baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 25th April 2016Events:
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: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z31P-sSECWno.kIIgdFzUuZAo&usp=sharing Not for you, no longer interested? remove me please. Difficulty viewing this email? Read it off the website instead - http://www.barunner.org.uk/News Latest.shtml. Running related gossip and chat: Facebook "BA Runner" (link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/636199849751546/). Before the Marathon - some important messages...Parkway Mile and BAAC AGMThe Parkway Mile and AGM will take place this year on the slightly earlier date of June 8th. The mile will start at 6pm, with the AGM following at 8pm. Please do all you can to attend this important evening, when we take the opportunity to celebrate the successes of the year and discuss the future. Nominations are now open for spots on the 2016/17 committee. If you know of anyone who would like to stand, or would like to stand yourself, please contact me or any member of the committee. Cheers, Steve Hiller, club secretary (SteveHillier@msn.com) Also see: BAAC AGM2015minutes.doc Speedbird Ladies (4th May) and Vitality 10,000 (30th May) Marshals neededDon't forget that we need male marshals (and lady runners) for the Speedbirds Ladies race at Harmondsworth on 4th May (start time 19:00) AND for the Vitality 10,000 (formally BUPA 10k) in London on Bank Holiday Monday (coach from and back to the Heston Venue). Coaching courses available from England Athletics
If you are interested in achieving either of these qualifications, please contact me to see whether the club can help your application. Virgin Money London Marathon 2016On behalf of the organisers and the BA Athletics Club, I'd like to say a big thank you for your support at the 36th staging of the London marathon. As you can see from the attached press release, there was a record number of finishers and records tumbled across the various races but it wasn't all about the elites, there were the thousands upon thousands of runners raising millions for charity and I, like you, was proud to be part of the team of several thousand volunteers that made the day such a great success. Everyone played their part but I'd specifically like to thank, on your behalf, Stuart Glover, Mike Thorn, Colin Bloomfield, Eddie Ketterick and Paul Brandon for team leading the 5 crossing points. Over the years we've become accustom to runners going down, through over-exertion, dehydration etc. and usually the services of St John Ambulance are good to get them on their way. Clearly though the event that unfolded at the Spur Rd crossing point was a lot more serious to anything the teams have had to deal with before but the positive feedback for the actions taken has been overwhelming. The good news is that following the very swift actions of a member of the team in starting CPR, the runner was taken to hospital and is expected to recover. I can only imagine how traumatic this event must have been but commend the professionalism of all involved, you should be very proud. On a lighter note the Men's winner, Eluid Kipchoge might have missed out on the $125000 bonus if he'd broken the world record but still pocketed $55000 for winning, $100000 for a sub 2hr 5min marathon and $25000 for breaking the course record.... not a bad day at the office. Regards, Simon Turton VMLM BAAC co-ordinator See also: Official VMLM 2006 race report British Airways Athletics Club and Friends Results
*Colin Russell is also one of the start marshals (through his old running club). He is the Zone 2 leader, so controls access to the zone, then walks the Zone 3 runners forward before stripping off and joining the zone 4/5 guys as they come past! Well done everyone and impressive to see 19 consecutive numbers from 55245 to 55263 recording a finish. Apologies for anyone missed - please send me your details and stories. London Marathon Stories:Watching the Marathon - on the ComputerI was crossing point leader the year they introduced a text system whereby team leader would be notified of key events during the race. Accordingly I got a text message telling me that Paula Radcliffe had just passed the 16 mile point. I had just taken her photograph as she ran through Parliament Square nine miles further up the course. She could of carried the message quicker than the text service. But technology has got better since and I enjoyed watching the team of little stick men running round docklands on Sunday aware that with only the occasional hick-up the transponders each runner had was showing me their actual position on the course in near real time.
This second picture shows Chris Kelly running through Parliament Square. I trust that he was actually able to wave at our crossing point marshals rather than wave his way through the traffic shown.
PS For those who don't know - I have run the London Marathon in the past and I organised the Parliament Square Crossing Point for twenty years before officially retiring from that duty. And I'm on Simon's reserve list though fortunately I wasn't needed on Sunday. Roderick Hoffman Martin Plummer and the HoleSo, here was the problem. The building of the east–west cycle superhighway on the Victoria Embankment meant that the location of the Waterloo Bridge crossing couldn’t be agreed until race day, taking account of the requirement to have dropped curbs for bikes, wheelchairs etc. That, coupled with the initial lack of barriers meant it wasn’t identified until just before the mini-marathoners were due through that there was a hole in the road….. next to the blue line…. this was serious….
A call to race control suggested putting a cone or a marshal over the hole…. any takers? (no, I thought not!). Step forward Martin Plummer (a mere whippersnapper at 72 years of age) who spotted a rather forlorn looking sand-bag not doing a great deal by the side of a nearby wall. The bag was quickly discharged of its contents and voila, one temporary road repair achieved, genius.
