baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 11th December 2023

Events marked "#" are points scoring for the club's participation trophy - for the 2023 title.

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] [parkrun run by club members updated 4th October 2023]

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

Results for Next Week

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:

Osterley NOW event

Eight of us turned up at Osterley Park last Wednesday for the NOW event. Four of us went on a 4.5k jog out to see the Ramblers, a statue near Heston farm Estate that always takes passers-by by surprise even if they think that they know the area. The other four walked, jogged or wheeled one lap of the current parkrun course - so just about 2.5km. Afterwards we drank, ate and chatted in the National Trust Cafe.

There are no current plans for future NOW events but you are welcome to propose one - all you need is a location with somewhere to run, car parking, access to toilets and a nearby cafe.

Handicap Run This Week

The format of this month's five mile handicap will be different from usual.

• The club digital clock will not be at the car park at Bedfont FC
• Steve Newell is not available to be timekeeper

so,

All runners are asked to record their own time for the two-lap run starting and finishing in the normal place in the car park.  Where possible, runners should set off giving themselves enough time to finish at or close to 7 p.m.  Runners should give their elapsed times to Steve Hillier.

Suggested target times based on previous performances:

If you plan to run without a watch please converse with Steve Hillier or Roderick to see how we can time you.

Although this run is self-timed the spirit of the event is such that it should be done without consulting your watch during the run itself. 

parkrun Results for Saturday 9th December

26 activities are recorded below (plus one from last week). Please get in touch if your activity is missing.

parkrun Review 9th December 2023

This week we look at Hertfordshire and a county parts of which are very familiar to club members who have been involved with annual “Green Belt Relay”.  Oddly, three parkruns which seemed well established have ceased to be – at least partly because of the perceived impact of parkrunners on the flora and fauna. A much loved and challenging parkrun at Tring through Forestry Commission land never restarted after the Covid19 interruption and neither has the run at Ellenbrook Fields (Hatfield, birthplace of the Comet jetliner).  The pretty and hilly run at Heartwood Forest (Sandridge) was replaced, after only 47 runs ending in October 2018, by Jersey Farm, only a mile away, the following month, as a new event with an inaugural.

Rickmansworth parkrun is popular with members.  Two flat lakeside laps, a large free carpark and a café within yards of the finish.  South Oxhey very much a cross-country course on grass with ups and downs.  The Aldenham course is flat and features two laps round a reservoir Aldenham along wooded trails.  The Cassiobury course in Watford is another flat one with a potentially fast tarmac surface.   Those four parkruns are all reachable by Underground/Overground.

The newest parkrun in the county is Leavesden Country which started in October 2022.  The gently undulating course includes a woodland trail and the grass surrounds of football pitches.  A large car park and café close to the start/finish.  Gadebridge Park is in Hemel Hempstead and includes a significant proportion on grass with a few ups and downs and also features a narrow two-way section through an underpass where lane discipline is rather important!  The St Albans parkrun which started back in 2012 is held in Verulamium Park and is a fairly flat 3-lap course round a lake.  Pay and Display NCP car-parking by the museum is close-by.  So we have a cluster of eight parkruns in the southwest corner of the country.  Up to the north we have Letchworth and Stevenage reachable via the A1(M) and further to the east Panshanger and the strikingly scenic Westmill.  All of these include running up and down hills on grass or tracks you will remember.  Barclay Park in Hoddesdon (off the A10) has a four lap winter course and a three lap summer course with some slopes to negotiate.  The final parkrun in Hertfordshire is Castle Park in Bishops Stortford near the M11 and not far from Stansted Airport.  Castle parkrun started in September 2017 essentially a replacement for Hatfield Forest (in Essex, just 5km away on the other side of the M11) which was run for the last time in the same month with a record innings closing attendance of 424. 

Elsewhere, for those looking to progress their alphabet challenge the newish parkrun at Quakers Walk (Devizes, Wilshire) has now settled down after 3 months and could prove useful.  The paths are rather narrow (no double buggies please) but any gradients are much less demanding than the Queen Elizabeth parkrun! (late news – cancelled on 25th December due to lack of volunteers). 

This week was dominated by the rain.  Scores of UK parkruns were cancelled, some at quite short notice, causing the dedicated to quickly change plans while thousands of others obviously stayed in bed!. No UK parkrun attracted as many as even 900 runners this week, Bushy being the best attended with 816.  With Higginson, Marlow one of the cancelled parkruns, Alice Banks (36:52) was one of only 23 finishers at Henley-on-Thames parkrun and that included the tailwalker.  There were a dozen other volunteers – a big effort for a small field and there were plenty more events with even fewer participants. 

