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BA Athletics Club News Digest 21st November 2016

Events:

  • Wednesday 30th November - Winter 5 mile handicap from 18:00 at Heston Venue*
  • Thursday 1st December - December Dream Mile - 12:45 Bath Road*
  • Saturday 3rd December - Ladies Surrey League

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. [updated November 4th]

*Club Event Map: [long Google-map hyperlink you would not type in]

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

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Running related gossip and chat: Facebook Page "BARunner" https://www.facebook.com/BARunnerUK/


Club's 35th Anniversary event - 21st December

Please remember to notify us that you intend to make it to our anniversary event - by email, Facebook, pigeon etc.  We need to know for the catering. Not everyone will be able to make it, but if you can't this could be an opportunity to let the rest of us know how you are...

Hello to you Rod,

Your BAAC invitation came today, having been re-directed to us from our previous address; apologies for not replying sooner. We have moved (just over a year ago) to a village just south of Stroud. Although we aim to get back to the Berkshire area most weeks, to catch up with family, I think that the BAAC social on 21st December will be too difficult to fit in.

We do enjoy reading the regular newsletters....and recognise a fair few of the names still, so keep up with races, results etc.

Having spent a lot of time on recovering a very overgrown garden (doing battle with the badgers!) our list of 'things to do' is still considerably longer than our list of 'things we've done'   but with fabulous countryside around us - a lot of which is National Trust - the house can wait while we explore!!

We both wish you, and fellow BAAC members all the best.....and if anyone is ever up this way, we have a great selection of running/walking paths and challenging off road races waiting to tried out.   I'm getting back into some sort of fitness at last and plan on joining a local running club in the new year.  There's a fairly new parkrun at Stonehouse, not far from us (others would be Gloucester and Swindon I think) so who's going to be the first BA runner to do that!? 

Our new address is [contact the editor if you want the full address] Amberley, Stroud GLOS. GL5 5AP....check it out on googlemaps!

Seasons greetings to one and all

Lesley and Mike Macaskill

PS Andy is still at MySportingTimes....they have a great selection of races/events for something a bit different.

Roderick Hoffman


Club parkrun results for Saturday 19th November

Steve's on a boat so not the usual report and some runners and volunteers may have been missed...

parkrun Position Gender Position parkrunner Club Run Time Comment
Bedfont Lakes parkrun 6 6 Gary RUSHMER British Airways AC 00:20:11 50th run at Bedfont
Bedfont Lakes parkrun 27 26 Scott DAVISON British Airways AC 00:23:03
Bedfont Lakes parkrun 33 29 Neil FREDIANI British Airways AC 00:23:35 Course PB
Bedfont Lakes parkrun 66 13 Caroline COCKRAM British Airways AC 00:27:28
Bedfont Lakes parkrun 72 57 David DUGGAN British Airways AC 00:28:18
Bedfont Lakes parkrun 109 77 John LENNON British Airways AC 00:30:50
Bracknell parkrun 85 77 Lee JENKINS British Airways AC 00:25:09
Braunstone parkrun 311 108 Sarah GORDON British Airways AC 00:36:57
Bushy parkrun 342 291 Ian CUNNINGHAM British Airways AC 00:24:42
East Coast parkrun (Singapore) 37 29 Adrian HAINES Crawley AC 00:26:44
Guildford Alastair HESLOP British Airways AC Timekeeper
Gunnersbury parkrun 138 119 Piers KEENLEYSIDE Ealing Eagles RC 00:25:36
Gunnersbury parkrun 257 184 Alan ANDERSON British Airways AC 00:30:25 Improvement of twenty minutes
Harrow parkrun 40 38 Denis FOXLEY British Airways AC 00:25:54
Harrow parkrun 126 55 Joan FOXLEY 00:34:50 49th parkrun
Homewood parkrun 52 43 John COFFEY British Airways AC 00:27:18
Homewood parkrun 67 16 Monica ALONSO British Airways AC 00:29:09
Homewood parkrun 77 22 Helen SMITH British Airways AC 00:30:44 Course PB
Old Deer Park parkrun 43 8 Trish MCCABE British Airways AC 00:27:25
Peckham Rye parkrun 103 31 Emily WARBURTON-BROWN British Airways AC 00:28:32
Queen Elizabeth Park parkrun Roderick HOFFMAN British Airways AC Barcode Scanning
Reading parkrun 59 57 Christopher T KELLY British Airways AC 00:23:03
Reading parkrun 143 125 Alan FRIAR British Airways AC 00:27:29
Sheringham parkrun 48 41 John SCAIFE Maidenhead AC 00:25:58 New club parkrun
Sunderland parkrun 42 40 Steve DODSWORTH British Airways AC 00:24:42
Sunderland parkrun 118 22 Linda DODSWORTH British Airways AC 00:30:41
Wycombe Rye parkrun 252 175 Tony BARNWELL British Airways AC 00:32:57

