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Newsdesk 2005
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RANELAGH HARRIERS E-NEWS # 171 23 FEBRUARY 2005
Editor: Steve Rowland
mailto: steverowland@ranelagh-harriers.com
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HEADLINE NEWS
* Club honours for Paul Doyle
* Men's team 26th in National Cross Country
* Club highest-ever Women's National finish by Sarah Seal
* Green Belt Relay details
E-NEWS
Apologies in advance that publication of the e-news might be a little
erratic over the next few weeks as I find myself temporarily commuting to
Warwick again.
WHAT'S COMING...
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The fixture list for the 2004/05 winter season, can be found on our web site.
More details of the following from
Andy Bickerstaff (07966 552302 / mailto: andy@norris-hobs.co.uk ) or
Phil Aiken (07739 035189 / mailto: phil.aiken@rnid.org.uk ) or
Anna McLaughlin (07971 606521 / mailto: anna.mclaughlin@itv.com ).
Saturday February 26th Clutton Cup 10 miles handicap in Richmond
Park. 2.30pm start. All members welcome.
Junior Points Prize race 3. 1.3
miles in Richmond Park. 2.30pm start. All under 17s welcome.
Ranelagh Schools Race 3.8 miles
in Richmond Park. 3pm start.
Ranelagh Bushy Park Time Trial
5km. 9am start
Saturday March 5th Inter-club 3.8 miles in Richmond Park. 3pm
start. A low-key inter-club, all members welcome.
Ranelagh Bushy Park Time Trial
5km. 9am start
Saturday March 12th Ranelagh Bushy Park Time Trial 5km. 9am
start
Sunday March 13th Finchley 20 miles at Ruislip. See below.
Hastings Half Marathon including
Surrey championships. See below.
Saturday March 19th Ranelagh Bushy Park Time Trial 5km. 9am
start
Sunday March 20th Worthing 20 miles. The other "pre-London"
20. Details: http://www.worthingharriers.co.uk/worthing20.htm.
Adidas "Breakfast Runs" 8 or 16
miles at Kingston. Details: http://humanrace.co.uk/breakfast/index.html.
A BUSY DAY IN THE PARK THIS SATURDAY!
The Clutton Cup 10 miles handicap starts at 2.30pm on Saturday over two laps
of our 5 miles course. All members can take part. The third Junior Points
Prize race over 1.3 miles will be set off at about the same time, and all
under 17s are welcome. Then finally at about 3pm the Ranelagh Cup schools
race will be run over a lap of our 3.8 miles course. Anybody free to come
along and help with officiating will be most welcome.
INTER-CLUB 3.8 MILES Saturday 5th March in Richmond Park
This is a low-key event open to all members, starting at 3pm over one lap of
our mob match course.
FINCHLEY 20 MILES ROAD RACE including the Spendlove Cup club championship
Sunday 13th March
Another reminder that this pre-London '20' is on March 13th at 2pm and not
the 20th as originally shown on our fixture list. It's also the club 20
championship, with the Spendlove Cup on offer. Entry forms are in the
clubhouse or can be downloaded at www.hillingdonac.co.uk.
HASTINGS HALF MARATHON Sunday 13th March
A very late decision has been made that the Hastings race will include the
Surrey championship. It was already the AAA, the South of England AA and the
Inter-Counties championship! Information and entry form at
http://www.hastings-half.co.uk.
TEDDY HALL RELAYS Wednesday March 9th at Oxford (2pm start)
If anyone fancies a Wednesday afternoon run around the Oxford colleges,
please contact Andy Bickerstaff. We need a team of four, each running 3.5
miles. For more details go to: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ouccc/thr2005/.
2005 RANELAGH ROAD RUNNING GRAND PRIX
The full list of events is yet to be confirmed but will probably begin as
usual with the Thames Towpath 10 at Chiswick on Sunday April 3rd. Details
and an entry form can be obtained at http://www.west4harriers.org.
GREEN BELT RELAY
This is to be held this year on Saturday and Sunday May 21st and 22nd. For
those of you new to the event you can get all the information at
www.greenbeltrelay.org.uk. In brief, it's a relay taking a very scenic route
around the outskirts of London, comprising 20 stages with an average length
of about 10 miles. Teams comprise ten runners and each runner has to run one
stage on Saturday and another on Sunday. We usually put in at least three
teams and there's room for all standards - indeed there's a trophy for the
last team to finish which is currently the jealously guarded property of Bev
Ali's Ranelagh Bloodhounds! We'll have a women's team, a men's team and
possibly another mixed team, so we need up to 40 runners in all. If you're
interested please contact me or Anna McLaughlin (details above) or Bev Ali
(mailto:bev.ali@blueyonder.co.uk) as soon as possible.
