baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 8th February 2021

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

Unrestricted races are currently off so the club continues to operate with Solo and Shared runs as listed above - for restrictions and advice see the Coronavirus footnote at the end of this digest.  Due to the Tier 4 lockdown all shared runs are off the agenda until March or April.

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

Roderick Hoffman

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, 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.

Solo / Shared Mile (submit before Monday 15th February):

Run one mile and send me your time or add the details to the Facebook prompt. I'll then produce a fancy graph showing your time this month compared to those of other people and previous runs this year. 

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

Roderick Hoffman

Club Committee Meeting Outcome

The club committee met last week. It should be obvious from the photo below that this meeting ran smoothly - nothing like the Handforth Parish Council meeting as featured in news reports recently. There was no swearing, no one was booted out, no one challenged anyone's authority and we completed all of the business within the hour and continued for a while with general friendly chit-chat.

We remain hopeful that we will be able to organise some in-person running events from sometime in March. However, until an announcement is made that would permit these, there is no point us starting to organise anything including suggesting dates. We will also need to recognise that, even when permitted, there will still be Covid-19 restrictions in play and many members (or those they live with) will not yet be protected by the vaccine. We did agree to look at organising the following virtual events:

• As well as Joe's Virtual London Marathon Relay, Stephen Taylor offered to organise another virtual simultaneous 5k race.
• Steve Hillier announced that Linda and he would be happy to organise another Zoom Quiz similar to the one we had just before Christmas.

Every year we present awards to the club members with the greatest achievements. Whilst the last twelve months have been very unusual it will still be appropriate to present some awards this year but we will look to delay any presentation until we can be hopeful of getting together in a social setting - perhaps in a July AGM.

There will be a couple of new item themes in the Digest in future weeks -

• Firstly, the committee members will take it in turns to introduce themselves (we last did this in 2016 so an update is due!).
• Secondly we'll start visiting the club performance records both to celebrate what has been achieved in the past but also to create an opportunity to be notified of new records to be recorded. Expect this to start with the 100m records next week.

Roderick Hoffman

Last Month's Ross Barkley Results

Four of us managed the Ross Barkley run over the last month. Steve Hillier gets the better improvement on his standard 5k time.

Roderick Hoffman

BAAC 2021 Virtual Relay London Marathon – 14th March – live running, start 8am

Remember to let Joe know that you can run a leg of this - 2021VirtualRelayLM@gmail.com. Also pass on the details from last week's digest to others that you know.

Remembering the WARR 10k in Hyde Park in 1985

When BAAC hosted the World Airline Road Race in 1985 we were able to hold the races in Hyde Park. The club was bigger in those days and the interest from BA was larger also. As well as providing the host committee and (almost*) sufficient race marshals there were also over 90 BA finishers listed in the 10k results. I've included in this subset some of those who we have heard from in the last year. I've also included times for those who also ran the London WARR 10k race 25 years later in 2010 around Victoria Dock.  Note that others amongst us were involved in marshalling or other duties for the 1985 event (and/or the 2010 event).

 * Those who know Hyde Park will know that there are many alternative paths. There have always been rumours that the full 10k course was not enforced that day but, speaking as one of those who set their all-time 10k PB on that occasion, those rumours have never been proved.

A fuller list of the BA results is provided on my website page: World Airline Road Race 1985 London Memorabilia (rhoff.org.uk) .

Roderick Hoffman - with some information provided from a BAAC Round-the-Block newsletter article from 1995 written by John Williams.

Please note that the official WARR website has changed its URL from ".org" to http://worldairlineroadrace.com/ . Please update any stored links. There is currently no news about a 2021 event.

SOLO Activity Achievements, Weekend 5th to 8th February 2021

27 members and friends reported activities for this week and, despite the wet, cold and snow, in distance covered by runs and walks this week was our third highest week since March with a total of 303km covered...but there is a reason for that, see below.  Please try to make future submissions by Monday 5pm, or 6pm at the latest, either by email to me or using the "Prompt" in Facebook, and I'll try to include them all.

The distance and duration for Clara's run isn't a misprint. She actually set out to do a 24hour run and planned to do this going via her house several times but after 19hours decided that she'd done enough. During the first lockdown I discouraged long activities but not since the first lockdown ended - Clara knows her limits and how to keep herself safe.

