baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club

BA Athletics Club News Digest 26th February 2018

Events:

• Wednesday 28th Feb - Club ‘instinctive pace training session’ and Awards Evening - Harmondsworth Five Bells* 18:00 and 20:00 (see below)
• Thursday 1st March - Dream Mile Bath Road for 12:45*
• Wednesday 14th March - Bedfont Football Club test event - 18:00 Hatton Road

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 13th Feb].

*Club Event Map: [Clickable link to Google Maps]

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. 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BARunnerUK/ (formal "BARunner" page),  BA Runner Facebook Group (ask to join)

Inclusions, with photos, please to Roderick Hoffman at news@barunner.org.uk.

This Wednesday - the Club Awards evening at Harmondsworth

The club awards evening is this Wednesday - centered on the Five Bells pub in Harmondsworth.

• The evening will start with an Instinctive Pace Training Session organised by Joe Nolan.  Fuller details from Joe follow this section.
• The awards evening itself will be in the function rooms at the Five Bells which are upstairs.  Neil Frediani has arranged the evening including the provision of hot food for all attendees.
• The awards themselves will be presented by Steve Hillier and John Williams, supported, one hopes, be everyone in the room.

Now I have to admit that I won't be there since I'm out in Utah with the BA Ski Club - so big apologies from me and note that I will be there in spirit.

Roderick Hoffman

Instinctive Pace Training Session - 28 February 2018 (details subject to weather and conditions)

The goal of the session is to help develop steady pacing, essentially ‘blindly’ without the use of watches, in able to instinctively apply the correct pace to different distance events.

Meet at the telephone box outside the Five Bells in Harmondsworth at 18:00 prompt, registering recent best 5k times. Watches are not to be used……however if you cannot run or feel naked without your Rolex or activity tracker this is fine as long as you don’t look at them !  It would be useful to have a few safety marshals if available.

10min warm up slow jog followed by dynamic stretch exercises.

Staggered starts by runners over an approx. 1k course loop, beginning at the telephone box, along Moor Lane turning back at the concrete road block, back to around the small green in front of the pub and up part of the High Street, and then turning back to the start/finish line.

•  1st loop – to be run instinctively and steadily at your recent 5k best pace.
•  2nd loop – to be run instinctively and steadily at a pace equivalent to 2mins slower than your recent 5k best pace
•  3rd loop – to be run instinctively and steadily at a pace equivalent to 1min faster than your recent 5k best pace
•  4th loop – to be run instinctively and steadily, repeated at your recent 5k best pace

Each loop will be followed by a 10-20sec recovery rest (as instructed by the starter).

To finish there will be a slow jog and static stretch warm-down.

Times for each ‘instinctive’ circuit will be processed and the closest ‘achievers’ reported in next week's digest – if time allows these will be announced during the annual awards ceremony.

This is a good opportunity to mention that my metronome-like parkrun pacer squad will be out on duty again next Saturday (3rd March) at Black Park covering every minute from 20-40 plus a run/walker.

Joe Nolan

A reminder about BA Clubs' benefits

There are also other benefits, one of which is that the Athletics Club can claim a budget from BA Clubs and use this towards our hire of facilities for club nights - such as Cranford Community College.  The more BA Clubs members the club has, the larger the budget we are likely to be given.

Roderick Hoffman (Chairman) obo Club Committee.

February Five Mile Handicap result

A slightly bigger field of five runners enjoyed a cool calm dry evening.  Neil Frediani  and Alan Anderson were both taking part for the first time this winter.  Marathon and now Comrades entrant Chris Kelly jogged a couple of miles after work to reach the start and headed back afterwards to keep up his daily mileage.  Trish McCabe maintained her steady improvement and leads the league table but double points will be awarded for the run on the final evening (28th March) so there could still be a final twist!  The clocks will have changed so it will be a daylight run.

Steve Newell

Club parkrun results for Saturday 24th February 2018

Tourism continued at a club and personal level this week.  Ian Cunningham (23:25) was in Franschhoek in the South African Winelands and that lowers the club record for a parkrun in South Africa.  Roderick Hoffman (35:42) was at the other extreme, 5000ft up in the Rocky Mountains at the inaugural South Boulder Creek parkrun in Colorado.  With three inches of snow on the trail and less than a day to acclimatize he found it tough going. Roderick adds: This parkrun is the highest altitude parkrun outside South Africa though two club members (James Shoulder and Alice Banks) have probably run at higher ones around Johannesburg. It is the first parkrun I've done where the "other park users" have included some on cross-country skis.

In the UK Joe Nolan (30:38) tried Woking parkrun for the first time cheered on by Tom Rowley on all three laps.  Eddie Giles (28:04) was at Tooting Common on a visit to his son who ran with him for the first time with a barcode.  Sarah Gordon (33:00) was at Bedford and set a female club course record.  Steve Newell (37:49) found the slopes and slippery mud rather challenging at Panshanger Park in Hertfordshire.  Sarah and Steve are both on 92 parks – plenty of them are not the same!

Graham Taylor’s daughter Abigail (27:27) brought her precocious talent to a senior parkrun for the first time at Rickmansworth intent on starring in a video for her college project.  Uncle Mark (who set a club record last week) retired injured within the first lap and helped out behind a camera.

News is trickling out that the long awaited Mole Valley parkrun at Denbies Winery is to undergo a test run soon and if successful the inaugural run will follow later in the Spring.  Another projected parkrun which will be convenient for some members is be located at the London Irish FRC training Hazelwood ground at Sunbury.  Roderick: And a third of note will be Victoria Dock parkrun in Docklands. This will use some of the same course as the 5k/10k WARR courses we organised there in 2010.  For those who remember it well (or can't forget it) the start/finish for the parkrun would appear to be in the South West corner of the dockside area.

Steve Newell

Updated parkrun stats - club parkrun stats

parkrun growth

With only four parkruns cancelled in the UK last Saturday this meant that for the first time 500 parkruns operated.  Worldwide there were 1109, slightly down on the previous week's 1125.

I was running my 222nd different parkrun but that only puts me in 19th place on the "Most Events" table and the leader is Paul Freyne who on Saturday, in Moscow, ran his 400th different event.  That does mean that there are 725 events worldwide that Paul has NOT run at - so he can carry on his life's challenge for now.

Roderick Hoffman

Correspondence...

From Eddie Giles...

Piers Keenleyside...

And Dave Barnard passes on the following warning to our extreme runners...

Next Digest?

Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send it to the editor, Roderick Hoffman, at news@barunner.org.uk.

Club website:

www.barunner.org.uk.