baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 25th October 2021For future weeks: inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk.
Events marked "*" are points scoring for the club's participation trophy. Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps] Have you spotted that we'd put in a Christmas Social event for the evening of Wednesday 22nd December? Please put that in your diaries. This Week's EventsPlease 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. Track-on-Field (by end of Sunday 31st October, to be reported on in the following digest):
Weekly Athletic Achievement (by late Sunday) or use the Facebook group prompt:
Five Mile Winter Handicap - 27th October from 18:00 at the Bedfont Club # Let us know to expect you
This year we are repeating the use of the two lap "2020/21" course featured in the map. This course is (relatively) easy to navigate and it only has the one traffic light controlled junction to cross (at the Tesco entrance). In terms of navigation just keep turning right apart from at that Tesco entrance and the five or so small roads prior to the clearly labelled "Kingston Avenue" (shortly after you pass "The Beehive" on the left). The course has been accurately measured at two and a half miles in length and we will expect runners to do two clockwise laps to make up the five mile distance and walkers to do one lap. The course starts and finishes in the carpark which has a variable surface and usage. Steve Newell may suggest that we run the event as the two pure loops instead. The concept is that each person will start their run or walk at the appropriate time so that if they run to form they will finish at exactly 7pm. Steve Newell will assign points according to how closely to your predicted time you finish. The handicap should be run without consulting your watch, though you may wear one for your own records. Start times will be indicated on the club clock which will be counting down time so that it would reach zero at 8pm. If you expect to run five miles in 55 minutes then your start time will be when the clock shows 01:55:00. If you then finish in 58 minutes the clock would then be showing 00:57:00 hence we'd see that you were three minutes slow. Wednesday is due to be dry and very mild for the time of year (15 degrees). Sunset is at 17:45 so it will be dark for most of the run (and for subsequent runs) so please wear your night running gear including head torches if you have one. The club changing rooms will be open from about 17:30 and the rooms and showers will be available after the run. We have the function room booked for a drink after the run but note that there is no food available at the Bedfont Club - though you are welcome to bring in or order your own. The event will run more smoothly if we know who will be coming so please advise us if you are considering attendance - we'd rather allow for you and have you not turn up than the other way around. So, let us know your likely attendance, whether you'd be doing the five mile two-lap course or just the one lap, what you would estimate your run/walk time to be. Retired Runners Lunch - Monday 13th DecemberIt is being assumed that no new lockdown will have been imposed and this year's Retired Runners Lunch will be at the Steam Packet pub on Strand-on-the Green, W4 just downstream from Kew Bridge. We will probably just go for the pub lunch menu. We have booked an upstairs room overlooking the river, the tide will be on its way out. Car parking is possible nearby. Buses stop at Kew Bridge. Trains on the Hounslow Loop (Windsor Lines) stop at Kew Bridge (frequency reduced at the moment). Gunnersbury station (Overground and District Line) is not an impossible walk away. The pub is just inside the new ULEZ so for those with non compliant cars wanting to avoid the £12.50 daily charge advice is available. Some low traffic neighbourhood schemes are also in operation but nasty fines can be avoided with a bit of careful route planning. Please let Steve Newell know if you are planning to attend what is usually a merry occasion and an opportunity to catch up with those we don't see at WARR or the Red Start every year anymore. Partners welcome.
Activity Achievements over the week 18th October to 24th October 2021Only 15 club members and friends notified me of their best achievement last week.
* Not great but could easily have been a DNF after my groin got bad last Sunday at the Cabbage Patch 10. Started off at 11 minute mile pace which was reasonably comfortable and did not seem to be making the injury worse. Managed to go faster on the return legs of the 1.2 mile stretch of pier we were running on as there was quite a stiff southerly breeze. We had to do 11 out and backs to make up the 26.2 miles. Managed a negative split and placed 40th of 78 finishers.
[The top row are Maidenhead parkrun photos by Catherine Hutt (more at Maidenhead parkrun event 275 23.10.2021 - Google Photos). She also took photographs of myself and the others, but not good ones...though I'm blaming the material rather than the artist] parkrun results for Saturday 23rd October 2021
All Club parkrun Results42 runners and volunteers are listed below - get in touch if your activity is missing.
