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BA Athletics Club News Digest 16th August 2021

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

Events Calendar - online here

 

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.

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

Participant Event Distance Location Day/Start Time or Duration Details or comment, and other achievements
e.g. Running

Diary Change

I've made a subtle change to the diary:

  • Club events that will be held at the Bedfont Club are now shown in their own green category. This makes it easy to see when we will be at the club. The next such event will be the 40th Anniversary Event on 22nd September.
  • I've then combined the "Other External Events" and "Colleague Runs" into one category. This is the category that everyone has access to create new entries. Thus you can create a solo run for yourself to encourage colleagues to join you or you can add your favorite external events to the club calendar. Please do this to encourage us all to join you. Try adding an event today!

An Apology

I'm sorry there was a mix up with the facilities at Bedfont on Wednesday of this week, which clearly caused some anxiety for your members.

I have spoken with the football section who were playing their first match of the season on Wednesday and because it's such a long time since they have played, it slipped their mind to contact you to say they were playing.  I am assured that they don't have a Wednesday game until the new year but have asked for a copy of the fixtures to make sure.

Keep running!

Alison Hartigan

General Manager

BA Clubs Ltd

For those who weren't there, the showers were unavailable to us after Wednesday's mile run and the only changing areas were cupboards and loos. We managed to make ourselves presentable for the AGM and Awards evening, though we were thankful it hadn't been raining and there may well have been a bit more social distancing within the meeting room than would otherwise have occurred!


August Mile Result

In line with established tradition the AGM was preceded by a mile race which this year (as in 2019) was held at the Feltham Track (TW14 9HX).  The track was once home to Hounslow AC but after the merger with Windsor, Slough & Eton the club moved to Datchet and the facility was abandoned about 20 years ago.  The track itself has weathered remarkably well and the inside field is obviously mown from time to time. The nearby football stadium, changing rooms, toilets, etc. have long since been demolished.  A suggestion of the area becoming a new home for Brentford FC came to nothing.  Feltham FC moved in with Bedfont in Hatton Road. The rest is history.

The run was held in strong sunshine on a beautiful warm summer evening with only a light breeze.  Many members jogged from the Bedfont Club with others driving and parking in Shakespeare Avenue.

Steve Newell

Club mile results for August

Thanks to Steve for timekeeping. Mike Dennison, Eddie Giles and Ben Cooper also ran solo miles or miles at other events. These are included in the graphic.

Mike Dennison reports:

My Mile was at the now resumed 'real' Arethusa Mile in Bushy Park, with a field of 40 runners on Wednesday 11th August, before I headed to the BA AGM!  I apologise for not joining you all at Feltham to run there, but this was the 10th Anniversary of the start of the Arethua Mile series, and, as a regular runner there (I think I am fifth on the list of runners who have run it the most times, with this being my 78th appearance) I wanted to be there for this occasion.

Ed: Mike was ninth on the night, one place (two seconds) ahead of Ian Haylock. Maria finished as third lady in 6:16 and Bob Bannister in 6:45. Only Mike submitted his result as a club monthly mile result.


Club AGM and Awards Evening - This Wednesday 11th August at the Bedfont Club

Awards Photos part 1The AGM was held last Wednesday and a full write-up will appear soon. Our committee was voted in with only subtle changes which are already reflected on the website: British Airways Athletics Club Committee (barunner.org.uk).

The Awards for performances across 2020 were also presented. All those presented on the night are listed here: baRUNNER News Trophies page and this and the next two digest issues will list the key trophies and who won them and why:

 

Chairman’s Award - To John and Benita Scaife

John and Benita have submitted the joint most number of "Weekend Activity Achievements" (39, with myself and Andy Rayner) and have provided a write-up in Facebook for most of them allowing me to supplement the digest reports. They have also participated in some of the midweek challenges. I would also like to credit Joe Nolan (the current holder) for his Virtual London Marathon Relay efforts, and both Jagjit Singh and Clara Halket for their Long Distance running AND community efforts during this difficult period.

 

Speedbird Ladies 5K 2021

May 26th, 2021.  It felt very good to get the 2021 Speedbird Ladies race underway after our long lockdown. We still had to have some social distancing measures in place - the reduced numbers and the ultra-wide start line (1 metre per runner). We had 27 starters and 25 finishers.

It was close at the front – after one lap, Emma Moreton had a short lead over Julie Barclay. But by the end of the second lap, our winner had moved up from third place to take the victory. 

The winner of the Ladies 5K trophy is….Maria Jovani

Brian Forrester 10K Trophy

2020 was a quiet year for 10K races, but what it lacked in organised runs, it made up for in virtual events.

