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Newsdesk 2006
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RANELAGH HARRIERS E-NEWS # 229 11 October 2006
Editor: Steve Rowland
mailto: steverowland@ranelagh-harriers.com
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HEADLINE NEWS
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* First Surrey League Division 1 races - women's team 2nd, men 3rd
* Top ten finishes by junior Sam Perkins, Marie Synnott-Wells and Jo
Ronaldson
* Age group wins for Taylor Nunn and Joss Moran, 3rd place for Stephanie
Espinosa
* 378 finishers at the Bushy Park Time Trial's second anniversary
* Lauren Shelley represents Oz in World Road Running Championships
* Jenny Lloyd-Jones wins W35 gold medal in European Duathlon Championships
* Marie Synnott-Wells and Fari Shams 2nd and 3rd in Kingston 16 miles
SEE HERE
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SURREY VETERANS CHAMPIONSHIPS Saturday 14th October in Richmond Park
These are open to all Surrey-qualified women over 35 and men over 40.
Entries have officially closed, but they will be accepted on the day at £5
per head. Entries and numbers will be at our clubhouse. On the day entries
will be eligible for individual awards but will not count in the team races.
Start is 2.30pm (women) and 3pm (men). The women's race is over 6km, the
men's 10km. There are individual championships in 5 year age bands starting
from over 35 for women and over 40 for men, and team championships in 10
year age bands.
CABBAGE PATCH 10 miles Sunday 15th October at Twickenham
We have over 60 Ranelagh in the field on Sunday - best of luck to all of
them. Start time in 10am.
LEE CUP MOB MATCH v ORION HARRIERS Saturday 21st October at Epping Forest
We have the special "mass mob match" at home on November 4th, but to get us
into the swing of it we first have our biennial trip to Epping Forest to
take on Orion Harriers. It's a bit of a trek to get there, ( though access
from the M25 is pretty simple) but it's a memorable multi-terrain course
through the forest. It's a one-lap 7½ miles, there are fast runnable paths,
road sections, hills and bits deep in the woods that will probably be muddy.
Start time is 3pm, and we need as many people there as we can get.
Orion's clubhouse is at the rear of the Royal Forest Hotel, Rangers Road
(the A1069), here. Use the car park opposite.
If you need transport to get there, please contact Andy Bickerstaff.
RANELAGH'S 125th ANNIVERSARY
Birthday Run
We are about to celebrate our actual 125th birthday. This is on Sunday 29th
October, when we will be re-creating the club's first-ever run from the
club's original home at the Green Man on Putney Heath. We will be running at
4pm sharp, so aim to arrive by about 3.30pm. The route will be to the
Windmill on Wimbledon Common (a little over a mile) where we will re-convene
before returning to the Green Man. Run or walk the route as you wish. And if
at all possible, come in 1881 period costume! If you're running, take a look
at the old photos in the clubhouse for some ideas. Basically, it's
knee-length shorts (and old pair of cricket trousers cut off at the knee
would do the trick) and a plain half-sleeved or sleeved top. Shoes are more
tricky - I guess we'll have to overlook any anachronisms there. Of course,
ladies did not run in 1881, so we might have to bend our history a bit there
too. Non-running wives, husbands, friends and children are all welcome, and
if they can appear in costume, so much the better.
After the run, the Green Man will be laying on a buffet which is going to be
free of charge. Please come along! The Green Man is here.
Mass Mob Match
The final event will be on the following Saturday, November 4th. It will be
a run in Richmond Park against all our traditional mob match opponents -
Blackheath Harriers, South London Harriers, Orion Harriers and Thames Hare
and Hounds. The route will be the normal two laps making up 7½ miles but for
those who might find 7½ a bit too much there will be the option of running
only one lap. All competitors and officials will receive a special
commemorative shot glass. For those who might not have taken part in a mob
match before, the idea is that each club fields as many runners as possible
and all might count towards the final result. So even if you do no other
cross-country races this winter, please try to get ot this one! There will
be a supper in the evening, details to follow.
