-older-person ".

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.

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