One slower result is worthy of an explanation - Adrian Haines popped over to Singapore from his holiday in Thailand to add his name to the list of club colleagues who have run at East Coast parkrun.  Adrian's approach to getting to the start for 7am was the same as most of us would be if we were staying at a hotel near Heathrow or Gatwick - we wouldn't invest a new mortgage in a taxi fare.  So Adrian got up even earlier and jogged the five miles to the start but took one wrong turn and so ended up getting to the start five minutes late.  The event was underway but he joined in clocking his own time of 22:06 for the parkrun. Afterwards he jogged back to his hotel - but deliberately choosing the scenic route so that his training mileage was that of a half marathon. And this was in Singapore.  Let us hope that he is able to join us there next year for WARR (but we'll pay for the taxi for him - Singapore taxis are very cheap!).

parkrun Tourism

Three parkruns to report on in this week's parkrun Tourism slot.

Firstly I was at Queen Elizabeth Park where there was a third parkrun Tourist volunteer takeover.  The team of us, 23 in all and with 14 different home parkruns, took over all of the volunteering duties to enable the regulars to have a morning off, or even to take in their own parkrun themselves!  My job was barcode scanner and as usual I was relieved when I checked the results later and saw that all of the recorded times had been successfully matched to parkrunners (other than the three without barcodes).  It made an interesting morning - most of us knew the course from just one previous run of it but some had never been there before and had to walk the course after the run to see what the other corners were like. The runner attendance was more than doubled from the previous week - but that was only up to 86 and that included all four tail runners (don't ask).

Now news of the first of two new parkruns - Beckenham Place in south east London.  This much heralded parkrun had asked Tourist parkrunners to give the inaugural a miss and to a large extent this was heeded - though a small number felt compelled to maintain their "Lon-Done" status.  In all there were a manageable 193 finishers at the inaugural which based on the size of nearby parkruns may become a par for the course - although I suspect the attendance figure is more likely to go up than down next Saturday.

Then we had Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. Again much heralded and this time they hadn't asked tourists to keep away. This inaugural had a massive 569 finishers - which is roughly 69 more than they had finish barcodes or stopwatch finish time slots.  That puts in the shade this weekend's record turnout at Gunnersbury of 476 - indeed Cannock Chase had the 7th biggest turnout of all UK parkruns. The team coped albeit with the use of pen and paper towards the end.  Were tourists responsible for the massive field?  No, there were roughly the same number of tourists as at Beckenham but there were an incredible 220 new parkrunners!  Half the field had done five parkruns or fewer.  Having a few experienced tourists helped the newbies know what to do and also provided support for the volunteers controlling the finish processes.  It'll be interesting to see how many of the new parkrunners return over the next few weeks - it does imply that there has been a considerable pent up demand for a parkrun in the Cannock area. 

 PS there were ten finishers at parkrun de Montsouris this week, eight more than for my run the previous week - I'd have struggled to make the top five.

Roderick Hoffman

The Rowley Report

A little report from the Homewood parkrun on 19th.

My first visit to the venue as a tourist (spectator) with the weather cold but very sunny.  As many club members ran here 2/3 weeks ago they know the course is mostly tarmac paths although a very undulating and a nice little challenge.  A wonderful course for spectators and if you can stand at one point you can see the runners pass by six times if wanting to time them or watching if they slow down or increase their pace.

