baRUNNER News Digest

New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome at all of these events. The full diary of club featured events is on the club website at: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml [Updated Feb 24th].

Club Events - Club In-house Event - Wednesday 15th April - 18:00 Heston Venue

I'm expecting it to be light enough for us to have a team training event around the Heston Venue sports field. This will take the form of Brian Forrester's "Stations" event. Three stations are defined equal spaced around the field (so about 350 meters apart) and teams of four run between these as a relay event. So once underway runners have a 350 meter sprint then a recovery whilst the other team members run a lap of the field. Each runner will end up running three to four k in total. But that sounds fairly straightforward so perhaps I'll introduce some complications to keep everyone on their toes!

Run Together Initiative - Wednesday April 5th from 18:30 at Heston Venue

A reminder of the "RunTogether" initiative by England Athletics to encourage and develop new runners. Monthly from April we are offering a starter session for new runners which will also be a coaching opportunity for all attendees.

The launch website for this initiative is at https://groups.runtogether.co.uk/baRunner . Please visit that website and, if you want to, please register for one or more of the runs - it would be nice to see some apparent demand, even if only from the regulars. Please pass this information onto any non-members you know who might be interested. There is no charge.

2016 Awards (3) Completion

<<< During the awards evening the ladies team presented their captain, Clara Halket, with flowers to thank her for the efforts put in during the year. Monica and Marion represented the team.

Veteran’s trophy

This trophy was presented to the club by Malcolm Field, at a time when many of our members were reaching that status. These days, we find that most of our members are competing for this trophy, so winning this award has become even more prestigious.

Our winner has been inspiring others for over a decade. She has tackled the long runs, put an arm round the injured competitor, and cheered our fast runners to victory. She has injected fun into every event she has competed in, and helped to make us a truly social club. What’s more, her performances in the past year make her a strong candidate for Most Improved Athlete.

This year's winner is Helen Smith.

Most Improved Athlete

Despite our ageing population, there have been some great improvers this year. Paul Watt has achieved regular PBs, and Trish McCabe is preparing for the London Marathon with a string of new PBs. Helen Smith has popped up at the Cross Countries with some exceptional times.

Our standout improver had a great 2016, with seven PB’s at seven distances. He shaved 40 seconds off his 5K time, he achieved a 90 second improvement over 5 miles and he took a massive 40 minutes off his marathon personal best!

BA’s most improved athlete is Neil Frediani.

Female Athlete of the Year

It has been a long time since we have had such a successful female runner across such a wide range of distances. Our winner has been running well in the 100m, all the way up to 10K and beyond.

She had a great summer in the Track & Field Veterans League, and capped it off with a great run at WARR. She finished third overall in the Womens 10K, and was the winner of the Womens Masters Event.

Our female athlete of the year is Julie Barclay

Male Athlete of the Year

The competition for this important award was strong this year. John Taylor produced some excellent performance on the road and in the cross countries. As we’ve already mentioned, Paul Knechtl had a great WARR.

This year’s award winner produced regular newsworthy performances for BA. He continued to compete at parkrun practically every week, with some excellent sub-20 times. He greets and encourages new runners on a Wednesday night, here at the club. Meanwhile, he produces good-for-age Marathon performances year after year.

For his consistent high standards, and for his hard work for the club, this year’s winner is Chris Kelly

Club president John Williams presented most of the awards. Thanks also to Paul Brandon for the photographs and Steve Hillier for most of the wording, not to mention the well received pizzas plus.

Club parkrun results for Saturday 11th March

Some double digit centigrade temperature readings generated some definite feelings of Spring this week and several members ventured forth to try parkrun courses they had never run at before.

Barry Walters (20:24, 78.69%) led the way by heading West to Newbury and added yet another run to his impressive collection of club course records. That time gives him 7th place out of 136 in his age group who have run at Newbury where the overall attendance is now typically between 400 and 500. Alice Banks (25:58, 73.68%) ran at Northala Fields for the first time and she is now 5th out of 32 in her age group there.
Steve (23:37) and Linda (28:48) Dodsworth became our first runners at Keswick parkrun which brought the score of parks we have appeared at 324.

Leslie Chamberlin (28:06) ran at Kingston for the first time. The course there can be very wet there when spring tides associated with a full moon flood the towpath. Scott Davison (32:32) tried the Ottershaw hills and mud version at Homewood and like others before him have found it scenic but hard going. Ian Cockram (23:36) had no such problems at Burgess Park in Camberwell where the course is 98% dead flat and tarmac all the way. Benita (31:00) and John (31:01) Scaife became the 43rd and 44th of our members to run at Bedfont Lakes. Only Bushy Park with 49 has attracted more over the years. Could you make it 50?

Steve Newell (37:49) made his first visit to London’s newest parkrun at Beckenham Place Park in the southernmost corner in Lewisham borough. The course is extremely flat and mostly on grass so let’s hope it is mowed regularly in the growing season. Not too much in the way of sticky/slippery mud or puddles on this occasion. Park #80 for Steve and the club total crept on up to 325.

