Congratulations to Jane Calderbank who, in finishing 8th at Arrow Valley, was first lady home in 20:54. Alan Collis was, unusually, a lone member at Banstead Woods but had an SB time of 21:45. Declan Flynn was 6th at the Nonsuch 1st anniversary where he missed his PB by 1sec. He was joined there by Neil Sunderland, who has recently passed the 300 run mark, and Elain Dodds who has recently clocked up 200 runs.
Mike Bryant was at Bexley supporting his son-in-law’s second ever run. At Bushy Park both Steve Holden and Sarah Pettifer missed their PBs by 6 secs. Of the 15 members running at Kingston, Joe Chang was 3rd and John Sweeney, Chris Wilson, Laura Perry and Rosie Gerrard all ran PBs.
Jacqueline Chang and Lizzie Ruth Wilson have recently passed the 150 parkrun mark. John Matthews clocked up his 95 different event, finishing 5th at Northampton in 18:08. This puts him 3rd= in the most events list. A total of 27 members ran parkruns this week.
The Budapest Half Marathon is the first, of six half marathons that I am running in the four months leading up to Christmas, which I then round off with my entry into the Barcelona San Silvestre 10K on New Year’s Eve. As with all my weekend-ish European running trips I had booked through the Running Crazy organisation ( http://www.runningcrazy.co.uk/ ) and as usual flew courtesy of Easyjet as a walk on, walk off, passenger from Gatwick.
Despite missing a few regulars 31 runners competed in the Club Handicap, 5 of whom were ‘first timers’. We looked as if we might be in trouble recording the finish with only three of us on duty but the cavalry arrived in the shape of Simon Norman on his bike and he took up the important role of road disc man.
Jamie Fuentes was first home in a PB time of 22:45 ahead of ‘first timer’ Richard Kirk, with the still improving James Thurston 3rd, just 21 secs behind Jamie, and 1 sec ahead of Caroline Dawson. Both ran PBs. Daniel Harris’s PB time of 16:33 puts him to 6th= with Ross Muir in the all time list.
There were 10 PBs in total, but performance of the evening must surely go to Steve Watkins, whose 7th place time of 17:26 exactly equalled his PB set 12 years ago in May 2000.
My thanks to Neil Sunderland and Pete Tozer for their help on the night. I attach the result.
We would like to invite 26.2 to a quiz night at our club, please see below for details. I hope that you will be able to attend, it should be a laugh. And, if you can’t beat us in the mob match, what about in a quiz?
35 Runners for the August Race and the PBs keep on coming. 12 of you achieved these along with 15 SBs. The most notable PB was that of Katherine Wilson whose time of 18:38 makes her the fastest woman of all time. Jane Calderbank’s time of 19:39 puts her 7th in the list. Of the men Daniel Harris’s time of 16:46 eases him away from John Matthews who also had a PB.
Time prevents me from further elaboration but I look forward to another great contest tomorrow. If you cannot run please come along and help with the finish. I attach the August result, analysis and latest League Table.
Due to popular demand (and health and safety!) I have decided to replace Berrylands Special with a Monday night track session. Monday night track will take place at Kingsmedow on the first Monday after handicap every month (the Monday before ‘long run’).
Normal Monday runs will start from the club as per usual at 7pm and Track will start from Kingsmedow Athletics Track at 7pm.
Monday night track will tack a similar form as the Wednesday night sessions, with a full warm up, a combination of fartlek/interval training and a cool down. Track sessions are suitable for all runners (as a guide you need to be able to run 5k without stopping before attempting a track session) and the sessions focus on building speed endurance and even team work. If you are carrying any injuries or have any underlying health issues be sure to let Chris (running leader) know before the session starts. Please also remember that you are responsible for ensuring you are healthy enough to take part in the session.
The first Monday night track session will take place on Monday 10th September, Wednesday Track will tack place on Wednesday 26th September (normal Wednesday start time of 7.15pm)
Don’t forget tomorrow evenings club run will be our last summer run in Richmond Park. We will be meeting at Ham Gate in Ham Gate Avenue for 7pm, ensure you park outside as the gates close earlier this time of year.
As the nights are now drawing in you may want to bring a head torch with you if you have one as the park can get rather dark by 8pm at this time of year especially as we run along the tree lined trails. For anyone unsure of where Ham Gate is situated you can veiw a map here.
This saturday gone was the first ‘proper’ running of the Thames Meander, (last year they ran a test event). So I decided to enter as there are not many marathons around in August and it was local, it started in a private school on the private Coombe estate near Kingston Hill.
The race is organised by Hermes Running who are a couple that run for Collingwood or Sutton, not 100% sure but they are local and many people would probably recognise them. They are both 100 Club members, there seems to be quite a trend of 100 club members setting up their own marathons at the moment. I had to send a begging email two weeks ago as they were sold out, thankfully they said they would help me out.
There was free tea and coffee at the start with good changing facilities. Unfortunately as it’s a girls school the men got to understand how long the women have to wait in the bathroom line as there were no urinals to keep the mens line down.
As part of training for a multi day event I drove off down to Salisbury for this marathon last Sunday morning, race was only £16 from memory.
Registration was in a Firestation as the race was organised by them to raise funds for the firemans trust. About ten minutes before the start there was a heavy downpur but thankfully it stopped before the start. I’d looked at last year’s results and seen the winner crossing the line in 2:58, I committed that I would stick to me plan of 7:30 miling no matter what happens.