baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 26th December 2016

Events:

• Thursday 29th December - Round Heathrow Airport Xmas Run from 12:00* (see below)
• Thursday 5th January - Dream Mile - Bath Road 12:45*
• Saturday 14th January - Surrey League Cross Country - Ladies at Ham, Men at Cranford Park - BAAC hosting so volunteers needed

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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BA Athletics Club 1981 to 2016 35th Anniversary event

As the members of the club get older it becomes more difficult to remember, and on the night none of us could remember the previous time that we had so many members and associates of the club gathered together in one place - I counted around seventy and since everyone kept moving there may have been many more.  We also had some late cancellations and some earlier apologies and in particular Brian Bennett, Natalie Lang and Katherine Stather asked me to pass on to all club members their best regards for Christmas and the New Year.

Overall the event seemed to go very well - based not just on my judgment but also feedback sent in afterwards.  The attendees included many long standing members including some of the founders of the club but also some of our newest joiners. The club had catered for a crowd and we had just about enough food to go round - helped by the venue passing on to us some extra mince pies.  Several members brought along club memorabilia to show and David Duggan took a few photographs - shown here and in higher resolution Facebook. 

 On reflection I would suggest that this was the biggest club attendance since September 2010, on the steps outside the ExCeL center, for the photograph after the WARR London races.  I do wonder whether we'll have as many club members in one room again?

Roderick Hoffman

21st December Winter Solstice Parkway Mile Relay 2016

The annual mile relay race dating back to 1989 attracted a larger field than for many years with the promise of free food at the club's 35th anniversary party at the clubhouse afterwards.

The forecast heavy rain shower never materialised and we enjoyed a mild and calm evening.

In order to ensure we ran at least 35 miles between us the (seven) teams were increased to five (from the usual four) runners.  A few unexpected but very welcome late arrivals restricted the number of runners having to run twice to just four.

Several former members returned to the event after a long break to roll back the years.  Keith Goldsworthy can still run quickly and brought three children with him to make up a competitive team.

Paul Knechtl who is shortly to change employer but not running club was fastest on the night (5:42) with Alysha Goldsworth (junior) the fastest female (7:07).  The youngest of all was Gary Rushmer III (age 5), paced by his grandfather (Gary Rushmer I) in 12:07.

Thanks as ever to the timing team of Ann Coffey and Paul Brandon and to Harry Wild at the turnaround point.

For the record, several of those who ran on the extremely wet evening in December 1989 were running or watching or enjoying the club house afterwards -

Malcolm Field (4:47), Barry Walters (4:51), Graham Taylor (4:55), Denis Foxley (5:22), John Coffey (5:30), David Barnard (7:00), Joanna Wells (6:18), Steve Newell (6:25),Tom Rowley (6:41), Harry Wild (6:55), Di Smith (8:10), Jane Taylor (8:10). {Ed: of those who ran both today but also back in 1989 it is Barry who wins the longevity award by getting closest to his time from 27 years ago - just 90 seconds slower. But the turnaround point might have been nearer in those days!}

Steve Newell

Derek Brion

It is sad to report that Derek passed away on Friday 16th December at the age of 89.  His funeral will be at Hanworth Crematorium on Thursday 29th December at 15:00.

He was a long serving club member and he leaves behind the following club records:

• MV70 Marathon 3:51:29 London Marathon April 1998
• MV80 1 Mile 9:35 Parkway Mile June 2008
• MV80 5k 30:16 Equinox October 2008
• MV80 parkrun 29:47 Bushy 5th October 2007 (only bettered by one other MV80 since).

Roderick Hoffman obo the club

Club parkrun results for Saturday 24th December

There was a surprisingly large turnout of members at the Christmas Eve parkruns especially at Bedfont Lakes where Neil Frediani (23:17) set a course pb on his 106th run over the course.

New member James Shoulder (20:12) led the way with his own pb but to be fair he had only run three times previously.

Christmas joy at Chichester as well where Mark Turner (25:06) ran a parkrun pb and Kimberley Turner (25:08) achieved a course pb and set a new club course record (F).