You’re never too old to start and it’s never too late to start again. Grant Strydom (27:32) returned to parkrun at Bushy Park for his first run since November 2011. A little slower but his age grade score improved. Clara Halket and Simon Turton – we would love to see you mentioned in this column again some year soon.

Something is happening in South Hertfordshire that is difficult to explain. parkruns have been established at Cassiobury Park, South Oxhey and Aldenham for a couple of years and now the new one has started up at Rickmansworth Aquadrome. South Oxhey in particular has struggled for numbers and it is less than three miles from Rickmansworth. Now suddenly in the first two weeks no fewer than 125 people have run their first ever parkrun at Rickmansworth. Cassiobury attracted 37 runners yesterday who had never run at a parkrun before. And South Oxhey – well two newcomers in a field of 43 but at Aldenham, 20 in a near record attendance of 86. Some people are attracted by mud or hills but not always both together. Incidentally, the parking fee at Aldenham has been reduced to £2 for those showing a parkrun barcode in the office after the run. Your muddy shoes will be your passport!

Rickmansworth Inaugural parkrun 4th March 2017

I had not been to an inaugural parkrun before but Rickmansworth was a perfect location, about 13 miles from home. There was a large car park though access is over a bridge which is only 1 car wide so this could cause congestion at peak time. I was early so didn’t have a problem on the way in.

456 turned up which the organisers hadn’t expected! They had got themselves 450 tokens though so no problems. Even the mayor came and cheered all runners on. The event director gave a great speech at the beginning and there was silence for it from all the runners which was great.
The course is two laps round lakes at Rickmansworth Aquadrome. It is quite narrow in a few places but I think by the time the fast runners are on their second loop, the field would have thinned out enough for them not to be hindered. It is on tarmac for two-thirds and woody paths for the other third. It is flat and I can see it being a fast course. It was my fastest this year so far.

There is a large café and toilets so everything catered for. I would definitely recommend a visit there and will go back again myself at some point.

Ed: 456 is a big turnout for an inaugural and the second highest for a UK parkrun. This week there were a more modest 298 which perhaps will be closer to the regular numbers. Meanwhile in South Africa a new inaugural parkrun record has been set with 1,265 attendees for the new Midstream parkrun which is halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Pacing

As everyone should know (but it does no harm to keep reminding ourselves), get your pace right, even 10s per k too fast is 'not time in the bank for later' ...it'll be your downfall.

Anyway, this another mention of my parkrun pacing squad who were on their first Saturday of the month duty at Black Park over the w/e before last, where we covered every minute from 19-39min. A significant addition, after a number of requests, we introduced run/walk pacers as an experiment who ran roughly for 3mins and then a 30sec walk, as well being 'sympathetic' to inclines on route to help beginners as well as less consistent runners. This was very received and something we plan to continue in future months.

One of our regular pacers has found himself in a bit of a ‘dilemma’ however: “As a regular pacer, I thought I’d actually try out the service during Saturday’s parkrun and see if running with a pacer really worked? Well, I can confirm that it does as I smashed my PB by 20 seconds (set over a year ago). A big thanks to my fellow pacers (especially the 24 & 25 minute guys) but it now leaves me with a dilemma - . do I continue to volunteer for pacing (which is great fun and very rewarding), or continue to use the pacers to set more new PB’s in 2017 ?”

If anyone would like to try some pacing just let me know. The many benefits include developing instinctively your own correct pace for different distance events, a chance to actually enjoy the scenery rather than just the usual ‘belt around’, and satisfaction for helping many others achieve better performances/PBs. For 5k's it is recommended to choose a pace time of at least 10% or 2mins slower than your recent best times to be comfortable and still have a good workout yourself, although going even slower can also be interesting. It’s easy to do, simple guidance or training is provided and often pairing with a more experienced pacer to start with.

Barcelona Marathon 12th March 2017

Barcelona Marathon completed today - my official time was 3:27:02. Quite pleased as I've been doing mainly MdS training recently - running slowly with a 6.5kg backpack. I had no taper leading up to this - I ran about 45 miles (slow) over the last 6 days prior to today's marathon.

Barcelona is a great city to visit and the weather could not have been better for our short trip - warm and sunny on Friday and Saturday. It started sunny for the 8:30am start and just as it was looking to get a bit too warm for running on some cloud came and cooled things down a bit from around 10:00 to 11:30 only making a short appearance for the last 3 or 4 miles. Still a bit disappointed with my time as I slowed too much in the final 5 or 6 miles - at one point I thought it was everyone else putting in strong finishes and overtaking me and then I twigged it was me getting slower! My Garmin showed over 1000 feet of climb but it is up quite gentle slopes so not too hard - although still enough to slow my pace! I think I will be back doing this one again.

And from our Rowling Reporter...

A local week-end result from Sunday 12th March - the Surrey 5k at Woking. This was run at 8.00 prior to the ½ marathon start at 9.00.

Paul Watt having his first run since 12th Feb. where he finished with a injury that has prevented him from any running activity, but after treatment last Wednesday feeling better decided to ran the 5k event. All went reasonably well and finished 1st 0/50 (29th o/a) in 21.46.

There were 461 entries and the rain came AFTER the 5k, just as the ½ marathon started.

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BA Athletics Club News Digest 13th March 2017

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