baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 8th March 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 at least 29th March. Hopefully shared runs will restart then, including with the Winter Handicap run on Wednesday 31st March.

Expect news of the Rosenheim Track&Field league matches shortly. Matters are in hand but need to be confirmed with venues.

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 Mile (submit before Monday 15th March):

Run one mile, perhaps as a rehearsal for your leg of the Virtual London Marathon Relay, 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 over the last year.

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

Roderick Hoffman

Midweek Challenge - Street Suffixes - Results

The latest event in the Streets series has now been completed. Between the eleven of us we collected 49 different suffixes, plus "No Suffix". And that was only those that I permitted - several others had been claimed but rejected by the judge. Piers in particular got in a pickle claiming that "Barnes Pikle" in Ealing used a valid suffix. The judge didn't agree. All eleven of us found an Avenue, a Close, a Crescent, a Drive, a Gardens and a Road. No way could Sarah find a "Way" or "Waye", but the rest of us did. Two of us couldn't find a "Lane" and two of us a "Walk". There were 17 suffixes with only one example found in total. The only "Chase" we found between us was "The Chase" found by Melanie which had to count as a thoroughfare without a suffix. Commiserations to Jain Reid who had researched the suffixes around her and plotted 36 of them on a map...and then ran out of time to do her run. There is a lesson to be learnt there!

The results are shown in the table above and in these two graphs. It is obvious that being towards the bottom right of each of these graphs is a better result - more suffixes collected and shorter time or distance to gather each one. The dotted line shows the average of all of the results submitted.

In the "Time" competition the performances that have most exceeded the average performances are, in 1,2,3 sequence, Amanda's short run, Simon's run and then Pier's longest run. Amanda (long run), Melanie (3rd run) and the Scaife's run are quite close for fourth place.

In the "Distance" competition the 1, 2, 3 is the same but Steve Newell comes fourth from nowhere and Sarah Gordon edges Melanie for fifth place.

For all of these "Street" events I've excluded private roads and buildings. The reason for that is because with private properties naming conventions go out the window and someone could have an unfair advantage because, for instance, they lived next to an industrial estate with blocks named after people or alphabetical animals. In this "Suffix" challenge I have had to stand my ground on this. In two of the pictures below Melanie was "not a'mews'ed" (her pun) to not be able to include the one on the left whereas I was unable "to rain on Pier's Parade" (my joke) since these two are clearly council street signs (unlike the building sign behind which is more typical of "Parades" and the like). Have I been consistent and fair to all? Well, it has been difficult, particularly when Denis submitted "Dickson Fold" within his set. Is "Fold" a valid suffix? I'm sure there will be other examples in Lancashire.  But it certainly ticked the box for me, perhaps because this shortcut was the path I frequently trod when visiting my first girlfriend back in the 1970s.

Roderick Hoffman

Club Virtual Social & Quiz

Remember to put the date of Wednesday 24th March into your diaries for a BAAC Social Quiz starting from 8pm. Details nearer the time.

Ross Barkley February Results

Just three of us over the last month or so. Next month we may do something different - perhaps meeting in Bedfont Lakes to do a Ross Barkley together around the Bedfont Lakes course but as a Hare and Tortoise event with some participants doing a standard run instead. It could prove interesting...and chaotic.

BAAC 2021 Virtual Relay London Marathon (BAAC Team Manager Steve Newell)

• Tuesday - info pack / final instruction to all runners [may include rough start times for each runner or this could be worked out during the week],
• The team Whatsapp group will be set up by Saturday (hopefully before),
• Sunday 07:35 TM WhatsApp final briefing followed by team WhatsApp team briefing (or at least TM announcements in most of the team members sleep),
• Sunday 14 March – live running - 8am (first leg) start,
• Sunday evening - WhatsApp or Zoom party (tbc).

Remember we still need some additional team members (at least two) - please contact Joe now: 2021VirtualRelayLM@gmail.com .

Roderick obo Joe and Steve.

BA Athletics Club Records - The Marathon

The table below shows the club records held for each age group for the Marathon. To qualify as a record the event has to be competitive and timed and the runner has to be a paid-up member of the club and running in a club vest (or in an in-house organised event or, in the case of the Marathon, in a charity fundraising vest). 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). The men's records appear to have been well contested but the ladies less so. 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

* I looked up in the Round-the-Block edition for details of Amy's record - over eight minutes under the previous record set by Betty Green in New York in 1985. I struggled. But on page 85 of the July 2000 edition 56 I found that Amy's time had been listed, including that her first half was completed in 1:22:24 which is well under our ladies half marathon record, but it wasn't documented at the time that it was a record of merit.

** I then looked up the men's records. I don't have the Round-the-Block with May 1987's results but I did for April '89. Again, John William's impressive time was simply listed with no comment attached. Who is to blame for that? One has to start with the editor of the Round-the-Block...one John Williams. Modest man is he. You'd never get the editor of this digest passing on an opportunity to mention his own performance such as his best marathon in 1985 of just over 3:33 (clock time).

parkrun update

Those of you who get parkrun updates will have learnt that parkrun hopes to re-launch on the England mainland on Saturday 5th June (and also Junior parkruns for under 11s on 11th April ). The hope is to re-launch in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland at around that time but the different assemblies and regulations make announcements not yet possible. In truth "5th June" means "No earlier than...5th June" with the 5th June being the third Saturday after the government's roadmap "Stage Three" start. Individual parkruns will still be subject to getting local permissions and sufficient volunteers - and could be subject to additional social distancing protocols.

The four "UK" parkruns that have been held this year continue to stutter along - just one being held last weekend what with local lockdowns and storms in the South Atlantic. There was a brand new reason for one of the Australian parkruns to have a late cancellation last Saturday - a boat beached on the course! Well, what do you expect at "The Beaches parkrun"? 433 events were held last week, down on the previous week's recent record of 459 because New Zealand has had to go back to lockdown.

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 if reinstated do not cross the "Tier 3" boundary (in either direction).
• Current 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. The "Rule of Six" will be reinstated on 29th March so from then on informal groups of up to six (or two households) are allowed to meet outside and exercise together.
• 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 until 29th March.  From then 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.  Until everyone has had the opportunity to be protected by the vaccine all participants should continue to follow the social distancing rules. 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,
• If the tiers are reintroduced then 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.