baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 17th January 2022
Events marked "#" are points scoring for the club's participation trophy - now for the 2022 title. Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] For future weeks: inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk. This Week's EventsPlease 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. Track-on-Field (by end of Sunday 30th January, to be reported on in the following digest):
Weekly Athletic Achievement (by late Sunday) or use the Facebook group prompt:
After a quiet start to the month things are hotting up with several events to attend - for those free on Wednesday lunchtime we have the NOW event at Ruislip Lido, then we have not one but two Club Featured parkruns and then next week we have the January 5 mile Handicap followed by our annual quiz. Details of all of these follow below. Saturday 17th Cross-Country Runs #
Men contact >Paul Knechtl. Re the Ladies, Amanda writes: Unfortunately we were unable to put a team of ladies together for match 3 at Mitcham Common. Several runners are injured and others were unavailable on Saturday. I made the last-minute decision not to attend as a team of one, largely due to travel restrictions. We were ‘awarded’ 1000 points, and we would have scored no more had I attended and finished mid-field. Although we have dropped from 27th to 33rd position there is still plenty to play for! The final match is scheduled for 11am on Saturday 19th February at Effingham Common. I hope that everyone is fighting fit by then so that we can finish the season with a flourish! Ladies contact >Amanda Coombs.. British Airways "Tom Rowley" Cross Country Race, 20th MarchWe plan to hold our annual Cross-country race in Cranford Park, on the morning of 20th March. This year we will host Woking AC and Milocarians AC, and we will celebrate the life of Tom Rowley. Please put the date in your diary, and make all efforts to come along to run for British Airways AC, or support the event. This event will be this year's BA Cross-Country Championship. Steve Hillier Wednesday 19th January NOW Ruislip Lido DetailsRuislip Lido Parking - Reservoir Rd, Ruislip, HA4 7TY. The postcode should lead you to the roundabout next to the Waters Edge Pub. There are three carparks off from this roundabout. The way to the left leads to a private carpark for the pub (don't use this) and a public carpark for non-Hillingdon residents. The way to the right leads to a carpark reserved for Hillingdon residents (note that you will need to have a "Hillingdon First" card and get a parking ticket from the machine). Parking is free for Hillingdon residents, non-residents will be charged £3:50. These carparks are patrolled so please use make sure you are correctly parked.
The Lido has a tarmac path all of the way around (a good surface, but it can be slippery due to leaves or freezing conditions). There are lengths under trees where the nighttime cold may linger and the stretch across to dam may be exposed to wind and rain (not expected). The path is popular for dogs with owners on leads and for parents pushing or pulling young children. The lap is 2.4km long so the runners will do two and a bit laps clockwise and then walk 800m back to visit the San Remo café. Walkers will be recommended to do one lap anti-clockwise and then the 800m to the café. Anyone who wants to can venture into the muddy woods instead of doing the second run lap...but you won't find me doing that. The café has a large indoor area and a good kitchen so will have a variety of main meal specials as well as the usual hot drinks and light snacks. BAAC Quiz: Wednesday 26th January 2022, BedfontIt’s time for our quiz, to be held at the Bedfont & Feltham Football & Social Club, close to Hatton Cross. Everyone is welcome! The team size
will be between four and six – come as a team, or join up with some others on
the night. No-one will be left out. You will be tackling General
Knowledge and specialist questions, as well as some brain teasers! We will
be raising funds for our White Lodge charity. An early indication of how many might attend, would be much appreciated! January Club Mile Results
The next Ealing Mile is on 4th February. Recent Activity AchievementsI picked up on 19 club members and friends reporting recent activity achievements.
parkrun Results for Saturday 15th January 202232 activities are recorded on this week. Please get in touch if your activity is missing.