Our winner likes nothing more than a muddy slog along the banks of the Thames, and he was the winner of our 10K solo event in April.  His speed and endurance gave him the victory in the Sonning 10K, while many virtual runners in remote locations could not match his pace.

Fast forward to the Remembrance 10K in Hertfordshire, held in December.  Our hero joined 200 runners at Bovingdon to celebrate the fallen and the ability to run in the same location as others.

This year’s winner is …………. Chris Kelly.

 

Round The Block Trophy

This trophy rewards club involvement.  The more events you devise, organise, help with or compete in, the more chances you have of winning the award.

In 2020, there were less opportunities to score points, but there were still 102 members and friends who manage to get their names onto the league table. 

Our winner was still involved in twenty events, more than anybody else.  He planned or managed many of them.  

Despite a desperate attempt by a trios of Steves to steal his crown, once again this year’s Round The Block Trophy winner,  is…………….. Roderick Hoffman

 

In relation to the Round-the-Block trophy Roderick, obo the Committee, announced that the "Round-the-Block" name was overdue for retirement and hence from next year the trophy presented for club participation would be known as the "Tom Rowley Participation Trophy".

 

Thanks to Paul Brandon for taking the photographs.


Activity Achievements for the week 9th to 15th August 2021

16 activities recorded - and in addition Janet Smith, Joan Foxley, Michael Ball and John Scaife reported their parkruns as their best activity of the week.

Colleague Activity Distance Course Start Time Duration Comments
Piers Keenleyside  Race Half-M Burnham Beeches Sun 02:02:53 Had another go at improving my post-injury half marathon time today. Not too far off my target time of sub 2. A few too many hills for my liking although I did make up some ground on the downs.
Jasvir Singh Modaher  Race Half-M Burnham Beeches Sun 02:34:56 Reported by Piers
Emma Moreton  Race Half-M Burnham Beeches Sun 01:44:33 Half Marathon PB
Paul Watt  Race 5km Dinton Pastures Thur 00:21:04 Last race of four race series (see below).
Julie Barclay  Race 5km Dinton Pastures Thur 00:23:03 Last race of four race series (see below).
Adrian Haines Running 14.89km Dordogne, France Sun 01:11:00 I’m down in Dordogne, France for a month setting up a training camp at my house. The weather here is superb and settled for at least 6 weeks. Please follow me on Strava to see all my routes and segments.
Benita Scaife Running 5km Flackwell Heath Park Tue 00:33:12 An action replay of last week’s multiple laps of Flackwell Heath park (2seconds faster). John was relegated to the bench after my first parkrun post-broken foot, which was a bit sore.
Roderick Hoffman Running 11.2km Lake Farm Loop Sun pm 01:20:14 Uneventful, other than I was thankful that they had just cut the long grass in the Yeading Brook open spaces.
Andy Rayner Daily Local Tues-Fri 4 mile mixture of walking and cycling each day.
Amanda Coombs Walking 5miles Peebles Sun 02:00:00 Final day in Peebles in the Scottish Borders. Warm but very breezy on the hills.
Ben Cooper Running 5.19km Penmark Thur 00:27:09 I've grown tired of my usual loops around Cardiff Airport, so ventured out into the nearest village of Penmark. Pretty houses and a steep hill lie beyond the treacherous carriageway crossing!!
Melanie Miller Walking 20.17km Salisbury Plain Sat 00:04:22 Hike to Stonehenge from Salisbury ova the plains…lovely hike & route and saw the stones without having to pay the EH fee.
Emma Parkes Running 23.46km Stockley Park to Little Venice Sat am 02:35:00 Running with a friend cycling the Paddington arm of the Grand Union canal. Longest run ever, so pretty pleased with it. The route was nice and flat and in most places the surface was good.
Clara Halket Running 10km Surrey Trail Sun am 01:10:00 Two short runs this morning; over 7km threshold run followed by over 3km warm down jog on a mix of hard pack stony trails and soft woodland trails
Stephen Taylor Running 20miles To/from Bushy Park 03:26:00 Another long run, marathon training, this time to Bushy Park. A tough run, my legs didn't feel like they had much go in them. 20 miles in 3h26.
Neil Frediani Running 9miles Up north (probably) Thur pm I ran down to join about 10 runners and 8 dogs for a meandering trail run on a lovely evening.

Week Achievement pictures

Roderick Hoffman


Dinton Pastures Summer Series Final Run

On Thursday evening Julie and I ran in the final race of a four race summer series.

You may have read that last month we were led the wrong way by the lead cyclist…twice: a distant memory as tonight went according to plan.

Julie was the first W50 to cross the line and in fact she was the first in all four races which is a great achievement. Julie has a full set of the four first place trophies and I managed one……she is hogging the mantelpiece with them now! I was third M50 but it was enough, like Julie, to collect an award as we both won the overall series winner for the 50+ age category. Julie also received an award for the third placed female overall.

