baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 21st August 2017

Events:

• Wednesday 23rd August, Club-In-house-Event, BBQ on Harmondsworth Moor from 18:00* (see below)
• Tuesday 5th September, Run-of-the-Month, Round-the-Park at Harmondsworth Moor at 12:30*
• Thursday 7th September, Dream Mile, Bath Road from 12:45.

New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome at all of these events.  The full diary of club featured events is on the club website at: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml.

*Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

Not for you, no longer interested?  remove me please.

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Club Facebook Page "BARunner" https://www.facebook.com/BARunnerUK/

Wednesday 23rd August, Club-In-house-Event, BBQ on Harmondsworth Moor from 18:00 - Reminder, tell us to expect you

Please turn up at our annual BBQ on Wednesday, and bring a friend.  Ideally tell us in advance so that we can bring enough sausages but getting there should be the priority.

For the event this is what Joe has planned...

2017 BA-thlon BBQ Relay

• pre-event warm up session,
• runners will be paired as A and B in each team,
• each runner will run a lap of the marked 400m course alternatively, completing 3 laps each,
• the first 20m of each running leg will include a section of low hurdles – the one person who negotiates these most effectively in the judgment of the referee [Ed: don't forget to smile] will have a bonus of 20secs deducted from their pair overall time,
• whilst one of the pair is on their running leg, the other member will have 5 attempts at throwing a ball into buckets placed about 10m away - a bonus of 5secs will be deducted from their pair overall time for every ball ‘strike’,
• the pair with the least accumulated time will be the event winners and a prize will be awarded,
• post-event warm down session and then let’s crack open the beer and wine and enjoy the tasty BBQ !

Location

On Harmondsworth Moor, but not in the usual place.  For the BBQ event we use an area just north of Moor Lane - it is shown on the club map (click on the extract here) and has easy parking in Moor Lane available from 16:30.

Roderick Hoffman obo Neil, Joe and Clara

September Venues for club evenings

"Times they are a changing" and we do expect to finally lose access to the Heston Venue changing rooms from the end of September.  These are our plans for Wednesday evenings in September as we continue to look around for alternatives:

• 6th September - Wraysbury Lake, Sailing Base Club House - ad hoc run from 18:00, Neil will point out some run options, followed by our monthly Committee Meeting - NOTE no catering provided so bring your own food & drink.
• 13th September - ad hoc runs from Heston Venue, optional visit to the Queen's Head afterwards - discount for those with BA Club's card though not as generous as it was before.
• 20th September - Equinox 5k from Heston Venue, then the Queen's Head from 19:30. This could be our last use of Heston Venue.
• 27th September - We have been invited to join Hayes and Harlington Runners for their regular Wednesday evening run.  This is from the Hayes and Harlington Community Centre (Albert Road, Hayes, UB3 4HR) and be ready to run AT 19:30 (so much later than we normally run). We can change there and shower afterwards and join the H&H Runners in the bar for a chat afterwards. They normally have half a dozen to a dozen runners on a Wednesday, with mixed speeds, so we could make good company for them. It would be good if there were at least half a dozen of us, and if we could tell them in advance how many to expect, so please consider it and let me know you'll be expected.

Roderick Hoffman {roderick@rhoff.org.uk}

Club parkrun results for Saturday 19th August

Wanderlust and the global reach of our members continued unabated this week and instead of the action being confined to less than an hour starting at 9 a.m. it lasted for more like eighteen hours.

Benita (30:45) and John Scaife (30:46) started the ball rolling at Parc Menai to the west of Sydney at 8 a.m. where the clocks are 9 hours ahead of UK. So that is four new runs in Australia in four weeks.  John is now on 99 runs so maybe he will come back home to chalk up 100 at Maidenhead (ED: thus also increasing his parkrun mileage - see below).

Ian Cunningham (23:17) was the next member looking for greener pastures with his first run at Reigate Priory and setting a new club course record.

Gareth Snook (24:22) and Roderick Hoffman (28:01) finally met up at Newport in Monmouthshire, well after the plan was first hatched.  So that made the score Old South Wales 2, New South Wales 2 but Alice Banks (26:15) had travelled to Pembrokeshire to run at the attractive sounding Colby Woodland Gardens (National Trust) to make 3-2 to the old country.  That time places Alice 2nd out of 55 in her age/gender category.  Our old friends Bob and Linda Winning have run at Colby and Bob holds the VM80-84 record there.

David Duggan (27:34) and Anne Bannister (27:43) made their first visits to Wimbledon Common parkrun and as Anne was the first female member to run there that becomes the club record(F). Alan Friar travelled hoping to run at Derry City (9.30 a.m. start) but we’ve no confirmation that he made the start line and due to some glitch results are still awaited.  Morning and afternoon slid by as the sun travelled west to the Pacific shore of Canada and Clover Point on Vancouver Island where a parkrun started only earlier this month. Runs there start at 8 a.m. (in summer anyway) and clocks are currently 8 hours behind UK.  Kimberley Turner (30:40) became our first member to run there.  There may be opportunities for others to run there in 2018 with WARR destined to be in Victoria.

Steve Newell

Updated club parkrun stats

parkrun Tourist Stats

In the Facebook "parkrunstatsgeeks" group someone started calculating great circle distances between consecutive parkruns run.  He thought his distance of 36,218 km was impressive but then he checked the leading tourist, Paul FREYNE, who had 168,894 km as his total.  Then he came across the BA Club.  My total (with annual trips to Melbourne) sums to 291,511 km which is just over 75% of the way to the moon.  My average therefore is 1,122 km between parkruns.  John Scaife has a lower total, 173,665 km, but a higher average, 1,754 km between parkruns, on average.

Dog fast

The Saturday before last Ben Robinson ran Penrose parkrun in 13:23. Yes, that is faster than Mo Farrow (or anybody) ran the 5,000m in the IAAF World Championships that weekend. It hasn't become the new parkrun record (still held by Andrew Baddeley at 13:48 set in August 2012) because Ben was greyhound assisted.  I'm glad I'm not his postman. The second place runner finished in 18 minutes - so over four minutes behind.

Olympians and Paralympians

Many Olympians and Paralympians took on the role of Tail Walker at parkruns last Saturday. Our runners managed to skirt around to miss them but don't be concerned - Joe Nolan points out that one of the Black Park regular pacer squad is an Olympian - Mark Moore, who usually paces 21/22/23, represented Great Britain in the 1984 Winter Olympics in cross country skiing!  And of course many of us have run with Paula Fudge at Frimley Lodge and in local races including the Concorde.

Roderick Hoffman

The Arethusa Mile - 30th August 2017 - Dusk

Other results & reports

There are rumours of club runners undertaking marathons and triathlons last weekend but no reports have been submitted.

Next Digest?

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

Club website:

www.barunner.org.uk.