WHAT'S HAPPENED...
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NATIONAL CROSS-COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS Saturday 19th February at Cofton Park,
Birmingham
Anna McLaughlin writes:
"The National Course at Cofton Park, Birmingham was a lot drier than the
conditions we had experienced the previous week at West Ewell, but the mud
was substituted by hills and this was a good but testing course. Ranelagh
Ladies only had a select few who made the journey to Birmingham, but after
the hard fought battle last week everyone deserved a rest.
The start was probably the equivalent to how it felt to be on a battlefield
in years gone by, with us all flying down the hill towards the first corner.
Sarah Seal had a fantastic run and was flying, she has raced and trained
exceptionally hard this season and really deserved the 50th place, another
club honours qualifying performance! Louise Piears continued with the
steady improvement she has made at each race this year finishing in a very
creditable position in the strong field. Unfortunately I didn't run as well
as I had hoped and my legs felt empty from halfway round the first lap, but
I battled through and finished in 119th place and can now say I have
experienced a National!"
Julian Smith adds:
"Sarah moved through the field very well, getting as high as the high 40's
early on the second lap before fading just a bit, although she held off a
phalanx of pursuers at the end. Anna had a cold, started fast, and suffered
magnificently, but still a great debut performance".
Sarah's 50th was the best-ever result by a Ranelagh woman in the senior
National, but I suspect that it's not a record that will stand for long!
Julian himself was still less than 100% well and "went backwards rather
dramatically" for 300th, our third man home but well behind the Haarer /
Doyle battle. Andy Bickerstaff takes it up: "Paul was ahead of Peter for
quite a while but Peter kept him in sight and passed him up the climbs
around halfway. A late charge by Paul brought the gap to 5 secs and Peter
was suprised he had got back so close. I saw far too much of Marcus's back
slowly getting smaller and smaller. I started cautiously overtaking Chris on
the first hill, for whom it was not muddy enough, and still finished like
Meatloaf. Tremendous course, great support, thanks, and some outstanding
Ranelagh performances....another National over. Relax!"
Marcus, Andy and Chris all finished in the 400s to close in our team in a
creditable 26th place out of over 100 clubs closing in. Andrew and Mike
backed up well in a field of over 1300 finishers.
The men's qualifying criterion for club honours in the National is the top
120. Peter Haarer already has them but Paul Doyle officially missed out by
two places (and one second!). However, in view of Paul's fine series of
performances over the winter, the committee has unanimously agreed to make
an award of club honours to him for "meritorious performances throughout the
season". Congratulations Popeye!
Dan Jermy ran the Under 17s race, just missing the top 200.
BUSHY PARK TIME TRIAL 5km Saturday 19th February
There was a field of over 40 again for the BPTT on another bright but chilly
morning. West Waterford's Dermot Cummins was gunning for the course record
but still has a few seconds to find. Behind him Stephen and Steve had their
customary duel, won as usual by Stephen. Nevertheless Steve was one of the
25 finishers who ran course pbs, a list also including Holly, John and
Simon.
1 D Cummins (Waterford) 16.32
6 Stephen Instone 19.20
8 Steve Rowland 19.29
16 Darren Wood 21.30
18 Simon Burrell 21.41
20 Sam Hunton 21.55
26 Amelie Hunton 23.26
27 Chris Hunton 23.38
31 Luke Wilson 24.20
33 Sonia Rowland 24.35
35 Gill Wilson 25.17
36 John Hanscomb 25.30
41 Holly Wilson 28.21
SUSSEX BEACON HALF MARATHON Sunday 20th February at Brighton
Celia Beverly reports:
"Since getting a Ranelagh place (one of the five) for the London Marathon,
the responsibility has been weighing heavily on me not to let anyone down!
Armed with three guides to, "Running your first marathon" - Beginners,
Idiots and Dummies - all sadly appropriate Christmas gifts - I have been
plotting and planning how to climb this mountain and have inexpertly woven
their various schedules into Frances's invaluable notes and suggested
monthly plans.
I thus came up with the need to do a half in February, in the tried and
tested, "walk before you run" tradition. I sneakily entered my husband Mike
(who was with the International Red Cross on the Sudanese border in Kenya at
the time and didn't get consulted) and Anair who would, at 17, be just old
enough to do her first half legally and was kind enough to say she'd do it
too. Mike's training has been restricted to short runs in a dry wadi bed at
dawn before the temperature (at 32 Centigrade) started to creep inexorably
to its daily 36-37 average. Not an ideal preapartion for anything!
