baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 19th December 2022
Events marked "#" are points scoring for the club's participation trophy - 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. Weekly Athletic Achievement (by Sunday evening) or use the Facebook group prompt:
Five Mile Handicap results #It was chilly evening during a cold week and only three runners braved the near freezing conditions at Bedfont for the third leg (of six) and this winter’s 5 mile handicap event. Conditions on the route were free of ice with fewer pedestrians than usual on the pavements. Maarten Stenham (running without young Jacob on this occasion) didn’t hang about and was fastest by a margin. Steve Taylor was closest to target and Steve Hillier making his debut for this season struck a steady rhythm just a little slower than predicted. The club bar was welcomely warm with a friendly black cat monopolizing the best seat and totally ignoring the World Cup semifinal on the big screen.
Points table after three events:
The winner of the six run series is traditionally the runner with the most points from their best four runs out of the six. Thus, with three runs left, a new runner could still end the series with 75 points. The next event is on Wednesday 25th January. Recent Activity Achievements14 club members and friends' achievements are listed below. Your achievement not listed? It could be because you didn't submit it.
[top row of pictures, those held over from last week]
Roderick Hoffman Piers adds: "My 195th marathon. The weather conditions were brutal - cold, very wet and windy. The worst running conditions of the 8 Portsmouth marathons that I have now completed. Finished in 4:49:02 - just 6 years ago I managed 3:35:45. I spotted Jasvir Singh out on the course and he finished in 6:09:33 - lost count of how many Jas has done - into the 3 or 400's now! I don't think I'll be running this one again - will look to Spain for my next December marathons - Valencia for 2023 and perhaps Malaga or Lanzarote for 2024." KLM Beach Run
Melanie Miller writes, "Did the KLM Road Runners thing
yesterday…actually made quite a change from parkrun which had a blanket
cancellation ‘theme’ across Holland due to snow 'n' ice..out here tho we had
perfect weather conditions albeit a tad cold, but a lovely undulating dunes
route and then onto the beach which is the pic you see here…thanks Roderick
Hoffman for organising we should try do a group expedition to these shores
to fly-the-flag for BA next year!!!" parkrun Results for Saturday 10th December 202221 activities are recorded this week. Please get in touch if your activity is missing.
parkrun review Saturday 17th December 2022
There was one new parkrun in UK this week at Market Bosworth in Leicestershire – a well kept secret that attracted a mere 249 finishers! Most of the runners were members of some club or other, so word must have got out! The club featured parkrun at Osterley attracted five members led home by Mike Dennison (20:49) while five others defected to Gunnersbury which was celebrating its 500th run. Former members and inaugural runners Mike Lawrence (23:14) and Bill Byrne (31:03, with Claire) were there too. Lessons have been learned. These two parkruns survived with volunteers scattering salt on icy patches before dawn while nearly all parkruns in London to the North of the Thames were cancelled. One new parkrun was added to the club collection this week with David Cowell (19:11) recording a rare first finisher spot at Maaraue, close to the confluence of the Rhine and Main rivers in Germany. The course includes stretches along the banks of both rivers. With Christmas Day falling on a Sunday this year there will be opportunities to take in a parkrun on consecutive days on 24th and 25 December and then again on 31st December and 1st January. All parkruns are scheduled to start at the usual time (0900/0930) so the opportunity to try to fit in two New Year runs won’t apply this time round. Never say Never. With Guildford cancelled the indefatigable Alastair Heslop volunteered as a marshal at Broadwater. Steve Newell Club Featured parkrun #
A late change of club featured parkrun from Osterley to Gunnersbury followed an alert from the latter’s event director Arlene Gallagher that it would be Gunnersbury’s 500th running and that stalwart Alan Anderson’s presence was requested. Alan duly cycled from his Osterley home and met up with Steve Newell, Piers and Kathryn Keenleyside, and John and Benita Scaife in the bright but very frosty park. The event had survived an early morning inspection but the briefing drew attention to the patches of ice on the paths, around which the 488 participants appear to have weaved without major incident. Piers warmed up (or at least thawed out) for a marathon the following day in Portsmouth by leading the BA team home in 26:51. The post-event cafe turned out to be something of a BAAC reunion as we bumped into former members Bill Byrne and Mike Lawrence plus Bill’s wife Claire and their son Tristan, all of whom had also done the parkrun. Meanwhile those who had failed to spot Roderick’s post which advised the change of venue - Mike D, Maria, Trish, Barry and Bob - completed the originally scheduled Osterley parkrun which had also escaped the long list of cancelled events. John Scaife Matters Arising - CancellationsI updated my cancellations by reasons map to show last Saturday's cancellations. Click on the image to load the Google map to study the detail. Of 779 UK parkruns only 328 operated (42%). 52% had cancellation reasons referring to ice. Three were cancelled due to "Incidents" including Babbs Mill which was in the news all week and East Brighton which had an ambulance helicopter land on the course preventing a third of the field from finishing (it is the landing point for a nearby hospital). Greater London had 43 of its 60 parkruns cancelled due to ice and three for other reasons, though probably reasons caused by ice. But 14 parkruns did operate (23%). The Netherlands had 86% of its parkruns cancelled - including the one that Melanie Miller had travelled across to run.
Roderick Hoffman Full club parkrun database - {read access to club parkrun database} - Download and explore. Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]
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| Finish Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 1 | ... | 0:22:40 |
| 11 | Ian Cunningham | 0:35:57 |
| 12 | Janet Cunningham | 0:36:43 |
| 20 | Joan Foxley | 0:56:15 |
Next Digest - Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send them to the editor, Roderick Hoffman, at news@barunner.org.uk.
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The cold weather continued for another week and hundreds of UK parkruns were
cancelled because of course safety concerns. In UK as a whole only 46,000
completed a 5km parkrun against over 120,000 on the last Saturday of balmy
November. Attendances at some parkruns that went ahead were better
attended than usual as frustrated runners sought somewhere to get their weekly
fix {pictured - Dunstable Downs parkrun, Keith may be in shot}.
Stockley Country Park parkrun
Test Run