baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 17th May 2021For future weeks: inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk.
For Coronavirus related restrictions and advice see News_Coronavirus_Guidance_May_2021.shtml [updated to reflect step 3 of the road map]. Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] This Week's and Future Solo 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, such as the weekend achievement, 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 5pm on Monday 31st May, to be reported on that evening):
Weekend Achievement (by 5pm on the Monday) or use the Facebook prompt that will be added on Friday:
In-Person Events - please register in advance. Please provide suggestions and offer to organise.There is a NOW event at lunchtime on 19th May at Burnham Beeches, see below. There will be a Track-on-Field at Feltham on Tuesday 25th May from 12:30. See the diary for details. I'm also doing the groundwork for an Orienteering event in Black Park, the permanent course is there and I've got access to the maps needed, on Facebook I'm asking what day and time will best suit - please respond (new options added). Please register your interest for these in-person events even if you are only a possible. Either by email or using the "Signup" option on the diary entry > Roderick Hoffman (register interest) . Future In-Person events will be added to the diary as organisers put themselves forward. NOW Run Burnham Beeches Wednesday 19th May from 12:00Start/finish will be at the Beeches Eco Cafe which is at one end of the main car park off Beeches Road, Farnham Common, nearest postcode SL2 3PS or W3W "scores.month.coach". Parking is pay & display, the cost is £3 for all day and the machines are card only. Meet there around 12:00, although we will not set off on the dot. The undulating single lap route is a mix of woodland paths with some stretches on sealed drives (traffic free apart from the odd Rangers' vehicle). We will bring a couple of printed copies of the route for the benefit of any walkers and/or fast runners. Apart from which I assume we will go round together. It is probably around 5k. The cafe offers (or at least did this morning) a good range of savoury items as well as pastries and hot/cold drinks. There is outdoor seating, some of which is covered. The covered area was not in use today but should be available if we need it on 19th. There are toilets next to the cafe. John Scaife Let us know to expect you - but please just turn up if you become available at the last minute > Roderick Hoffman . The forecast looks OK - a risk of light showers, so we might need that covered area at the cafe! Speedbird Ladies Race Confirmation - 26th May # Runners and Helpers neededWe have permission to hold the Speedbird Ladies 5k race in Cranford Park on the evening of Wednesday 26th May. The race will be over the two laps of the cross-country course (5k total). The car park closes at 20:00 so the race will start at 18:30 to enable slower runners or walkers to take part. There are no facilities in the park. We are allowed 50 participants. As of yesterday we had 32 entered so there is still space for a few more. Club entries or requests for non-club member invitations to Steve Taylor > Entrants to SteveT@barunner.org.uk. Please include runner name, age band, email address, running club (if any), emergency contact details and relevant medical conditions. The event is free to enter, although a charity donation of £2 to £5 is recommended. There will be no medals or other rewards. We also need helpers on the night. As well as the usual committee members we already have Paul Watt, John Scaife and Denis Foxley. We would like a few more. On request, male marshals will be invited to check out the course from 17:30. Roderick Hoffman > Marshals to News@barunner.org.uk Track and Field Veterans League Match - Hillingdon Athletics Stadium, Uxbridge, Monday 7th JuneThis event is ON! After a long period of lockdown, we should be competing again next month. Careful precautions are being taken to allow our first Veterans League match to take place at Hillingdon Athletics Stadium (Uxbridge track), on the evening of Monday 7th June. Men and ladies are invited to compete in a range of events and in three age groups V35, V50 and V60. Six events have so far been confirmed: 200m, 800m, 3000m, Shot, Long Jump and Javelin. We have also been asked to provide some helpers with timing, pit raking or implement collecting. Please let me know by May 30th if you are interested in competing and in which event(s) and age group, or if you think you can help on the night. We need to declare our athletes on the 31st. May Mile Results
Roderick Hoffman Virtual Green Belt Relay! # Report