Roderick Hoffman

Local Quiz Questions

I've been reading past issues of "Round-the-Block" (the Athletics Club newsletter that was circulated in the years before 2011 before I introduced the electronic digest). I've noted the following facts from the editions I've read so far which I'll pose as quiz questions:

• 1: Shortly after six o'clock, as we ran down the Great West Road on our evening runs, we'd look out for, and listen out for, Concorde coming into land from the other direction. It was from New York, but what was its flight number?
• 2: The M4 was built across the area in the 1960s, in part to take traffic off from the Great West Road. In which decade was the Great West Road built?
• 3: Over one hundred years earlier - in which decade was the Grand Junction Canal opened?
• 4: In what year was the first 20mph zone introduced in Hounslow - covering the Heston area?
• 5: What was the original name for Heston? Clue - "Heston" is a shortened form.
• 6: What was the population of Cranford in 1931?
• 7: In which year did British Airways (as it was then) adopt Heston Aerodrome as its main London Terminus?
• 8: And, over at Wraysbury rather than Heston, in which year did we first report seeing "Green Parrots" in the trees?

Answers next week (but only if I get enough correspondence to encourage me to print the answers). You are allowed to Google for your answers, but I'll take the "Round-the-Block" answer as definitive!

Roderick Hoffman

BA Clubs Payment Holiday

The following may be of interest to those of you who are members of BA Clubs.

Roderick Hoffman

Coronavirus Warning Footnote [changes from last week underlined or struck-through] (no changes)

In the UK exercise outside is permitted because it will boost physical and mental health and because the risk of catching Coronavirus outdoors is very low provided social distancing advice is kept to.

• Do not exercise outside the house if you have been asked to isolate or you are unwell, particularly if you have symptoms of the coronavirus such as a fever, or if you share a house with someone who has these symptoms, or if you consider yourself to be vulnerable, such as being elderly or with pre-existing health conditions,
• You may drive to outdoor publicly accessible open spaces but you are advised to stay 'local' (defined as "in the village, town, or part of the city where you live."), you are also advised to minimise the amount of time spent outside your home and you should follow social distancing guidance whilst you are out. Further advice is to reduce public transport and shared car journeys and do not cross the "Tier 3" boundary (in either direction).
• Tier 4 rules only allow you to exercise on your own, with people in your linked household (bubble), as part of child-care or with one other person. You are advised to exercise just once per day and to minimise the variety of people you meet over the weeks of lockdown. Exercising your pet is allowed in addition, but only on your own.
• As you exercise, keep 2m away from all others including those you run with as well as those you meet on the run, by default diverting around those you meet (don't leave it up to them to avoid you),
• Do not push yourself too far, this may weaken your defences against the virus and/or increase the probability of requiring assistance. We all have different limits so you need to judge what would be too far for you,
• If government instructions are updated to limit or prevent exercising outside your homes, or to meet with fewer people, please respect such instructions - we should be fighting the virus, not authority.

If you are unwell yourself, especially if you have symptoms of the virus:

• Put your needs first...
• but please let me (Roderick Hoffman) or Steve Hillier know of your condition/status, but we will keep it to ourselves unless you ask us to pass information on.

Shared club activities are not permitted in Tier 4.  For when the situation changes any club member may be permitted to organise a shared activity. We recommend the social distancing gap of 2metres although "1meter+" can be followed during the activity itself.  To legitimize a run with more than six participants:

• The chairman (Roderick) or the secretary (Steve Hillier) must be notified in advance that the event is taking place,
• One of the participants must be a paid-up member of the BA Athletics Club and must be prepared to perform the duties of a "Covid-19 Coordinator", if more than six attend we recommend that that member wears a BAAC top or distinctive clothing,
• Participants, and the activity, should not cross the "Tier 3" boundary or the "Tier 4" boundary (in either directions).
• A risk assessment has to be raised based on this template,
• The considerations within the risk assessment must be followed,
• After the activity perform a review of the risk assessment and log and pass on any issues or lessons learned.

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.

Difficulty viewing this? Read it from the website:- http://www.barunner.org.uk/News Latest.shtml. Club website: www.barunner.org.uk.