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BA Athletics Club News Digest 20th January 2014

Forthcoming Events:

• Saturday 25th January 9:00 Club Featured parkrun - Gunpowder (Waltham Abbey)
• Lunchtime Tuesday 28th January - Round-the-Block - Concorde Centre start 12:30 (see below)
• Wednesday 29th January - 5 Mile Handicap - Concorde Centre from 18:00

New members and non-members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome at all of these events.

The full events diary is on the club website at: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml. (updated 13th January)

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

Tuesday 28th January - The Traditional Round-the-Block race from the Concorde Centre

As in past years the race is a single lap course of around 5k, around the Heston area. The start will be at around 12:30 and is a short walk from the Concorde Centre, so please leave enough time.  Anybody and everybody is welcome to take part including mixed teams of four. This is a fun event and ALL levels of runners/joggers are welcomed.  Please pass this information on to anyone else who might be interested.  Lifts can be offered from and back to Waterside and other locations.  There is a £1 entry fee which will be donated to the White Lodge Centre charity.

Paul Knechtl

Men's Surrey League XC 3nd Match Report - Oxshott 11th January

The men's 3rd cross country race of the season took place at Oxshott on Saturday 11th, with a fantastic BAAC turnout of 12 runners, with conditions underfoot quiet dry considering the whether we`ve had. We finished an excellent 2nd on the day and now lie in 3rd place and only 12 points behind the team in second place. Paul Knechtl lead the team home again finishing a very good 3rd in div 4 followed by Chris Kelly in 10th place & John Taylor in 19th.

Look forward to seeing you ALL again (or more) at our last fixture where we could be promoted on the 8th Feb 2014 Newlands corner, Guildford , with a start time of 3.00pm.

Cheers Gary Rushmer

BAAC 15th January 2014 Four Way Folly Results

The first CIE of 2014 on a reasonable (for January) evening, there were 14 runners divided into 4 teams, 2 teams of four and 2 teams of three (the teams of three adding a "Mr. Average" to make up their total time). Brian Forrester calls for order to deliver the instructions, with several runners off down Church Road on a warm up, "Disqualify them!" were the cries from the runners standing patiently at the start as those warming up headed back. Brian waited until they got back to the start before the instructions were duly delivered to all the runners. All teams were to run the same distance over the same course BUT in a different sequence. Each team then lined up in the direction they were to start. At the call of 'on your marks', 'GO' each team set off on their own route around the figure of 8 course. Paddy and Harry were directing on the course with Brian, John (Banks), Anne and myself at the start, finish & centre of the figure 8, getting steadily colder as the time passed. Team 1 and 3 started on the smaller loop towards the footbridge, with teams 2 and 4 starting the larger of the loops towards Tesco. Predictably the runners on the smaller loop passed the start finish before the runners from the larger loop. All runners getting suitable encouragement as they passed by the start finish to head off on the second loop of the figure 8.

The quickest runner was the only one to return under 20 minutes, with the rest spread out up to 35 minutes. Great to see Alice and John Banks and also in the clubhouse George T. and his daughter. In due course the results were announced and prizes awarded before tucking into a helping of Sausage, Chips and Beans.

Paul Brandon

Ed: It could be said that the club sometimes manage to plan roughly equal ability teams for our CIE events but on this occasion we didn't - every runner in Team 1 running faster than the average in each other teams.  However since the prizes for all teams were equivalent the actual winners on the night were the members of the three person teams since they got the calorific content divided by three whereas the four person teams had the same number of calories divided by four.  But life is never fair!

parkrun update for 18th January

No full stats update since Steve Newell is in Melbourne watching the tennis but rest assured that Steve has survived the Melbourne heat wave becoming the second BA Club runner to run Albert Park parkrun - and he wasn't far short of my time either. We also have a new club parkrunner this week - Alice Banks announcing her return to action with an impressive time at Black Park.  My time at Clair (Haywards Heath) wasn't so impressive but my defense is that this is a truly undulating course - though one did get used to the hills with an unusual four and a half laps!  I'd also done a new parkrun last week at Arrow Valley near Reddich which now means that the club total parkruns is 88.  Quite soon Steve and I will announce a push for the hundred parkruns but in the meantime you might like to view the following map that shows all of the parkruns that BA runners have done...and those that we are yet to do.  Click on the map to explore the full 1.8Mb image of the UK.

parkrun itself goes from strength to strength with record numbers last week then exceeded this week.  Worldwide numbers on Saturday were  62,323 parkrunners at 339 events including 43,786 runners at 229 events in the UK.  Bushy had its 500th event on the11th January and that afternoon's cross country event didn't stop Ian Cunningham being involved - though he chose the busiest parkrun volunteer job ever managing the finish funnels for a parkrun with, wait for it, one thousand and one hundred and eighty four finishers.

Roderick Hoffman

Next Saturday's club featured parkrun - Gunpowder...

Directions - Gunpowder Park is located to the north of Greater London just south of historic Waltham Abbey and the M25 (close to junction 26). The main entrance is on the Sewardstone Road (A112) south of the roundabout junction with the A121. Full Address: Gunpowder Park, Sewardstone Road, Waltham Abbey, Essex EN9 3GP
Amenities - There is a good car park and public toilets
Location - set in Gunpowder Park which is a wide area of open space surrounded by trees, the site was owned by the Ministry of Defense and was part of the site of the Historic Royal Gunpowder Mills which manufactured Gunpowder and Munitions for over 300 years finally ceasing production in 1991.
Course - The entire run is on a good wide gravel surface and is two circuits of a clockwise course. The course is mostly on the flat apart from two small hills. Although the course drains pretty well if there has been heavy rain a number of large puddles form so expect damp feet in that event.
Field - Most runners GPS make the course just a little over 5K, the course record of 15:24 and an average run time for all events so far of 27:12
The run started in October 2011 and this will be run number 116.  The first run attracted 26 runners but numbers have been growing and most runs now attract more than 100 runners.

Tony Hird

Gunpowder parkrun more details: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/gunpowder/

It'll be nice to have a good turnout so anyone who needs a lift email Roderick or post on the facebook page.

Joe's Recommended London Marathon Training Eventsh3>

Date	Event	Mileage
26 Jan	Gade Valley mara trainer 1	12.7
9 Feb	Wokingham half mara	13.1
16 Feb	Bramley 20	20
23 Feb	Gade Valley mara trainer 2	17
2 Mar	Reading half mara Clapham Chasers Thameside mara trainer	13.1 20
9 Mar	Datchet Dashers mara trainer	20
23 Mar	Gade Valley mara trainer 2	20

Joe Nolan (new email address thejoenolan@gmail.com )

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News for the next BAAC News Digest?

Please send items for inclusion in the next Digest.  Results, news, feedback, jokes, stories - send it to us at news@barunner.org,uk.  You can copy Paul Brandon and Roderick Hoffman in BUT the news@ address is the one that we use when the digest is compiled.

Club website:

www.barunner.org.uk.