As the club and parkrun mature we are not seeing so many of our members reach the T-shirt winning milestones these days so it good to report that club stalwart Barry Walters (26:58 at Bracknell) is on the brink of his black vest after all these years. No such thing as a free T-shirt these days of course but he will qualify for the privilege of being allowed to order one for £16 (free postage, worldwide). Last Saturday over 400 runners/walkers reached the 100 runs mark and it will probably be the same again this coming Saturday. Further on up, only 15 people in the whole world have reached 600 so far but Alan Anderson, on 597, is likely to join them within the next few weeks. No free T-shirt for him to look forward to though, there isn't even one for reaching 1000 (yet). Most of those who got to 500 before him are still going. Indeed, former member Dave Tyas (22:12 at Bushy this week) has slipped past and now reached 610. Former member Zoe Ostley was on 249 before the Covid lockdown and has since resigned. Like with Neil Frediani, the opportunity to qualify for an olive green vest was a long 70 weeks in coming but both have made it now. In more normal times Chris Kelly (488th run - 24:22 at Reading) would have reached 500 by now but is steadily getting there. 367 of his runs have been at Reading - there might have been more if the course wasn't prone to winter flooding. His last pb at Reading (18:40) was just before the London Olympics (though to be fair, no one at BA has run faster and Chris's best age-grade was set in July 2013 and almost equalled in 2018). Reading was one of the first parkruns adopted by our members back in 2009. Steve Newell
Between us we have now done 595 different parkruns. So, will we get to 600 this weekend? The club map shows the parkruns no one has run at, indicated with red trees. On the other hand you are welcome to join Barry at Bracknell on Sunday to celebrate his 100th run (I wonder if Barry will be providing celebratory sandwiches for everyone?) or go to Gunnersbury for their 10th birthday run (they have had 443 runs since they started - our top three runners there are Steve Newell on 141 runs, Piers Keenleyside on 176 and, of course, Alan Anderson on 304 runs). And, if you are interested in helping set up a parkrun at Stockley Park - please let me know. I'm happy to provide more information before you commit yourself. Full club parkrun database - {read access to club parkrun database} - Download and explore (this is where I get most of my club stats from). Fulham 1 : Paul & Julie 2 (away win)At the beginning of the week it was looking as if it would rain until Christmas and the thought of planning another football ground run started to slide down our ‘to do’ list. Suddenly, my app showed Thursday as being dry, but windy, and we had managed to stay warm and dry during Julie’s NOW event the day before, Thursday started looking like it was worth the risk. Decision made and Fulham’s Craven Cottage was chosen. The usual routine for a West London club: car at Hatton Cross, Piccadilly Line to Charing Cross and a run from Trafalgar Square. This time the toilet was needed before we set off and are there any…..? No public toilets and the coffee shops had code-locks on theirs. No problem if you pretend to read the menu above the till and then slipstream a legitimate customer….not into the actual cubicle though! We set off at a very busy 08:55 and the 5.4 miler took us 50 minutes along similar routes of those to Chelsea and Brentford. They all take us towards Harrods but on Thursday we followed the Old Brompton Road from there to Fulham. You will have seen that we include a selfie of us with the respected clubs crest but when I asked a steward if I could do the same he said that it is against Fulham policy to allow photos of the ground!!? We just walked a minute up the street and took one anyway [Ed: Which we may get to see next week?]. For those interested, the new stand is not yet complete and the path between the ground and the river is still closed. It is open in the other direction and we walked along the river to Hammersmith for the train back. Paul Watt and Julie Barclay Not the WARR WeekendThis would have been the WARR weekend in Hawaii. But it wasn't to be. Perhaps next year. Chris Stockwell has dug out some photos from when we were there in 1984. Here are three of them - featuring both me and Chris:
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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This
week we are returning to the Bedfont and Feltham Football and Social Club in
Hatton Road, near Hatton Cross Tube Station for the first of this year's Five
Mile Handicap runs. This will be the first of six runs over the winter
months. Please attend if you are able to.
Twelve of us managed to meet at the designated carpark at close to the appointed
hour despite the main road to the carpark having been closed from the previous day.
From
left to right - Graham Taylor, Caroline Akazou, Steve Hillier, Roderick Hoffman,
Mark Taylor, Stephen Taylor, Trish McCabe, Guilaine Sheward.