It is a tough course and a very nice venue and I would thoroughly recommend this series next summer.

Paul Watt


parkrun results for Saturday 14th August 2021

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

Club parkrunner parkrun Pos Time Age Grade PB? Comment
Julie BARCLAY York 110 00:22:41 82.00% Why? "Y". 199th run. 50th Venue, BA Ladies and % record
Paul WATT York 33 00:19:39 78.88% Why? "Y". BA Male record.
John Scaife Wycombe Rye 353 00:35:16 48.44% Was supposed to be walking it!
Benita Scaife Wycombe Rye 282 00:31:14 66.92%
Micheal BALL Woking 146 00:29:23 54.11%
Barry WALTERS Upton Court 94 00:29:38 56.58%
Paul TIMMS Tetbury Goods Shed 29 00:23:20 67.57% 50th run
Maria Jovani South Oxhey 14 00:22:55 69.31% F1
Mike Dennison South Oxhey 2 00:20:15 81.32% M2 (so almost a double). Not top % on the day!
Eddie GILES Salisbury 173 00:27:17 66.28%
John TAYLOR Rickmansworth 46 00:21:33 71.93% 25th parkrun
Jain Reid Richmond Park Barcode Scanning at Richmond
Christopher T KELLY Reading 315 00:38:18 40.47%
Alan FRIAR Reading 271 00:33:08 58.20%
Murray HOGGE Reading 72 00:23:08 69.31%
Frankie HOGGE Reading 71 00:23:07 64.02%
Janet Smith Prospect 171 00:37:27 48.33% PB   First parkrun since Feb 2020. Nice to be back after 5 weeks in Tokyo. Much nicer temperature here.
Alan ANDERSON Osterley 218 00:45:41 55.13% Assisting Anne
Anne ANDERSON Osterley 217 00:45:40 63.10%   (assisted)
Trish MCCABE Osterley 99 00:27:33 57.11%
Scott DAVISON Osterley 41 00:24:07 61.16%
Keith Johnson Houghton Hall 15 00:23:24 63.53%
Ralph BEHRENS Hellbrunn 28 00:47:48 35.74% Inaugural Austrian parkrun. 7 countries, 42 locations, 60 runs.
Joan FOXLEY Harrow 174 00:36:35 62.92%
Denis Foxley Harrow Barcode Scanning at Harrow
Piers KEENLEYSIDE Gunnersbury 186 00:28:13 58.89%
Alastair Heslop Guildford Timekeeper at Guildford
David Williams Fulham Palace 187 00:27:10 51.78%
Ben Chaytow Dinton Pastures 122 00:29:56 46.99%
Joe NOLAN Crane Park 84 00:29:42 57.01%
Steve NEWELL Clapham Common 463 00:46:04 42.69%
Ian CUNNINGHAM Bushy Park 598 00:28:36 55.59%
Andrew William Jordan Bushy Park 243 00:23:49 64.52%
David DUGGAN Bedfont Lakes 130 00:33:59 47.62%
Bob Bannister Bedfont Lakes 48 00:25:29 65.79%
Paul PRESCOTT Bedfont Lakes 5 00:20:59 61.80%
Emma Moreton Bedfont Lakes Timekeeper at Bedfont Lakes
Eddie KETTERICK Bedfont Lakes 161 00:44:53 37.02% 9th parkrun
Roderick HOFFMAN Ashford 101 00:28:48 56.19% BA Male record & % record

This week we highlight the dogged persistence of Paul Watt (19:39) and Julie Barclay (22:41) who have been trying to complete the parkrun alphabet for over a year and a half.  After visiting Cape Town in January 2020 to run at Zandvlei the goal seemed in sight and Yeovil Montacute was lined up with hotel booked.  Bad weather and then the pandemic intervened and more recently the news that the Yeovil Montacute parkrun wasn't ever going to start up again caused more frustration.  Currently the only parkrun in UK starting with "Y" is York Racecourse where parkrun is allowed on the tarmac service road but only on days when no horseracing is taking place (as it is for instance this coming Saturday - Sky Bet Ebor Festival). The happy ending came eventually with Paul achieving a parkrun pb and Paul and Julie taking over the club course records from Steve and Linda Dodsworth.  For Julie it was her 50th different parkrun venue.  What and where next ?  Stay tuned to this channel.

Mike Dennison (M2, 20:15) and Maria Jovani (F1, 22:55) had a successful outing to South Oxhey and set new club records.  Mike Dennison is now 2nd in the M60-64 group there (Barry Walters is 7th) out of 98.  Maria Jovani is 5th/185 in the F45-49 group.

