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BA Athletics Club News Digest 20th May 2013

This News Digest

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Forthcoming Events

Don't forget the following priority club events:

• CIE Wednesday 22nd May - "Ruffell Runaround" - Concorde Centre from 18:00 followed by Joe Nolan informal presentation
• Bank Holiday Monday 27th May - BUPA 10,000 Central London - Major club marshalling event
• Saturday 1st June - Club Featured parkrun - Wormwood Scrubs

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.

Wed 22nd Ruffell Runaround

Please come and join us at the Concorde Centre for the running version of Countdown. No need to bring anything but yourself and your running kit, full instructions will be provided on the night. You will be able to run anything from around 5k upwards, with a time limit of 50 minutes. The start will be 6pm from the Concorde Centre.

Richard Ruffell

The Ruffell Runaround will be followed by an informal presentation by Joe Nolan on coaching and how we can all benefit from coaching.  All members are urged to attend.

Calls for help

I've had some response from club members and running friends to my appeal last week for helpers for the Concorde Five on Sunday 9th June but I do need to hear from more of you.  Please reply if you are able to help or to send your apologies if you cannot.

Roderick Hoffman (Race Director) - contact me to volunteer yourself or suggest others: roderick@rhoff.org.uk (name / contact details / role)

Race entry form for yourself or to pass to others http://www.barunner.org.uk/attachments/ConcordeEntry2013.docx

Also - Clara Halket has had some dropouts from the helpers for the BUPA 10K on Bank Holiday Monday, 27th May so if you are now available and able to help please let Clara know.

And I'm sure that Richard Ruffell is still collecting names of runners for the Bridges Relay at Westminster on June 26th. Richard.ruffell@ba.com.

And then it will be the BA Fun Run on Thursday July 25th - this has now been officially announced and will have a theme of "Carnival", will be in aid of Cancer Research UK as usual and will include the 1k Little Legs race as well as the 5k fun run.  I will be nagging for helpers but I'll wait until the Concorde Five is well on the way before starting.

Track & Field Events

The third week of May saw some high and lows for our Track & Field team.

On Monday, three athletes tackled the Southern Counties Vets league for the first time. In the M50s, Gary Rushmer jumped well in the long jump, and had a strong 1500m finish in just outside 5 minutes. Meanwhile Steve Hillier took third in a large discus field, only to finish fifth in the 100m.

Eddie Giles rocketed out of the blocks in the M60 100m, and by half way was in the lead. Sadly, a pulled thigh muscle suddenly sent him crashing to the track, the impact breaking his wrist. Eddie is now in plaster, and while remaining positive, while be out of action for a little while.

On Wednesday, Gary and Steve were joined by Chris Kelly at Walton for the Rosenheim League. The aim is to once again finish at least in the top four and qualify for the August final.
The team covered almost all the events, although the 4 x 200 was always going to be a problem! Fourth place was the lowest achieved in any track event (Steve's 200m) while Gary ran another fast 1500m for 2nd place, and Chris crept under eleven minutes to claim third in the 3000m. With the field events shared between the team, a top four ranking was again achieved.

With Eddie injured, we need your help even more this summer. Come and join in one of these friendly competitions. Next up:

• Wednesday 5th June 1845: Rosenheim League at Ewell
• Monday 10th June 1830: Vets League at the Uxbridge track (our home fixture)

Steve Hillier

Editor: Could we all wish Eddie a speedy and full recovery.  Apparently Eddie's first words when Gary got to his prone body on the track were "I was leading..." - that would look good on a tombstone!  Having been a major contributor to club activities and this digest he will be missed.

Track & Field Results

Thanks to Gary Rushmer for the following:

Here are the results for the Vets League meeting at Battersea:

• 100 metres: 5th, Steve Hillier, 15.9
• 1500 metres: 3rd, Gary Rushmer, 5.17.3
• Discus: 3rd, Steve Hillier, 22.03
• Long jump: 4th, Gary Rushmer, 3.20

League table after 1st meeting

• 1st: Hillingdon 128
• 2nd: Herne Hill Harriers 117.5
• 3rd: Serpentine 106
• 4th: Ealing Southall & Middlesex 37.5
• 5th: Metros 27
• 6th: British Airways 13

Here the results from the Rosenheim League meeting at Walton.

• 200 metres: 5th, Steve Hillier, 33.6
• 400 metres: 4th, Chris Kelly, 70.0
• 800 metres: 3rd, Gary Rushmer, 2.31.5
• 1500 metres: 2nd, Gary Rushmer, 5.06.5
• 3000 metres: 5th, Chris Kelly, 10.58.9
• High jump: 5th, Steve Hillier, 1.10
• Long jump: 4th, Gary Rushmer, 3.18
• Discus: 6th, Steve Hillier, 17.97
• Javelin: 6th, Steve Hillier, 16.00

Men's team positions after match two.

• 1: Walton
• 2: St Mary's Richmond
• 3: Kingston & Polytechnic
• 4: British Airways
• 5: Epsom & Ewell
• 6: Woking

And to Steve Hillier for the T&F Grand Prix results:

1500m:

1st    Gary Rushmer    5:05.40

2nd    Roderick Hoffman    7:19.50

3rd    Steve Hillier    7:50.16

Shot (6kg):

1st    Steve Hillier    8.17m

2nd    Gary Rushmer    5.69m

parkrun Results and Statistics

Once more last Saturday twelve BAAC parkrun family members ran at a total of nine different parkruns.  Of particular note Steve Newell and I travelled down to the inaugural running of the "Queen Elizabeth" country park parkrun.  This was just off the A3 on the way to Portsmouth and most noticeably on the South Downs Way.  This meant it was hilly - and perhaps the only reason we got round at all was because the finish was a good 20 metres lower than the start. Danny Norman (one of the parkrun elite) has done 86 different parkruns and describes it in this week's parkrun radio broadcast (yes there is such a thing) as the hilliest he has done.  Now what is unique about this run compared to the other 1,690 club familiy parkrun runs in Steve's database is that this was the first one at a parkrun starting with the initial letter "Q".  That means we no longer need to plan to send one of us over to Belfast to run at "Queens".  There are still a few gaps as the following table shows - we still need to send someone to either "Ipswich" or "Inverness" and to "York".  We also need the parkrun organisers to establish new parkruns at places or parks starting with "J", "X" and "Z".  I'm sure that they will welcome your suggestions.

The table shows how many of us have run how many total times at each park and (usually) which one of us has run there most often.  So at Bedfont Lakes for instance 26 of us have run there a total of 271 times and Scott has done the most at 67. 

For those of us who are yet to do a parkrun these are free 5k time trials run in 250 parks in the UK and worldwide every Saturday morning www.parkrun.org.uk.

Total number of different parkrun venues run at by club family - 61.

Thanks as ever to Steve Newell for putting together the stats to enable such trivia.

Steve's parkrun stats

Roderick Hoffman

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