Nevertheless, the BA team did not want to miss the chance of "competing" as usual, since 2004, and a team was mustered. There is no need to dwell on the trials of getting 11 runners to the line for the 2021 vGBR, as although we did lose prospective team members Neil Frediani and Ian Cunningham to travel/jobs/injuries (recovering) along the way, we were pleased to also know that Piers Keenleyside and A.N. Other, were in reserve. When we lost Dave Dixon within four miles of the start of his leg to calf injury, it was unfortunately too late to bring in a replacement, and so we did take a couple of cut-off times (that normally Dave would be quite a long way ahead of...). Despite this, the rest of the team put in the usual sterling shifts over the considerable distances required - averaging 19+ miles each over the two days - with the fastest legs coming from two of our M60s - Duncan Wright and Mike Dennison !! Some runners had more moisture to contend with than others - Tim Bellars, Vicky McFarlin and Roderick Hoffman - despite running "actual" legs in the event - Tatsfield, West Hangar and Walton Bridge (and assurances that it never rains on the 'real' GBR * ). And the rest of us - Barry "Negative Split" Walters, Steve "Little Marlow" Taylor, Amanda "Reunion 5K too" Coombs, and Josie "not Murray" Hogge have some achey legs to remember. All told, we finished in a decent 32:33:09, for the 216 miles - so an average pace of 9:03 min/miles - which would get us an excellent 8:17 at Comrades = not bad! * there is a footnote about this somewhere... Chris Kelly (also see below) See the weekend achievement report for actual distances run by each team member. And thanks to Amanda for the picture montage. And yes, that is the Pont du Gard Roman aqueduct, near Nīmes, close to where Duncan Wright did his "round London" run. Although not in the team, Piers Keenleyside also met the criteria to score a club point by doing stage length runs on both Saturday and Sunday. Perhaps of higher value and usefulness the GBR organisers have offered me a "Stage Winners" shirt for being the first (and only) finisher of the 2021 final stage 22. Roderick Hoffman Reunion 5k # ResultsI only know of Amanda Coombs racing in the Reunion 5k. Melanie Miller would have done but the only one of the three races she could attend was cancelled. Amanda finished in 27:45 - as a warm-up for her GBR stages later that day and on Sunday! Note that the club points rules only allow her to get one club point even though she ran in both qualifying events. I have the results for the Reunion 5k, but with just under 2,000 finishers across the two races and without "club" in the data I could have missed other members and friends - please let me know.
Letters to the EditorNo space this week to squeeze in any of the correspondence received since last week. Not that there has been much. BA Athletics Club Records - The Long JumpOn 7th June some of these records could be under threat - but only if you tell Steve that you'd like to compete at the Veterans match at Uxbridge. To qualify as a record the event has to be competitive and accurately measured and the participant has to be a paid-up member of the club and wearing a club vest (or in an in-house organised event). Members for whom BA is a second claim club may need permission from their first claim club for them to jump in a BA vest and claim the record (so the same performance cannot be claimed by two different clubs).
If you know better please send us your claim - we want to get these in the best shape possible. New records or questions: Stats@barunner.org.uk . Roderick Hoffman obo Paul Brandon * The picture shows Paul Goldsmith jumping at the BA Championships in 2002, This wasn't his record breaking jump, but it certainly reveals his unique style. An issue with the data is that the record jump was said to be at the BA Championships in September - my photograph was taken on 10th August and the Round-the-Block confirms that as the date of those championships. Paul Goldsmith's performance was actually at the Grand Prix event at Eton on 30th September. Paul "have-a-go" Goldsmith holds records across eight different disciplines and only recently lost records from two others. parkrun updateThere was a 12-month record number of 5k parkuns last Saturday with 530. The five largest were all in Australia but the sixth largest was a "UK" parkrun, Jersey with 338 participants. There were also 163 junior events held in the UK (and 5 in Australia) and the largest was Eaton juniors with 212 under 11s. Nearer to home Aldershot and Woodley had the next two biggest Junior parkruns. Dylan Banks was one of 1271 participants recording their first UK Junior parkrun. 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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For
the second year, a virtual relay has been the only option - it simplified
logistics, but missed some of the joy of the real relay, with individual runs
becoming subsumed within the overall - directly influencing it, but also quickly
overtaken by the next part of it - whether getting to the next start, or marshal
point, in advance, or in time, or late... and the communal pleasures of
drinks/food/society.
Chris
reports on his two GBR stage runs: