baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 9th May 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.

Wish all of us good luck in our running of the Green Belt Relay this coming weekend. We've managed in previous years without any of the actual team getting married on the way round but it has been close.

Note that on Wednesday 25th May we intend to have a 5km handicap race from the Bedfont Club - further details to be announced.

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.

I have removed the Speedbird Ladies event from this week's listing without putting it in for another date. We still hope to run a Speedbird Ladies race this year, but currently don't know when or where.

Monthly Mile (submit before Monday 23th May):

Run one mile and send me your time or add the details to the Facebook prompt. The mile can somebody else's formal event or even one mile within a longer run. 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.

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

"April" Track-on-Field results

Last week three of us met up at the Feltham Track and ran the Track-on-Field event together - in the sequence 1500m, 800m, 400m, 200m and 100m with ample recovery between each. Note that Steve Taylor didn't push himself on the 100m due to his forthcoming distance events. The graph that follows shows the impact of running this event together.  It shows that over the 1500m and 800m there probably wasn't much difference between running together or on our own. But over the shorter distances the competitive shoulder-to-shoulder sprinting clearly made a difference with my times being 5% faster for the 200m and 100m and Steve Hillier having a massive 20% (nearly 3 second) improvement on his average 100m time.

Now that Track and Field matches have resumed I don't expect to have Track-on-Field results submitted to me - but I'll be happy to publish monthly any that I am sent and we may organise another joint run later in the year.

Roderick Hoffman

Track and Field – May 2022

We are now only a week away from the start of this Summer’s T&F matches.  The first week is a busy week, with Veteran’s League and Rosenheim League matches just two days apart.  These are friendly competitions for runners, jumpers and throwers of all standards and all ages.  Participation is free (paid for by BAAC, but you do need to have paid your membership and to have a club vest). The events being undertaken at each match are listed below. Please do all that you can to attend.

• Mon 16th May:  Veteran’s League, Battersea
• Wed 18th May:  Rosenheim League, Kingston

It would be extremely helpful if you can let me know during the next few days if you plan to compete, so that I can complete our team declaration.

> Steve Hillier

Veterans League Match One at Battersea Monday 16th May, hosted by Serpentine

The Battersea Park Millennium Arena is at the eastern end of the park (SW11 4JP).  There is plenty of free parking.  Nearby buses run to Sloane Square tube station.  Battersea Park and Queenstown Road railway stations are close by.

Rosenheim League at Kingston on Wednesday 18th May

Kingsmeadow Athletics Centre (KT1 3PB) is a mile from Kingston.  Norbiton station is a fifteen minute walk from the track.

Ride London 29th May

After a COVID break, Ride London has returned.  The routing is new, but the race still has a central London finish.

British Airways AC has staffed a pedestrian crossing close to the finish in every year since the race started, in 2013.  This year, instead of looking after a location in Whitehall or Parliament Square, we will have a prime spot next to the Tower of London, as the riders pass heading for the finish on Tower Bridge.

London Marathon will provide us with lunch packs and, if it helps, coach transport from the Heathrow area.
We have some volunteers, but we are still need more people to make the crossing viable.  If you can help, please could you drop me an email so that we can register our team in good time.

Thank you!

Steve Hillier

London Marathon Places 2022 - Reminder

Some of you will be receiving good news of a confirmed Marathon place, while others have received the dreaded rejection.  BAAC have two places to allocate in 2022.  We expect to have some more in 2023.

If your application has been rejected this year, please contact me if you would like to be considered for a place.  The committee will then review all applications and will take into account your marshalling record and club membership. As previously, successful applicants will be expected to provide marshals for the event and write a report for this digest.

Steve Hillier

WARR Update

Again I've been too busy to send out a WARR update to those who I know are going or considering going. I will get around to it, I promise, before October.

Let me know if you intend to go to WARR in Hawaii (or if you are considering doing so) but haven't yet booked.