We had three members out of the 98 that finished.  With local lad John Coffey running his 5th time over the course was enjoying the challenge  looking quite relaxed to finish 52nd in 27.18 although 28 seconds outside his best of 26.50;  Then Monica Alonso making her second appearance at the venue ran well to increase her position by 8 after the first lap, this was due Monica taking her wet top jacket off helping her run more freely, and finish 67th in 29.09 (best being 28.50).  Then came Helen Smith who today looked more positive running a pace that suited her and finished running a PB time of 30.44 over the course and finished 77th.  Helen had held the 0/60 course record but a Woking young lady broke it last week - sorry Helen, blame me.

 I loved the place and will return (to watch),

Tom Rowley 


25 Years Ago - 100plus countries

Looking through old copies of "Round the Block" I picked up the issue from November 1991, 25 years ago this month.

Air France had organised a Triathlon in the Reunion Islands and we'd sent a team of ten including Steve Newell.  As a consequence Reunion was registered as a new "country" the club had run in, and Steve made a side trip to Djobouti to make another one - the compiled list now had 104 countries in it. This is the list...

100 = Abu Dhabi, Andorra, Antigua, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burma, Canada, Czechoslovakia, China, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Denmark, Dubai, Egypt, Eire, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grand Cayman, Greece, Grenada, Greenland, Holland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldive Islands, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Monserrat, Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Phillipines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Sudan, Tahiti, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, The Gambia, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, USA, USSR, US Virgin Islands, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

+ Belize, Reunion, Djibouti and Cameroun.

Some of those countries no longer exist but all were judged by the editor to have existed as the time that a then current club runner claimed to have run in them.  New countries have been added since so I'll quickly say that I can add one to the list - The Czech Republic, run in on 18th August 2015 as part of the Ciesyzn parkrun course.  Who can add some others?  Mail: Roderick Hoffman

Other features in the 1991 Newsletter:

  • There was a promotion for the Christmas Social including a running of the parkway mile - "please advise Steve Newell of your predicted times". So some things haven't changed since.
  • Our ASCA Track and Field team included Janet Smith, Barry Walters and John Taylor.
  • The San Francisco WARR results were published - the BA team had 44 finishers in the 10k, led home by Barry Walters in 32:13, and 62 in the 5k, Barry again in 15.49.
  • There was a full report of a trip up to Newcastle to run in the Great North Run - our fastest finisher was Denis Foxley in 1:22.  John Coffey was two minutes behind and well ahead of Frank Bruno who finished in 1:35.
  • We listed 8 new members and the established members were asked to give them a warm welcome - so if you meet David Rimmer ask him whether we did.

Roderick Hoffman


Running Shorts

Caroline Yarnell

Also a club finisher in the Reunion Islands Triathlon in 1991 the photograph below shows Caroline at the World Masters Championships in Perth last week on her way to finishing 3rd in the Steeplechase.  There must be something very special in the water down-under.

Caroline Yarnell

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR OPENING TIMES HESTON VENUES

Hello,

The Club , Gym and Sportshall will be closed from 6pm 23rd December 2016 and reopened on Tuesday 3rd January 2017.

Kind Regards

Vanessa (BA Clubs Membership Team)

65th Brampton to Carlisle 10 Mile Road Race

Hi guys,

Just to say...

This week's parkrun times were slower than usual due to ice & the fact that we took part in the "oldest 10 mile race in the UK" on Sunday. 

This was a lovely course from Brampton in Cumbria to Carlisle.  677 rather fast people completed the course. I managed to respectively finish in the top 46% in a PB of 1:15:21 and was rewarded with a lovely commemorative slate coaster. Linda couldn't take part due to the noisy tenants of a heavy cold. 

Regards,

Steven Dodsworth

Subject: Selection Event Volunteers for next year's World Champs

England Athletics / London Sport have been asked by Team London to help with recruitment for ‘Selection Event Volunteers’ for next year’s World ParaAthletic Championships and IAAF World Championships and they are asking us if we have suitable and interested team members.  They have added a news article to their website that provides more details and the application process.

Note that this is help for the SELECTION of volunteers, not to be marshals or the like, so a different angle and perhaps useful experience for doing similar in the future (and a volunteering job that doesn't risk you getting wet!). They want people to be involved from 9th December to 5th March.


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www.barunner.org.uk.


 

      

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