In the event, I also encouraged (some say twisted the arms of) six friends -
all "girls" of a certain age (well 48 to 58 if you must know) - to sign up
too. This is all the more remarkable if you know that 14 months ago not one
of them was running at all. Inspired by my Ranelagh experience - and most
particularly by Wally's extraordinary gift of inspiring the hopeless (i.e.
me, 9 months previously) to run and enjoy it - I got together a group of, at
its maximum, ten of us and got them doing what Wally and others (Pat,
Deborah, Juliet and others) got me doing.
We have met two or three times a week in Richmond Park for just over a year,
always at 9am, and run for 45 to 55 minutes. Once a month we do a "long"
run; the first of these was our inaugural circuit of the park which was an
enormous achievement at the time but one which we do fairly regularly now.
We have increased our range and we "Richmond Park Runners" (NOT affiliated,
I hasten to add) have done long runs on Wimbledon Common, twice round Hyde
Park, round Bushy Park and various long stretches of the towpath. One girl
who took up the challenge shortly after losing her husband to cancer did the
Flora 5k with her daughter in September last and raised £5000 for the
Marsden. We occasionally do some hill work and sprints but most of all we
enjoy ourselves. The purists in the club will raise their eyebrows high to
hear that we talk ALL THE WAY! I have done a double circuit of the park with
a group of five and we have not run out of things to talk about for over two
and a half hours!
However, we did take this half marathon seriously and it was so cold, windy
and moderately undulating in the second half (even hilly as we grappled with
the coast road up to Rottingdean, past Roedean School) that we restricted
most of our comments to encouragement. I won't take you through a blow by
blow account of our race - it was noteable for the fact that all of us did
it and did it well. Mike and Anair finished within a few seconds of each
other in about 1 hr 39mins. I ran all the way round with a friend and we did
2 hours 3 mins so as a family we were very pleased with ourselves.
However, for the last mile and a half I was overwhelmed by the thought that
I couldn't possibly up this to the 20 miles required of me (and Mike) in
Worthing on March 20th let alone the full marathon we are both down for four
weeks after that. Wally, you have a lot to answer for. Thank you".
1 R Grant (Phoenix) 1.11.39
41 Neil Walford 1.21.30
225 Stephen Arneil 1.32.01
478 Michael Beverly 1.38.54
481 Anair Beverly 1.39.02
1133 Rachel Turtle 1.52.20
1421 John Hanscomb 1.57.54
1648 Celia Beverly 2.03.20
WOBURN 10km Sunday 20th February
Clive Beauvais was 2nd over 55 to finish in 39.46
BRAMLEY 20 MILES Sunday 20th February
1 J McFarlane (TH&H) 1.44.12
356 Simon Burrell 2.43.40
394 Evelyn Joslin 2.48.20
450 Derek Mason 2.52.23
529 Tom Reay 2.59.52
SURREY LADIES CROSS-COUNTRY LEAGUE DIVISION 1 Saturday 12th February at West
Ewell
Complete results have now been published.
TRAINING
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Tough Tuesdays continue as normal, with speed work for various groups and
Wally's beginners' club. Full details on our web site.
Robin Drummond's "Improvers Sessions" continue on Thursday nights at 7pm
from the clubhouse, concentrating on speed and technique. Details of the
next few sessions below.
As an alternative on Thursday nights, Margaret Auerback and Frances
Ratchford are holding Strength and Conditioning coaching sessions at 7.30pm
in the free-weights room at the gym at St Mary's College, Waldegrave Road.
Coaching at the gym on other days is negotiable. For more information
contact Frances at mailto:grapevineproductions@compuserve.com.
Also Wednesdays at 6.30pm and Sundays at 10am at the clubhouse for a steady
run in the Park.
Thursday sessions. Each also includes a steady run warm up and warm down.
Mar 3rd 2 x Petersham Rd, Richmond Hill, Nightingale Lane plus 2 x reverse
direction
Mar 10th 3 x Nightingale Lane (bottom), 3 x Nightingale Lane (top), 3 x
Nightingale Lane (top + 50 metres)
FINALLY
From Belgrave Harriers' report of the National:
"Within an hour the park was all but deserted. That treacherous wind now
brought in snow again as the tent was dismantled and those who had been on
site soon after dawn had the world to themselves once more - and enjoyed the
most hilarious moment of the day. Gordon Biscoe, taking one last chance to
'inspect the plumbing' at the portaloos before journeying home, had to shout
for help as, while occupying his place of convenience, it was connected to
the sewage disposal unit before being fork-lifted onto the back of a lorry
for transfer to who knows where!"