 > Roderick Hoffman

Recent Activity Achievements

I picked up on 16 club members and friends reporting recent activity achievements.

Roderick Hoffman

parkrun Results for Saturday 7th May 2022

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

Trish McCabe (30:15) visited the challenging undulating Grovelands parkrun (Enfield) for the first time.  It is situated in the Winchmoor Hill area and is walkable from Southgate station on the Piccadilly Line. Trish has now done 44 of the 59 parkruns within the London Boroughs.  Hillingdon remains the only outer London borough not to host a parkrun but that may change later this summer.  So, the 59 will grow to at least 60.  Currently 85 parkrunners have appeared in the results at all 59 at least once. The most recent additional venue was Southall which has now been going for 18 weeks [Ed: Interestingly, for a statistician anyway, there had been 80 parkrunners "Londone" before Southall started. Of those 58 have now run Southall, but this means that 22 haven't (in 18 weeks) yet many others have become "Londone" in the same time (including myself as it happens)].  There are also 13 parkruns in the ring between the outer border of London but within the M25 with notably Brooklands, Hazelwood (Sunbury), Nonsuch, Rickmansworth and Cassiobury (Watford) attracting our members occasionally.  This week for instance we had Micheal Ball (26:00) and Kevin Holland (37:02) at Brooklands, John Coffey (34:14) at Hazelwood.

Piers Keenleyside (27:42) visited the Marecchia parkrun in Rimini on the Adriatic coast of Italy.  A tightknit operation with two volunteers and this week just 12 runners.  It has been going for almost six years, sees an average turnout of 16 and occasionally gets 30.  The landlocked enclave of San Marino is close by.

Paul Watt (21:11) and Julie Barclay (25:20) visited Rothay Park, Ambleside in the Lake District and did a spot of volunteering as well.  This parkrun had been going for just six weeks before the Covid lockdown caused a 70 week interruption.  It is now popular with tourists with an impressively long list of clubs appearing in the results.  The club total moves on to 648 different parkruns.

Steve Newell

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

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

Roderick Hoffman

Helen's Hadrian's Wall Walk

Hello,

Last week I completed the 84 miles on foot between NCL & Bowness-on-Solway - up hill, down dale, through fabulous countryside all under beautiful skies until the last day. The gift of the BAAC 40 Anniversary Buff was most useful. I wore it every day.

It was a walk indeed and the refreshments at The Twice Brewed brewery night stop were a real tonic making us feel good and helping us to laugh a lot which we needed at the midpoint.

Helen Smith

Other Letters to the Editor

Dave Barnard has written in on the subject of how to keep active (without necessarily sweating)!

"The explorers who walk every street in their city:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/04/every-single-streeters-explorers-city-street-urban-landscape"

Ed: My initial lockdown activity was to walk the streets within one mile of my home and in 25 walks covered perhaps half of them - pictured.

The club has also heard of Harry Wild this week, after a routine operation he is now back at the care home he now resides in.

• If you are competing as a member of the BAAC team - in events such as the Track and Field matches and the Surrey League Cross Countries. Note that if BAAC isn't your first claim club you may need your first claim club to give you permission to be in the BAAC team, which is unlikely to be given if they are also competing at the same event,
• If you affiliate to England Athletics through BAAC and use this to obtain a discount on entry to an event, then you should wear your club vest in that event,
• If BA, BA Clubs or BAAC has facilitated your participation in an event then BAAC colours should be worn.

Closed events, such as the BAAC Cross-Country Championships, usually don't have club vest rules.

Note that if the event is a mass participation event, such as the London Marathon, and you are running to raise money for a charity, then a charity vest can be worn instead.

Dispensations can be granted in other circumstances - please ask the chairman or club secretary.

Club vests can be bought from > Paul Knechtl, and Amanda may also hold some spare kit for the ladies. I've also got some of the 40th anniversary shirts still available which can be used as club vests.

> Roderick Hoffman

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

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