baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 24th April 2023
Events marked "#" are points scoring for the club's participation trophy - for the 2023 title. Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] For future weeks: inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk. Results for Next WeekPlease 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. Weekly Athletic Achievement (by Sunday evening) or use the Facebook group prompt:
2023 Speedbird Ladies - Wednesday 21st June (to be confirmed)I've put this date into the diary for the Speedbird Ladies race. This is not yet confirmed, but appears to be agreeable to all parties including the landowner. Please keep this date reserved in your diaries. Let me know of any issues or clashes with other events. BAAC Quiz: Results22 of us attended the 2023 club quiz, run by Linda and Steve Hillier. That made three teams of six and one team of four. There were ten normal rounds, on one of which the team's joker could be played to double the score, and there was a marathon round with 26 picture questions, each worth half a point. The maximum score was therefore around 123. The lowest scoring team managed 91.5 points which is really very good - around 3/4 of the total. That team consisted of the Stenhams, helped or handicapped with Steve Newell and Alan Anderson. The Coombs formed the team of four. They particularly enjoyed Food and Drink on the night - scoring the maximum 20 points with their joker on that round and ended the quiz with a total of 94.5 points. Given that there were only four of them they could, and did, claim to have scored the most points per player!
Thank you to Linda and Steve for an enjoyable evening's quizzing. Roderick Hoffman 2023 London Marathon Results
Jain went on to say "...A wonderful day. Thanks so much to all the volunteers. I watched the Elite highlights on BBC. The sheer happiness of Sifan Hassan's interview after winning her inaugural marathon was pure joy to listen to." Roderick - "I confess I watched it all on the TV (until 3pm) and Kelvin Kiptum's second fastest time ever for a marathon has to be a high spot, but for entertainment value the Ladies Wheelchair race and then Sifan Hassan's performance in the Ladies Marathon (Steve Cram on the commentary was urging her to drop out at eight miles to avoid damaging herself - and he seemed to have a valid point) were not to be missed...unless you were running or volunteering for the event itself. Oh, and it was good to Stephen and Jain cross the finish line and to also see the BA Marshalling points as the lead runners ran past - including a glimpse of Colin Bloomfield."
Recent Activity Achievements24 members communicated their achievements here or above in the marathon results. Your achievement not listed? It could be because you didn't submit it.
Photos:
Roderick Hoffman parkrun Results for Saturday 22nd April37 activities are recorded below. Please get in touch if your activity is missing.
parkrun Review 22nd April 2023The scheduling of the matches at the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield didn’t allow Ronnie O’Sullivan time to sneak out for a quick run round the nearby Concord parkrun (note the English spelling). In truth, Ronnie (pb 18:08 at Hackney Marshes) has yet to appear at a post- Covid19 parkrun but reportedly harbours the ambition to run a decent marathon when he finally hangs up his cue.
There were a couple of really fast runs this week. Adam Moquet (17:21) was in second place at Tooting Common to follow his unreported 17:37 and first place at Fulham Palace last week. Adrian Haines (17:47) was first home at Worthing this week with a course pb and his fastest parkrun since 2018. His age grade of 87.16% is high by any standards but run close by Fiona Bishop (83.78%) on her debut at Storeys Field in Cambridge. Harjit Jhooti (32:32) was part of a field of 699 at Victoria Dock which proved very popular with TCS London Marathon entrants visiting Excel Centre. The attendance record was doubled (almost exactly) in one morning. It is worth noting that at the BAAC hosted WARR in 2010 at the same venue we had slightly more finishers in the 5k, 757. Trish McCabe (25:31) ran her best ever UK parkrun at Osterley. Her best ever time remains (24:09) at Cootehill (ROI), where the course is split over two counties (Monaghan and Cavan), in 2015. Two new parks were added to the club collection this week pushing the total up to 721. David Cowell (18:29) was 4th home at Wynyard Woodland (Stockton-on-Tees) which held its inaugural only last week. Paul Watt (20:18) was back in good form at Morecambe Prom parkrun which features an out-and-back run up the promenade by the Irish Sea (if the tide is right!). Steve Newell Club parkrun Volunteer EffortsPublic parkrun reports are very poor at revealing who volunteered doing what and where, but there is a report available to Run Directors. I've used that to compile a full list of volunteer efforts by club members - covering those who have been members in the first quarter of this calendar year, up to last week (so not including last Saturday). Whilst parkruns could not operate without volunteers it is important that they are volunteers not conscripts. As a Run Director I confess to being overjoyed when someone volunteers to be timekeeper, to give out finish tokens or to be a fixed point marshal on the course, but officially all activities are considered equal and anyone undertaking one activity for a parkrun is as welcome as someone undertaking several. The high level summary is that as a group, from 1st January 2023 to 20th April 2023, 30 of us undertook 400 activities at 256 occurrences of 70 different parkruns (including Junior parkruns) on 31 different dates. Who:David Duggan leads