From RunnersWell, how did it go for everyone ? Bit chilly wasn't it ! Very sad news today about the army chap passing away. Yesterday was good for me, running well up to 14/15/16 but started to feel terribly sickly from then on and a bit of exhaustion so just walk/jogged the rest and was quite happy with that as the main objective this time was to enjoy the atmosphere as previous London runs I've beat myself up on and haven't enjoyed at all. Legs a bit stiff at the moment but should be OK in a day or so. Good to have been in the same pen as Graham T, settling the nerves chatting for the last few minutes before starting, Jag came flying past early on, and Neil F also sped past when I was struggling. How did our first timers do, and what particular treasured memories will they take from the experience ? (planning another mara yet !!!) It was fantastic again having all our BA marshals out on course waving us in, much appreciated...and a lovely chat with Steve H/Mel H on their sector patrolling duty afterwards. I also came across a number of my parkrun pacer squad on route who cheered me on too. Thank you again to BAAC to enabling this privilege to run London Take care everyone and back to 'normal running' now..... Joe Nolan I completed my 17th London Marathon today in a time of 3:27:40 bringing my overall number of marathons run to 110. Had hoped for a sub 3:25 but that will now have to wait until September when I get to run the Berlin Marathon. Piers Keenleyside I can't believe it's all over after all those months of training! It was amazing and I loved every second - well maybe not so much the last 5 miles. They were tough!! The crowds and the atmosphere were phenomenal. They really do help to get you around. I will definitely be doing another marathon - but maybe not just yet!! Thank you again for giving me a place - it truly was a dream for me!! Rina Vyas :-) I hope everyone enjoyed themselves yesterday at the race! Chilly at the end, and my legs cramped/gave out around mile 16 but I still finished! Thank you for allowing me to run the London Marathon this year. It was such an incredible experience, so thanks again! Best, Rachael O'Bryan Marathon DistanceThe Marathon distance of 26miles and 385yards became standadised in 1921 although that actual distance was first run at the 1908 London Olympics and was the distance from Windsor Castle to the position of the Royal Box in the White City Stadium. A team from the club reran that course in 2008 but there is no space to say more about that here. These days courses have to be accurately measured and mistakes are rare but one such error has recently come to light - the Manchester Marathon course used in 2013, 2014 and 2015 has been discovered to have been short by 400 yards. All those who ran those events can still claim to have run a Marathon (a race of length around 25 miles or longer) but cannot count their time as a Marathon time. Piers and Kerstin will be pleased to learn that the course was corrected this year so their times from earlier this year can be counted. Roderick Hoffman Club parkrun results for Saturday 23rd April 2016
*parkrunners preparing for the next day's London Marathon. The weekend was obviously affected by the London Marathon but there were large and even record attendances at several parkruns {Ed: including those nearest the London Marathon course Beckton, Finsbury Park, Hampstead Heath, Mile End and Southwark. And the total of 87,590 smashes the previous UK record attendance}. Some runners were taking it a little easier than usual with Sunday in mind. Marathon legend Ron Hill (29:49) who is now in the MV75 group and who has run every day for the last 50 years earned his red vest with his 50th parkrun finish, this latest one at Heaton Park in Manchester - the biggest municipal park in the country. Our newest member, Ian Cockram, was straight into action as run director at Bedfont Lakes. This is a role that Denis Foxley has also recently grown into and this week he had a record attendance of 155 to look after at Harrow. Barry Walters (21:21) travelled a short distance down the A3 to Alice Holt Forest to set a new club record there. Steve Dodsworth (23:39) ran his fastest ever parkrun at Harrogate, as did Paul Watt (22:01) at Rushmoor. In fact he almost beat Julie Barclay but we must remember that parkun is a run and not a race. Roderick Hoffman (27:11) travelled to March in Cambridgeshire to meet up with Petra Otto (31:53) where the parkrun was established only a few weeks ago. That makes 150 parks for Roderick including his several overseas ones. His sister Sarah Gordon was also breaking new ground with a visit to Rosliston in Derbyshire. That set me wondering how many counties have we not yet run in, probably not too many - I'll let you know next week. And what about Little Stoke? Well, the issue has been raised in Parliament and acting Sports minister David Evennett has got involved. There is hope that the issue will be resolved amicably and in the meantime the parkrun took place this Saturday and attracted over 200 runners including a dozen people who had never been at a parkrun anywhere in the world before. Steve Newell (steve-newell@blueyonder.co.uk) Updated parkrun stats: www.barunner.org.uk/results/ba_parkrun_park_totals.xls Next Digest?Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send it to us at news@barunner.org.uk. Club website:
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