Helen Smith (29:42) bettered her previous best time at the Guildford parkrun.

Barry Walters (20:32) was at Woodley and ran the same time as he did at Osterley last week.  He is now 2nd in the all time list of MV60-64 parkrunners at Woodley.

Steve (23:32) and Linda (26:54) Dodsworth were at Druridge Bay (Morpeth, Northumberland) to establish new club best times there.  That moved the club total on to 308 different parkruns. 

John Coffey (9th run, 27:210 and Roderick Hoffman (1st run, 29:09) were at Homewood (Chertsey) which will be moving to nearby Ottershaw after the New Year's Eve run next Saturday.

Emily Warburton-Brown (25:14) was at Peckham Rye and making what will probably turn out to be her farewell appearance as a BAAC runner.  She is leaving the company and transferring his athletics club  membership to Dulwich.  We wish her well.  It is of course the responsibility of the individual runner to notify parkrun of a change of club, it is not something our membership secretary can do for new or departing members.

Christmas Day runs will be reported separately and any missing the press deadline will be included next week.

A Happy New Year to all parkrunners.

Steve Newell

Updated club parkrun stats (modern .xlsx file)

Attendance Records

On Christmas Day I was timekeeper at Northala Fields and I recorded more finishers than ever before at that parkrun (just).  There were two other parkrun records set on Christmas Day.  But how popular were Christmas Eve parkruns? With last minute shopping and Christmas preparations to be undertaken some expected numbers to fall.  But instead 77 UK parkruns declared record attendances and in total 101,417 of us ran a parkrun on Christmas Eve - an incredible 9,500 more than the previous peak attendance! So I wonder how many Christmas Days had presents missing from under the tree or empty cranberry source dishes?

New Year's Day parkruns

Don't forget that as well as running the last parkrun of the year on New Year's Eve you also have the option of running one or two parkruns on New Year's Day to get your 2017 resolutions off to a great start.

However not all parkruns operate on New Year's Day AND start times vary (to enable lie ins and/or the double headers).  This map ( https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=.... ) shows operating parkruns and their start times. The "TBA" is Hackney Marshes and their Facebook page suggests a 10:00 start.

Reminder - Round Heathrow Airport Run - 29th December at Waterside at Midday

This run will circumnavigate the airport with little interaction with perimeter roads and A-roads. Neil has mapped 13 and 15 mile options and also if you take an Oyster card with you then you can stop at Hatton Cross halfway (7miles) and get the tube to T5 which is about a mile from the start/finish. A large amount of the course is on trails and in some places you can choose trail or road. Neil will set off at 12 midday promptly from Moor Lane at the back of the BA Waterside offices and run the courses anti-clockwise. The plan is to run it in approximately two to two and a half hours and some of us will retire to the Five Bells pub in Harmondsworth village (whilst others go back to work!).

To get to the start by road enter Moor Lane from Harmondsworth village - from the roundabout that connects A3044 Hatch Lane to Holloway Lane turn down High Street, pass the Five Bells pub on the right (next to the church), and after another 400m there is a narrow bridge and there is parking in the road on the right hand side both before and after the bridge - on a single yellow line but permitted outside of school starting and finishing times. 

If arriving from the South then take the A3044 up to the A4, cross at the lights (in the left lane) and turn left into Accommodation lane and park in the second car park on the left or around the corner into Moor Lane there is a small amount of on road parking. To walk to the start, turn right into Moor Lane at the end of Accommodation lane .

Course maps are at:  http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/1381830652 for 15miles (Dark Green and Red in the extracted map below) and http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/1381805632 for 13 miles.

Let Neil know at neil.frediani@ba.com if you think that you might run it so that he can get in touch if there are any late changes.

Neil Frediani

Roderick adds - I fancy that drink in the pub so my plan for the event is to park outside the Five Bells and set off at 11:55 for the 400m warm-up jog to where Neil is starting thereby knocking about a mile off the total distance!  I'll then be running round in about 6:40k pace (10:45 mile pace).

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Club website:

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