the way (as usual) with 64 activities at 33 event occurrences. Now, since there have been only 31 event dates in the period "33" event occurrences is very impressive - achieved since the Communications role requires workload throughout the week, but not during the event itself - hence David has been able to marshal at a second event on the same day. Paul Watt and Julie Barclay have delivered volunteer activities at 25 events, Emma Moreton one behind at 24, Mike Dennison at 17 then Alan Anderson and Ben Chaytow with 15. Historically, Alan had picked up hundreds (all right, 187) "Pre-event Setup" credits at Gunnersbury but his efforts these days are as a Marshal at the Osterley Juniors each week. Completing the top twelve we have Melanie Miller and Alastair Heslop on 13, myself on 11 (all at Stockley Country) and then David Cowell and Harjit Jhooti on 10. Where:Top here is Hanworth Juniors with 29 individual/event involvements (14 from David D, 13 from Mike and 2 from Harjit). Then comes Queen's Parade juniors, Aldershot with 20 (ten each from Paul and Julie), Stockley Country (17, 11 from me and one each from six others), Crane Park and Osterley juniors (15 each), Laleham juniors (14), Bedfont Lakes and Guildford (12 each) and Harrow (11). The Harrow total is due to the Foxleys and last year they were doing the same for Pinner Village Gardens juniors. Also last year Bushy Park made the top ten (thanks in no small part to Di Smith's twenty activities across the year), as did Wollaton Hall (David Cowell). There are 26 events where we've carried out a single volunteer role so far this year and yes, these are mainly Token Sorting (6), Report Writing (4) and Walking roles (6) but they are all helpful contributions.
What:For 35 event occurrences we delivered the Communications Person role (David D and Emma). 34 times we have provided Marshals (a neat ten different club members at ten different parkruns). 33 times we have been engaged in Pre-event Setup, 30 times with Token Sorting, 29 times Event Day Course Check, 26 times Post-event Close Down, 22 times Timekeeper and 21 times Run Director and also Volunteer Co-ordinator. The least carried out role so far this year is "Finish Token Support" (John Scaife, once at Maidenhead) but there are other roles where we haven't been engaged at all. And between us we've already carried out the mysterious catch-all "Other" category three times this year. Full club parkrun database - {read access to club parkrun database} - Download or save a copy, and explore at your leisure. Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] Roderick Hoffman
Next Digest - Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send them to the editor, Roderick Hoffman, at news@barunner.org.uk. Not for you, no longer interested? remove me please. Difficulty viewing this? Read it from the website:- http://www.barunner.org.uk/News Latest.shtml. Club website: www.barunner.org.uk.
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But
that left two teams fighting for the coveted top spot. These were Team Taylor,
habitual winners of this event, and a team with two Taylors, Steve and Marion,
but also other members of the club committee including myself. The Club
Committee Team got off to a good start. Marion was confident that our best round
would be the Science round and this confidence was well placed with us achieving
the maximum twenty points. After three rounds we had a ten-point lead on Team
Taylor. At that point the evening's food arrived so we took a break to
chomp through the Pizza and Curry selection, and turned our attention to the
marathon picture quiz. All the faces were familiar…but what was the name of the
guy who played the Chinese kid in Indiana Jones? We didn't know. And would Linda
really have two pictures with the same answer, "Barcelona"? Yes she would!
Everyone contributed - I recognised the Tottenham Hotspur ground from a recent
aircraft approach into Heathrow (pictured) and Paul Brandon recognised Durham
from having been there a long time ago.
As
we resumed the rounds the Taylors were chipping away at our lead and had a good
joker round themselves. Questions had a range of difficulties - surely everyone
knows that the equator is the imaginary line around the earth but who, other
than Falkland Islanders, know that a sheep appears on the Falklands Island flag?
Perhaps the Taylors knew. With two rounds to go we had a lead of just half
a point - 89points to 88.5. And in the penultimate round the Taylors got an
extra point on us so going into the final round they had the half-point lead! It
all hinged on the last set of questions - and who could make the best stab at
the spelling of "Chicago". No, I don't mean the US city, I mean "Dr. Chicago" with a
"Z", the film with Omar Sharif. So was it "Zhicago"? Close. Three teams got it
right - "Zhivago" - but whilst team Taylor were on the right lines their effort
was not quite worthy of the full point. So at the end of two hours quizzing the
Committee team was first AND Team Taylor retained their title - tied at the top
with 108 points from a possible 123.
Mike Dennison (21:07) choose Broadwater (Godalming), where he had not run
before, for his 500th parkrun and after the word “go” wasted no time and within
just over 21 minutes had established himself at the top of the rankings in his
age-group. He was joined by his wife, daughter and several club members
including blue vest wearing Chris Kelly (run #557) who all enjoyed a splendid
spread of cakes and biscuits afterwards. 496 runners have now reached the 500
target so we might see the 500th next week. Astonishingly 80 out of the 84
who have reached 600 were still adding to their score this week including Alan
Anderson (47:30) at Osterley.
Tom
Rowley Bench