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BA Athletics Club News Digest 16th February 2015

Events:

• Wednesday 25th February - Run of the Month - February Handicap from 18:00 followed by...
• Wednesday 25th February - Club Annual Awards Evening - Heston Sports Ground from 20:00
• Sunday 1st March - Run of the Month - Berkamsted Half and 5 Mile Fun Run (see below)

New members and non-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.

Running related gossip and chat: Facebook "BA Runner" (link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/636199849751546/).

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Reminder Run of the Month for March - Berkhamsted Half (10:00) and 5 mile (10:30) - Sunday 1st March

Sunday 1st March sees the annual running of the Berkhamsted Half and Berkhamsted 5 mile runs. Any BAAC runners who would like to join us on one of these runs would be very welcome to come back to our house afterwards for a shower and to join us for Sunday lunch. Entries are now open either via post or through the Runners World web site. Supporters are also most welcome to join us. This year we have decided to charge a nominal £5 for your lunch and all the proceeds will be donated to charity. It would be very helpful if anyone planning to join us lets me know so we know how many to cater for, and please say if you have any special dietary requirements.

It would be great to have a good turn out of BA runners at this well organised event.

More information and entry: https://sites.google.com/site/berkhamstedhalfmarathon1/

After run recovery - email: Richard Ruffell

Report on Hill Training Session & Card Games!  Wednesday 11th February CIE

Prior to the event the motorway bridge course was assessed for Health & Safety and some hedge trimming carried out to clear the pavement and the kerbs were marked to define the course sections (500m hill section and 50/100m recovery turn-around loops on either side).

After a briefing to marshals and runners, Steve H kindly agreed to lead the 9 athlete group comprising  Marion, John T, Steve H, Steve N, Gary, Tony, Eddie, Alan and Dennis for the warm-up jog up and down club car park twice, whilst the 4 marshals Brian, Paul, Paddy and Harry set off to posts on the course.

A set of dynamic drills followed for the athletes – knees up/leg extension walk, knees up jog, heel lift and knee/leg follow through and ‘Greek dancing’ ! This exercise highlighted that there was some scope for fundamental development again, particularly coordination skills, similar to the balancing exercise carried out a few weeks ago.

The athletes formed up on the corner of Church Road for the hill exercise, being split into 2 groups (‘faster’ comprising Gary & John, and the remainder ‘slower’).  Some hill running technique had been presented earlier together with elements that would be observed during the session from different vantage points.

The athletes ran back and forth over the motorway bridge for 20 minutes, with the game added of collecting/swapping playing card each side with marshals (keeping best 4 in hand). The faster group followed the longer turn-around loop. 

Eddie kindly led the warm down run back to the club and along/back the car park.

A debrief on the session and prize giving for the card game was held in the clubhouse afterwards. Feedback was exchanged on the session organisation, coaching content, and athlete technique and performance. The general consensus was that the session was very useful (it certainly was extremely useful to my coaching development !) and that we should plan a similar follow up session to monitor progress in 3-4 months time.
Marion skillfully won the choccy-box prize for the best card hand (with 3 Kings) with John in 2nd place.

I would like to thank everyone who participated, and particularly the marshals who stood out on the chilly roadside and also processed the card game results. I would also like to thank Steve N for helping set up the event and Andy Eynon for help with the coaching content.

Be warned ….I am planning another coaching session soon and also some ‘bolt-on exercises’ to other events !

Joe Nolan

Harrow Hill 10k Sunday 15th Feb Results

161st in 64:15 - Petra Otto, V60 W

Well done Petra.  No BA runners in this one - I was only just back from two week's "altitude training" in Colorado and the event had sold out before I was able to commit to it.

Roderick Hoffman

Valentines 10k Sunday 15th Feb Results

10k PB for Ian Cunningham.  Good age grade to - but not as good as that of BA club friend Jane Davies. It's unusual to see an age grade greater than 100% - it flags her as being better than the best of her age. 

Club parkrun results for Saturday 14th February

There was a record attendance of 264 at Valentines Park (Gants Hill / Ilford) but none of our runners were tempted to make the journey.  The next opportunity to run on 14th February will be in 2026.  We did have several instances of couples running at the same parkrun (though not necessarily at the same pace):

• John and Benita Scaife, after three runs in Australia, flew back in time to drop in and run together at Osterley parkrun.
• Ian and Janet Cunningham at Bushy,
• Richard and Bridget Ruffell at St Albans,
• Steve and Marion Taylor at Northala Fields,
• Mark and Kimberley Turner at Chichester.

The outstanding performance this week was by Julie Barclay, 8th overall and 1st female at Bedfont Lakes (see below).

Ben Chaytow made the trip north to run at Cheadle Hulme and set a club best time of 24:49.  Ray Hampton still holds the V70-74 age category there with 27:20.  The parkrun there has only been going for about six months and there are still often fewer than 50 runners.

Monica Alonso is closing in on her 50 run T-shirt but with a switch of supplier she may have to wait a few weeks.  Chris Kelly could qualify for his 250 vest by the end of the summer.  Ben Chaytow is on 95.

After a winter break Steve Newell has resumed his tour of London parkruns and notched up his 50th different UK parkrun at Dulwich, making the most of his Freedom pass as usual!

Updated parkrun stats: www.barunner.org.uk/results/ba_parkrun_park_totals.xls 

Steve Newell

Bedfont Lakes parkrun

I was at Bedfont Lakes on Saturday   But Julie Barclay was the only BA runner there, I guess the regular lads knew what Fridays continuous rain would do to the course. A little report on Julie's run:

With the previous 4/5 weeks dry weather Julie Barclay said "Let's try Bedfont" not having ran there for 8/9 months and conditions should be perfect.  It was until Friday a when the continuous rain made it sploshey and with a100 un-avoidable puddles.  But not deterred Julie went for a hard run.  She shot away and was leading lady from the off plus in the first dozen overall.  Feeling good and copping with the slosh moved up on the second lap to 8th place and remained there and 1st lady to finish in 21.54.  Her best being 21.17.  Julie quite pleased with performance and time.

Thinking - had the surface conditions most likely cost her over a second per 100m?

After the run continued to run home a few miles as part of her training for the Surrey 1/2 March 8th.

Tom Rowley

Running Shorts

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