baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 13th September 2021

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

Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

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.

Solo Mile (submit before Monday 20th September):

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 over the last year.

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

Round-the-Park at Osterley this Wednesday - meet from 12:00 for a 12:30 start

Meet in front of the house in Osterley Park from 12:00. Toilets available. From 12:30 we will do the race around the current two lap parkrun course (pictured - the only tricky turn is the one into the woods but if you miss it and go straight on you don't add any distance, just have a gate you need to pull open to rejoin the course). Afterwards we'll recover using the National Trust Café for drinks and food. We request that participants make a £1 donation which the club will pass on to one of our regular charities.

Note that parking in the park is free for National Trust members. There is a charge for non-members but you no longer have to book in advance. Parking at the end of Osterley Lane (from Norwood Green) is free. There are also some free unrestricted parking in the streets to the south of the park.

If you tell us to expect you we'll look out for you at the start - reply to me or use this events "Sign up" in the diary.

Roderick Hoffman

Surrey Cross-Country League Fixtures

Match fixtures for the 2021-22 season have now been published. For our men’s team (division 4) there are venue changes to those previously reported.

All ladies’ matches will start at 11am. Men’s division 4 matches will start at 3pm, with the exception of the February match which is 2pm. Times (and venues) may be subject to change.

If you have run (or volunteered) with us in the league previously, you are on our database and will be contacted with further information on the individual matches once we receive it from the host clubs. If you haven’t, please consider doing so! It’s a great winter league, and our ladies’ team in particular is short on runners. All welcome. You will need to be a paid-up member of BAAC and England Athletics to take part. Please contact Alan (Membership@barunner.org.uk) to check or add your England Athletics affiliation. The club pays an affiliation fee to the Surrey League each season; there is no charge for members to race.

Each men’s race is approximately 8km. Ladies race over approximately 6km for the first two matches and 8km for the second two.

Contact us for further info, and please spread the word!

Amanda Coombs > Ladiescaptain@barunner.org.uk

Gary Rushmer > Menscaptain@barunner.org.uk

Activity Achievements for the week 6th September to 12th September 2021

19 activities recorded.

I couldn't find any pictures of Michael's race, which is perhaps a good thing since I'm still having problems due to the photographs printed of Piers from years ago.

 Roderick Hoffman

parkrun results for Saturday 11th September 2021

38 runners and volunteers below - get in touch if your result is missing.

Last week (4th Sep) we had to meet an early deadline for the digest so I’ll start with a few comments that didn’t make the “stop press”.
Paul Watt’s run at Storeys Field took him to 49 different parks. He was also in 50th position which will add an extra challenge next time out. He won’t be invited to join the Hoffman club however as that is reserved for non repeaters who run their first 50 parkruns without ever going back to try for a course pb.  Paul’s collection of 49 parks includes just 10 he has revisited.  Melanie Miller (37:29) ran at the newish parkrun at Itchen Valley and established a new club course record (all genders).

Every week thousands more people apply for a barcode than do their first run and over time the number of never used barcodes has grown into several million.  Lovely to report then that Di Smith decided to wait no longer and finally felt ready to try Bushy Park after such a long delay she can’t really remember how many years it was.  She has been a formidable opponent for the last five decades, we had better well all look out.  A good thing that parkrun is not a race.

Moving on to this week and the number 98 keeps springing up.  Roderick Hoffman, run #398, (29: 21) was treading new ground at the 98th edition of Pocket parkrun in Cambridgeshire, Steve Newell (43:38) was very pleased with his official time at the 98th Clapham Common parkrun while Jacqui Musselwhite completed her 98th parkrun, this latest one at Woking.  Two other courses run for the first time this week were Irchester Country Park in Northamptonshire (Sarah Gordon, 36:40) and Sale Water near Manchester (Ray Hampton, 32:28).  That was Ray’s first parkrun for three and a half years.

Paul Watt (25:33) limped round his 150th parkrun and 50th different venue at Cranleigh  where the locals were celebrating their 300th.  Another parkrun reaching 300 this week was Horsham where Adrian Haines (18:40, 81.61%) clocked our best time this week. He once achieved a 17:50 there when he was much younger and this week’s run improved his best age grade score ever over 63 parkruns.  Eddie Giles (26:57) is on a roll.  Since the end of lockdown he hasn’t missed a run at Salisbury and each Saturday he has been quicker than the week before.

A new parkrun started this week in London, indeed inside the South Circular where only low emission vehicles will soon be welcome.  Sutcliffe Nature Reserve in Eltham (Greenwich Borough) becomes the 57th parkrun within the GLA boundary which means that the 111 parkrunners who were “Londone” are now undone so expect a few tourist visits over the next few weeks.  This cycle could be repeated several times over the coming few months as the lingering effects of the pandemic unravel.

Steve Newell

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

The club map marks all parkruns and is updated about once a month. The icons used for parkruns are green trees for those which club members have run and red trees for those that are yet to be run. If you click on a parkrun it will list various items of data including who from the club was the first to run that parkrun and what are currently the fastest male and female times and the best age grade. There is also a link to the parkrun's website page.

Triathlon Update

The "Badlands" 746km bike race in southern Spain started from Granada on Sunday (5th September) and double Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee finished on Tuesday afternoon in 57 hours and 20 minutes (ave speed 13km/h).  He claims to have had 7 hours of sleep and spent another 7 hours fixing punctures so might have done better than finish 7th. The winner finished in 45 hours and by Friday afternoon (10th Sep) about 75 solo entrants had finished and most others had given up with just a handful still crawling towards the finish. Some people entered in pairs taking turns on the bike but none of them did any better. Alistair might try again next year if his Ironman schedule allows. 

Alistair praised the organisers for the amazing course which includes crossing deserts, going over mountains and along beaches and suggests that anyone who finishes at all has really achieved.  I'm not going to argue. 

https://www.transiberica.cc/

Steve Newell

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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