E-NEWS
I have been experiencing a lot of problems with my e-mail over the past few
weeks, resulting in some cases in multiple copies of the e-news being sent,
and in other cases in people not receiving it at all. I think very few of
you actually received last week's edition (#228). If you are reading this as
an e-mail, then that might mean the problem has been fixed - hooray!
Otherwise, all the e-newses are available on our website (follow the "News"
link on the home page). If anyone would like to have #228 sent to them,
please let me know.
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WHAT'S COMING...
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More details of the following from
Andy Bickerstaff ( 07772 111491 / mailto: andy@norris-hobs.co.uk ) or
Mark Middleton ( 07725 119649 / mailto: markjmiddleton@yahoo.co.uk ) or
Phil Aiken (07739 035189 / mailto: phil.aiken@rnid.org.uk ) or
Anna McLaughlin (07971 606521 / mailto: anna.mclaughlin@talk21.com ).
Saturday 14th October Surrey Veterans Cross-Country Championships in
Richmond Park. See above.
Sunday 15th October Cabbage Patch 10 miles road race at Twickenham.
Entries closed.
Saturday 21st October Lee Cup mob match v Orion Harriers at Epping
Forest. 3pm start. See above.
Sunday 29th October 125th Anniversary Run from the Green Man at 4pm.
See above.
Saturday 4th November Mass Mob Match in Richmond Park at 2.30pm. All
members please try to come! See above.
Sunday 5th November MABAC League 5 miles at Puttenham Common. 11am
start. See http://www.mabac.org.uk/.
Saturday 11th November Surrey League Div 1 - men at Coulsdon, women at
Lightwater Country Park.
Every Saturday Bushy Park Time Trial. 9am start at the Diana
Fountain car park. See http://www.bptt.net/ for details.
WHAT'S HAPPENED...
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SWEATSHOP SURREY LEAGUE DIVISION 1 Saturday 7th October at Brockwell Park
Mark Middleton reports:
"If proving that Ranelagh Harriers men's team means business in Division
One, after a year in the cooler climes of Division Two, was the aim then the
Ranelagh guys certainly rose to the occasion! At a deceptively tough
Brockwell Park, Ranelagh finished third overall just behind Belgrave and
Herne Hill and ahead of the old adversary Thames, a great result for the
opening race!
At the sharp end Sam Perkins had a fantastic run finishing 9th overall,
especially so as Sam is only 18 and the youngest member of the team! Sam was
closely followed Phil Kill' in 11th place, Paul Doyle had a strong run as
usual, being one of our top scorers over the past few seasons, in 24th,
closely followed by new Ranelagh signing Pancho Gonzalez-Diaz in an
excellent 28th, who along with Keith Firkin made the trip across from
Cirencester to run for us! Next was Dinger Bell and Nathan Mills, both
running well paced races, then came young Jordan and me with Jordan's youth
and talent seeing him sail past me in the last hundred metres. Bringing in
the scoring ten were vets Mick Lane and Chris Owens, both showing a clean
pair of heels to some of the young'uns! In the unofficial B-team competition
between us and Stragglers, we provisionally lead by 1073 to 1325!
It didn't all go to plan though as Peter Haarer, one of our fastest guys on
the country, narrowly missed the start due to traffic after coming from all
the way from Oxford! Sure he'll make up for it at Coulsdon next time
around!"
Andy Bickerstaff adds:
"When the news of 3rd came though, a spontaneous cheer went up in the
Brixton pub from the 10-ish Ranelagh stalwarts. So loud it almost drowned
out the England football game! Without doubt my proudest moment as Ranelagh
Captain.(wipes away a little tear). Well done everyone!"
There were some great results from the younger athletes too - Joss Moran won
the Under 13 race and Taylor Nunn was 3rd in the combined Under 17 / Under
15 event, but was the first U15 home, with Matthew Wilson a minute or so
back.