Our long time friend from Lufthansa, Ralph Behrens, headed over the border to Austria for the inaugural parkrun at Hellbrunn.  He has already run at a parkrun in seven different countries, only needing to fly occasionally.  The parkrun photo of Hellbrunn is an old one from Tring - sadly this is one of the parkruns that won't be returning...although the team are still hopeful so it hasn't yet been removed from the map.

Paul Timms (23:24) ran at Tetbury Goods Shed and has reached the 50 parkrun milestone.

Steve Newell

Full club parkrun database - {read access to new club parkrun database} - Download and explore. Interestingly I've done a quick check and it would appear that club members have run 9,967 UK parkruns (including former parkruns and restricted access parkruns). Since we had 33 members run this weekend we must be in line to get to 10,000 UK parkruns next week!

Paul and Julie at YorkAlphabet Completion!

Finally done it!

After three attempts to complete our parkrun alphabet at Yeovil, we finally achieved the feat at York racecourse.

We thought that it would never be achieved in the U.K. as if you may have read in the past, the running Gods were against us.

On the evening of Friday 25Oct19 we saw that Yeovil was cancelled due to a hurricane and so dashed the next morning 53 miles to run at Exeter. On 15Feb20 it was cancelled due to heavy rain and flooding and then after we had booked the hotel for a third time for the night of 20Mar20, the pandemic took control and parkrun was suspended.

On top of this, we were informed by Roderick that Yeovil parkrun had not and will not be granted permission to resume thus leaving York as the only option in this country.

Fourth hotel and fourth attempt lucky on a totally flat concrete surface.

Our goal finally achieved but two weeks after Dave Duggan who completed his alphabet in Northern Ireland…well done Dave.

Paul Watt

Another parkrun country was added on Saturday - Austria

At the first event at Hellbrunn near Saltsburg there were 30 runners including 13 new parkrunners and 2 without barcodes. Our Lufthansa friend Ralph Behrens was there to add to his tally of parkruns and parkrun countries. Hellbrunn will prove fairly easy to get to from Munich, if not Saltsburg directly. Currently UK residents are barred from visiting Austria...not that that stopped at least two of the attendees on Saturday!


Marshalling Requests

The first is unusual...The British Speedgolf group are hiring the club clock again for a two day event at Wallingford, Oxfordshire . If anyone would like to get involved they are looking for someone to help out with timekeeping on either or both days. Hours are from 7am to 10:30am. I assume that they will cover reasonable expenses.

Contact me in the first instance and I'll put you in touch.

Roderick Hoffman

The second is more straightforward...The Ealing Half Marathon is looking for volunteer marshals to help with the race on Sunday 26th September. You will be rewarded with a FREE place in the 2022 edition of the EHM. Apply via the their website www.ealinghalfmarathon.com.


BA Athletics Club Records - the most with the best

The club records are now available for you to browse at your leisure. From the webpage baRUNNER News Records page click on the "BA Athletics Club Records" link and a webpage will open allowing you to explore all of the existing records. Although this is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet it should work for you - it has also been tested on Apple and Android devices. Click on the yellow "Records" tab at the bottom to view the list of records then scroll to what you want to see or, quicker, click on the arrows next to the "GROUP", "ACTIVITY" or "NAME" headings and "Filter..." to what you want to find. There are also some summaries in the Green tabs. One of the summaries shows "By_Person" and shows who in the club holds the most records, the top twelve are shown below. Anyone can achieve a club record - 65 different individuals hold records and there is even one held by me listed towards the bottom. It's worth noting that Fiona Bishop has only joined us in the last few months yet already holds six club records!

NAME NEW (i.e. recently
updated records)
Current Total Records Held
Paul Goldsmith 23 23
Janet Smith 13 7 20
John Coffey 2 18 20
Steve Hillier 5 12 17
Brian Bennett 17 17
Caroline Yarnell 13 13
Eddie Giles 4 8 12
Malcolm Field 12 12
Paul Toms 11 11
Harry Wild 5 6 11
Alan Anderson 5 5 10
Julie Barclay 10 10

If you know better, please send us your claim. New records or questions: Stats@barunner.org.uk.

Roderick Hoffman


Letters to the Editor

Copyright Issues

An interesting letter to the editor this week - from "resolveUK@picrights.com" relating to whether we had permission to include specific copyright pictures in the digest - referring to pictures published in 2013. Since I'm unable to prove that we had permission (and suspect that we didn't) I've promptly removed the images referenced - trusting that that will end the matter. Anyone who submits pictures, other than their own, for inclusion in the digest, please ensure that we have permission to use them.

  Roderick Hoffman


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.


 

      

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