baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 20th September 2021

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

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.

Track-on-Field (by end of Sunday 3rd October, to be reported on in the following digest):

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

Round-the-Park 2021 Result and Report

Last Wednesday 14 of us met outside the stable block of Osterley House and undertook this year's Round-the-Park race. We had chosen this venue since the parkrun course provided an easy to follow two-lap 5km course and the National Trust provided facilities including the cafe. In the photo Melanie Miller was behind the camera. Steve Newell encouraged us at the start and finish of each lap and recorded our times.

Roderick Hoffman

Wednesday's Equinox 5k and 40th Anniversary Event

Equinox 5k

This is being run at Bedfont Lakes using the same 5k course we used for this or a similar event a couple of years ago. The course is two anti-clockwise laps starting and finishing near the Bedfont Road car park (NOT near the Clockhouse Lane entrance where the parkrun used to start). From that car park head south to the start which will be between the small lake and the feature known as the Motte (described as "Mystery Fortification" on the map).

We would like to have finished by 7pm and we'd like to have staggered starts so that we all finish together. Therefore please target your arrival for 6pm or soon after, particularly if you are a slower runner:

• i) runners 35 mins or slower (for 5km) start at 6.15pm
• ii) 29-34 mins start at 6.20pm
• iii) Walking group (1 lap only) start at 6.22pm
• iii) 24-28 mins start at 6.25pm
• iv) elite group (under 24 mins) start at 6.30p.m.

Course (see map)

• Start at post by "The Motte", about 200m from the car park,
• Follow main path (over a couple of little hills) towards Clockhouse Lane entrance,
• Lakes will be visible on the righthand side from time to time. When nearing Clockhouse Lane (after 950m), ignore first 1st left, take 2nd left leaving playground on your right, if the playground is on your left you have missed the right path!,
• Path meanders round a small lake, then keep to the right at fork in the path at 1300m,
• A long straight path lies ahead parallel to the railway line and a prominent litter bin will be spotted on the righthand side at 1800m. Before reaching the bin, cross the grass to join a parallel path and then turn left and follow the new path which curves round to the right,
• Keep to the main path, this will mean keeping right, keeping left, keeping right at the next junctions and after rounding a big open space go left to follow the main path back to the Motte,
• After one lap walkers stop, runners continue for a second lap,
• Gather at the finish for a group photo.

Steve suggests that runners wear the oldest BA vest they can find!

The changing rooms at the Bedfont Club should be available from 5pm for those who want to jog out to the start (2.6km) and, with showers, will be available afterwards - though will not be secure whilst we are running the event.

If any non-runners are available to act as marshals they could be usefully employed! Please email Steve > Steve Newell

40th Anniversary Event

From 19:30 at the "Bedfont and Feltham Football and Social Club" in Hatton Road, entrance opposite the Duke of Wellington, postcode TW14 9QT.

The club will be providing food and there will be a drinks tab set up at the bar (from when I arrive!)

The event is intended to be a social event - there may be some short addresses but no long speeches! I will be bringing some club memorabilia from over the years and hopefully others will as well.

We will have supplies of our club running kit available to purchase so if you need a new running shirt, for instance for the winter cross countries, then this is your opportunity. Costs are £10.50 for t-shirts and £12.00 for vests, saving delivery costs and delays. Payment by cheque, cash or bank transfer on the evening.

Also if you only ever pay your club subs with cash or cheque then you could hand these over on the might - £9 for club membership and also optional £15 for England Athletics registration (required for your £2 event discounts and also to run in the Surrey Cross Country League).

As usual - if you tell us that you are coming, or if you apologise for your absence, it will help us since we'll have a better idea of how many we are catering for. But please come anyway - we've been waiting 40 years to see you!

Roderick Hoffman

40th Anniversary Clothing and Logo

To celebrate our 40th Anniversary we are proposing making some items of clothing available, branded with the club's registered colours (the "British Airways" speedmarque) and a logo representing the 40th. The final decision on these is likely to be taken at the committee meeting on 13th October and with requests for orders to be sent out soon after that. The decision will include by how much to subsidise the clothing. The poll we ran on Facebook suggests that the most popular items would be a technical Tee Shirt with the speedmarque on the front and/or back and the 40th logo on the sleeve and the second most popular was for a sweat top with a small speedmarque on the front and the logo on the sleeve. These have not yet been costed.

In terms of the 40th Logo the following three have proved popular on Facebook and feedback is now being sort from everyone, both through this digest and also at the meeting on Wednesday. Opinions are being sought (not votes), the committee will make the final decision taking a number of factors into account. New designs are also welcome but please provide these ASAP.  Note that we need to be careful with the use of the speedmarque; we can use it as our registered colours but shouldn't combine it with other elements, we would probably be okay with its use in design "A" below.

Feedback, random thoughts or additional submissions > Roderick Hoffman

London Marathon help – It’s not too late to volunteer! (for Sunday 3rd October 2021)

Those that subscribe to Facebook will have seen that the kit for the London Marathon has arrived. I’d assumed that as the organisers were chasing for me to submit names on ‘Rosterfy’ (the LM volunteer portal) by the end of August, this would determine the kit supplied but this is not the case as I’ve now got more kit than volunteers! So, if you would like to help, it’s not too late! First, ensure you’ve registered on ‘Rosterfy’ (London Marathon Events | Register (rosterfy.eu)) then drop me a line by Fri 26th Sep. at the latest. Kit this year includes a technical T-shirt and jacket in red and, like the Tokyo Olympics, is branded ‘2020’; the 40th running of the event.