This week's guest reporter is again Paul Watt: It was only the third Saturday of the year but already we have experienced most weather systems during our parkruns: I have had clear blue skies at Bethlem Hospital on New Year’s Day, rain and wind at Mole Valley and then both fog and ice at Swanley. Just as visiting different courses makes for a variety of terrain and scenery, our varied, unpredictable weather also makes things interesting! This weekend our club added another two venues to our impressive list of parkruns visited with me, Julie Barclay and Vera Simms debuting at Swanley and Barry Walters and Melanie Miller flying the flag at Southall for parkrun 615. A very good number for a club like ours and just as impressive is that we were represented at both ends of the country, in Cornwall and Tyne-and-Wear, and many places in between. Harjit Jhooti was at Penrose and Neil Frediani ran at Chopwell Woods. Following the A30, M5 and A1 they are 480 miles apart and is this the furthest apart that two members have run in England during a parkrun? I am sure that somebody knows. We did not have a member crossing the line first and this week I was the highest placed finisher in fifth. Neil Frediani recorded the only course PB this week by taking a massive 54 seconds off his Chopwell Woods time. Trish McCabe, Harjit, Melanie and Julie all came away with club female records whilst Piers Keenleyside, Barry and me set male records. Although not a PB, Roderick ran his quickest time since June 2019. Talking of the Chairman, he only has Southall remaining for his LonDone accreditation after running at Sutcliffe this week. He may call it a fluke that his last venue is the nearest to his home but don’t dismiss good preparation and dedication to parkrun: even his barcode number incorporates the four digits of his age group (i.e. "A1 60-64 3"). Well done to all those who claimed records, achieved personal goals and also to those who volunteered this week. This week four, yes four new events started. We now have West Links in Arbroath, Scotland with three in England: Talkin Tarn Country Park in Brampton, Cumbria with Marine Parade in Weston-Super-Mare and the lovely Belvoir Castle in Grantham, Leicestershire. We visited the castle before Christmas and mentioned that it would be a great place for a parkrun….we will definitely return. [Ed: Plus four UK locations, though in a week when the team at Tring finally gave up their fight to return. But rumours are that the team at Yeovil may have found a new course location - but no clues as to what the new course name might be. Note that if parkrun decide to rename the parkrun to the new name then everyone who has completed the alphabet there will suddenly find that their alphabet is not complete after all! Expect a riot in the Facebook parkrun Tourist groups]. This Saturday there are three South-East parkruns not operating. Malling has
construction work closing the course until 05Feb at the earliest and nearer to
home, the same reason keeps Cranleigh closed for two more weeks and Reigate is
hosting a cross-country event [Ed: Also note that due to works in the park
Northala Fields is having to adopt a new temporary two-lap course and has
restricted car parking for the next three months. Rumours that Wembley wants one
of the mounds back are NOT true]. Paul Watt Full club parkrun database - {read access to club parkrun database} - Download and explore (this is where I get most of my club stats from). Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] Two Club Featured parkruns this weekend #Chris Kelly is running his #500 at Reading and I am sure he would like some company. Both Reading and also Gunnersbury parkrun are club featured parkruns for this Saturday. If you can't decide which one to be at then bare in mind that the M25 to Langley stretch of the M4, between Gunnersbury and Reading, is expected to be closed in both directions this weekend. Please check on the two respective parkrun website pages for details of access. Try to get there before 08:45 to allow pre-event photographs. Gunnersbury: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/gunnersbury Reading: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/reading Fulham Street-O - Tuesday 11th ReportYou are given the map and the clock is ticking down from one hour, with large penalties for getting back late. How many of the controls can you visit without getting run over or having head on collisions with runners heading the other way? In this the 4th of this year's winter series it was good to see Harjit Jhooti, Melanie Miller and a friend also take part and return within the hour having visited six controls for 150 points. And it was also good to hear them talk in the pub afterwards on how they could have done better.
So I made myself do it again on Sunday. This time I headed for the railway bridge which the map showed me had controls at either end (a bridge I had known had a footpath on it even before last Tuesday) and from there I was able to pick up the high value points in the SE of the map. I was then able to get further to the north and I would have made it back in time if I hadn't lost concentration and forgotten which road I was on (between controls 15 and 37 I forgot that I wasn't on the north-south road. This led me to making a double back and then a misdirect on the way to 22). I would have been back in time but, had this been Tuesday, I'd have needed up to three minutes of time penalties to focus on the new map on this more challenging course. Nevertheless I still added 100pts to Tuesday's score which would have moved me to 30th place rather than 46th. My December result had been good (I did chance upon the route that best suited my fitness and capabilities) and since I've run all four of this season's races so far I'm currently sitting in tenth place in the series table. But there are still four events to go and the series result is based on the best five results over the season so, even though I'll quickly drop last week's result, I will be overtaken by stronger competitors when they get to do their fifth runs. The next event is on the evening of Tuesday 8th February, at a venue still to be announced (see StreetO Tuesday 8th February 2022 | London Orienteering Klubb). Roderick Hoffman To the Editor:So sorry for such late reply. I haven't had many running achievements last year, if any at all it was probably having done a parkrun in under 30min!!! As for this year if I can keep running I'll be happy. This new job [electrician] doesn't leave much free time for me to run. Monica Alonso 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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Our
men were at Richmond Park and managed a full turnout including one extra runner.
This resulted in a 9th place team finish amongst 14. Had our 10th and 11th
finishers not turned up we'd have finished tenth - so they made all the
difference. Mike and Mark were 3rd and 4th V60s on the day. The next men's match
is probably at Lloyd Park on 19th February.
We
will meet a short way into the residents carpark, at the covered shelter (next
to public toilets). We will meet at 12:00, waiting for anyone who has told
me that they are coming.
Six
of us registered one mile runs this month (including Melanie from December).
Mike Dennison and Maria Jovani recorded theirs from the Ealing Mile. Mike
equalled his course PB and was top V60. Maria also topped her age-group. The
rest of us ran solo - though in spirit with company.
I
was not pleased with my run. Not only did I lose three minutes finding the first
control but even before that I'd gone wrong - I headed for the easiest to get
first control and then the next easiest beyond that and then on to the
third...and I found myself in a part of the map where the controls were low
value and far apart. By the time I'd got back into a good area I was running out
of time and couldn't tick off value controls on my way home.