There was one inaugural in UK this week – Battlestead Croft (Burton on Trent) attracted over 100 runners with over 30 volunteers helping the event to get off to a good start.  The course is on grass round the Burton Rugby club grounds and dogs are not permitted. 

Chris Kelly (38:20) waited almost two years before checking out one of our newer local parkruns at Southall.  This week was run number 96 which Chris needed to finally get his Wilson Index up to 100.  That means he has now run at parkruns with every event number from 1 to 100 and he will listening out for somewhere celebrating 100 and going along the following week because he now needs a #101 ! 

Steve Newell

Matters Arising - Hertfordshire parkruns

There are 16 Hertfordshire parkruns listed, including the three that have closed. Roderick has run all 16, though only with a total of 22 runs. Steve Newell has run 14 of them with 22 runs, missing Castle Park and Tring. Former member Richard Ruffell ran 12 of the parkruns in 63 Hertfordshire runs before leaving us - including St Albans 23 times, the challenging Tring 13 times and Cassiobury 12 times. John Taylor has only run two of the parkruns but that includes Rickmansworth 32 times. Tony Barnwell is just behind having run there 27 times. Keith Johnson has run at St Albans 22 times. Joan Foxley has 23 Rickmansworth parkruns to her name, seven more than Denis Foxley has.

45 different colleagues have run at various Hertfordshire parkruns. 27 members have run at Rickmansworth, 18 at Cassiobury and 14 members have already run at the relatively new Leavesden Country. Next largest is St Albans with 12. I'm the only club runner to have run at Castle Park. Of the three that have closed, Tring was the most popular with 8 club colleagues having run there - including for instance Dave Barnards only three parkruns. The start and km markers were still in the Tring park last time I checked - though I wouldn't recommend a freedom run until a drier period.

Gold Obsessives and Bingo

The Gold Obsessive challenge is given when you complete 50 parkruns in the year. Mike Dennison got his this week, following Melanie Miller last week. But David Duggan is ahead of those two with 52 and Paul Watt and Julie Barclay have 57 so, with three Saturdays remaining plus Christmas Day a total above 60 is possible! The club record is probably David Duggan's 58 in 2019.

Others who look like they could make the Gold grade by the end of the year are Alan Anderson and Harjit Jhooti (on 49), Trish McCabe (on 48) and Maria Jovani (on 47). I will quickly say that some of the reward money should be given to the non-running 5k event volunteers who make all of these totals possible.

Doing many parkruns in a year also helps with the Annual Bingo achievement. I'm aware of two winners this year with Paul Watt having finished with times including all of the "3" seconds (so "03", "13", "23", "33", "43" and "53") and Bob Bannister having finished with all of the "5" second times.

No one has achieved a row of ten results (for instance all the seconds from "00" to "09"). Just one right result away is Maria Jovani needing a "58". At least seven of us are two results away -  Alan Anderson, Dave Duggan, Harjit Jhooti, Julie Barclay, Melanie Miller, Trish McCabe and Steve Newell.

I don't think that we've ever had a member complete the row of ten in any full year. John Lennon did this in 2014, but that was before he joined the club (and he has subsequently left). In that year John got all the seconds from "30" to "39" in just 33 runs - with all the scoring runs being at Bedfont Lakes (and he got one spare "34" at Fulham Palace).

Low Numbers in the Rain

There were 90,560 finishers of UK parkruns last Saturday - the lowest number this year. Many parkruns were cancelled and others had low numbers - for instance the 33 at Stockley Country was our lowest total ever and only one third of our average.

Bedfont Lakes run #670 had 65 finishers - its lowest total since the 62 finishers at event #198 on 23rd March 2013. Now, that event was a special one for me - it was my 53rd parkrun and the first time I had run at the same parkrun twice. I returned to Bedfont Lakes to collect my "50" shirt and end my streak of 52 parkruns with no repeats. I finished in 29:45. As a Club Featured parkrun other club members joined me there including, doing their first ever Bedfont Lakes runs, Chris Kelly (3rd in 19:38), Piers Keenleyside (23:38), Steve Newell (30:53) and Sarah Gordon (39:13). Other established Bedfont Lakes runners linked to the club were also there including Neil Frediani doing his 50th Bedfont Lakes parkrun. More details in an old digest from those days: baRUNNER News Digest (but take care - not everything written in that digest is the gospel truth).

Roderick Hoffman

Full club parkrun database - {read access to club parkrun database} - Download or save a copy, and explore at your leisure.

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

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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