Thank you for your help.

> Simon Turton (SimonT@barunner.org.uk)

There is a kit distribution event planned for 29th September at the Bedfont Club from 6pm. If you are a volunteer then please attend this if you can. Any collected kit will reduce the load of extra kit your team leader has to carry on the morning of the marathon.

September Mile Results

Clearly some of us are focusing on longer distances and others are relaxing between the end of the Track & Field season and the start of the Cross Country season. There are just three mile results to report (unless I've missed one). But here we are...

Hopefully we'll get a bigger turnout next month.

Activity Achievements for the week 13th September to 19th September 2021

14 activities recorded.

Roderick Hoffman

parkrun results for Saturday 18th September 2021

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

This week our club celebrates being 40 years old so we start at Frimley with a trip down memory lane at Frimley Lodge to recall the very early days of women being allowed to run any sort of long distance at all.  As recently as 1968 the longest race for women at the Olympic Games was over 800m.  Even the Olympics in Moscow (1980) only went up to 1500m although the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton in 1978 had included a 3000m race won by Paula Fudge (England) in 9:12.95.  5000m for women was only included in the Olympics from 1996 (Atlanta).

So on 13th September 1981 at Knarvik in Norway Paula won a 5000m track race in 15:14.51 to establish the first IAAF recognised world record.  This remained a British record for three years before being overtaken by Zola Budd.  Paula Fudge placed in the top 5 in both the 1986 and 1987 London Marathons (2h 32) beating most of our male club members in the process. This week at Frimley Lodge parkrun Paula ran round in a more sedate 32:15. Amongst those to cheer her at the finish were John Taylor (21:12), Mark Taylor (21:38), Graham Taylor (28:24), and Barry Walters (31:21).

Last week we featured “98”.  This week it is “49”.  Mike Dennison (19:47) and Maria Jovani (22:24) ran at Dinton Pastures.  For each of them that makes 49 different parkrun.  Mike has now dipped under 20 minutes for five consecutive weeks.  Piers Keenleyside (29:09) ran at St Albans for the first time and he is now on 49 parks as well.

One of last week's 98s was Jacqui Musselwhite. She did her 99th parkrun last Saturday at Les Dougnes, close to her brother's property in France, but will return to the UK later this week and expects to run her 100th parkrun on Saturday at familiar Woking parkrun. Anyone who wants to cheer her across the line should anticipate having to run a 23 minute parkrun themselves - but I'm sure she'll accept belated congratulations from later finishers.

Steve Newell & Roderick Hoffman

Full club parkrun database - {read access to club parkrun database} - Download and explore.

parkrun Volunteering Report

The club parkrun results table is generated each week using standard parkrun reports. Whilst all runs should be covered it isn't so easy to ensure that all club parkrun volunteer efforts have been reported on.  However, it is possible to do snapshot reports across a period of time. I've done one for volunteer efforts this year, so from the restart and including junior parkruns.

16 club members have carried out 148 roles. But these were not evenly distributed. David Duggan accomplished nearly 1/3 of these - 46, Emma Moreton 38 and Mike Dennison 15. Alistair Heslop and Maria Jovani have contributed 9 each and the rest of us more modest numbers. The most common activity has been "Communications Person" (thanks Emma) with 27 occurrences though "Marshal" totals 26 and with 12 different participants. Next is "Barcode Scanning" with 21 occurrences (9 participants) and Timekeeping (17 with 6 of us). The rarest of the roles undertaken by the 16 of us is "Other", undertaken just the once, by Alastair. "Other" is a volunteer credit given out when someone has made a significant contribution but not in an area covered by any of the normal roles. Note though that there are roles such as "VI Guide" which haven't been undertaken by club members yet this year. "Photographer" is the only other role to "Other" where only one of us has participated - Emma, twice.

The current parkrun policy on volunteering is to encourage it, and to credit those who have volunteered, but not to pressurise people into doing so.  It is true that if not enough people step forward then a parkrun will be cancelled, or may only go ahead with limited functions such as everyone getting "59:59" times. parkrun HQ would rather that than for volunteering to be seen as an obligation chore.

If you are able to volunteer then please do so - please see the "volunteer" section on your local parkrun's webpage.  You can also talk to one of our members who has undertaken the "Volunteer Co-ordinator" role such as David Duggan, Denis Foxley or Mike Dennison. Some roles can be combined with running the parkrun (including "Barcode Scanning" if you are a quick runner). Junior parkruns, happening on Sunday mornings at some locations, are often just as in need of volunteers as Saturday parkruns. All roles are considered equal. Some are more challenging that others, but equally may be more personally rewarding, and two roles, "Barcode Scanning" and "Timekeeper", require you to have a smartphone and to have loaded the parkrun Volunteer App.

Roderick Hoffman

FA Vase

Those of you who are BA Clubs members may have noticed that the Athletics Club got a good plug in the monthly emailed newsletter. They have since sent this out for anyone wanting to watch a live football game on Saturday...

Next Digest - Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send them to the editor, Roderick Hoffman, at news@barunner.org.uk.

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