SURREY LADIES LEAGUE DIVISION 1 Saturday 7th October at Epsom Downs
Anna McLaughlin reports:
"Congratulations to everyone that raced on Saturday! It was a tough and
blustery course, but the Ranelagh 'Army' was out in force packing the front
of the field once again! Although it wasn't quite the result we were hoping
for, we were so close to being the leading team that we had to wait until
the official results until we actually knew the result. In fact the final
scores show us only five points behind Belgrave, with the gap between us and
Thames being eleven points, before a huge chasm opens up to the next
contenders.so it is all still to play for in the league. which just makes it
more fun!!
Racing after the senior race, our juniors followed up with fine performances
of their own, all finishing well inside the top half of the field in their
age groups. Special mention must go to Stephanie Espinosa, who finished
third in the U15s age group and in fact third overall in the race, which was
combined with the U17s. a great start to the season!"
WORLD ROAD RUNNING CHAMPIONSHIPS 20km Sunday 8th October in Debrecen,
Hungary
David Wright reports:
"Good selection of Ranelagh personnel in Debrecen at the weekend: Hugh Jones
was the official course measurer, I was the GB team's token supporter and
Lauren Shelley made the long journey (hell, it was a long journey for us!)
from deepest WA to run for the Australian team. She sent best wishes to all
at Ranelagh but was going straight back to Australia". David travelled with
Wendy Jones from Cirencester, whom he is advising. She was the second Brit
home in 70.55.
Here's Lauren's own account:
"The weather was beautiful - low 20s, blue skies and sunny with just a
little wind. There were about 60 in my race around four laps of a 5km
tree-lined, fast course. Lornah Kiplagat won in a new world record time for
20km.
Unfortunately for me, this time I didn't have a great race. I got off to a
solid start, going through 5km in 17:27 and 10km in 35:24, but it just
wasn't as comfortable as it should have been at that pace. By lap 3 I was
feeling pretty ordinary and ran an 18:40, but recovered a little for the
last lap to run it in 18:18 for a total 20km time of 1:12:23. Overall I
finished 44th, down on my 32nd place last year, and though it's a PB (I've
actually never run a 20km race before) it is significantly slower than my
usual half marathon time equivalent.
So I must admit I am disappointed with the run. I'm not sure exactly what
went wrong, but maybe it was just one of those days . . . I've had such a
good, consistent last 18 months with rarely a bad race, and I think after
the last 18 months my expectations are a little higher! Ah well, back to
some solid training and move on to the next one...".
1 L Kiplagat (Neth) 63.21
44 Lauren Shelley 72.22
BUSHY PARK TIME TRIAL 5km Saturday 7th October
The BPTT celebrated its second anniversary with its biggest turnout yet.
Organiser Paul Sinton-Hewitt spoke before the day of the possibility of 500
runners, and was probably relieved to find "only" some 380 assembling at the
Diana Fountain car park - a far cry indeed from the 13 who took part in the
first event two years ago. I wonder if Paul could have dreamed on that
Saturday morning what sort of monster he had created!
Nearly 10% of the field were either Ranelagh or Thames Turbo/Ranelagh - not
bad at all considering that League races were taking place a few hours
later. Most of the regulars were there - several Wrights, Darren Wood, John
Hanscomb, Iain Wilson and so on - plus quite a few giving it a try for the
first time. It wasn't generally a PB day, though several of the juniors were
pulled along to new bests, headed by George Inman. Nick Wright was the first
Ranelagh man in 14th, and Rachel Rowan in 60th place was the 6th woman home
overall.
The annual points competition came to a conclusion, with last year's winners
Darren Wood and Gill Wilson both having to settle for third place this time.
Sonia O'Sullivan and John Hanscomb were both on hand to present the trophies
named after them to this year's winners Nicola Whitby of Stragglers and
Irishman Shane McDermott of Raheny Shamrocks. However, Darren and Gill are
still on top in the table of BPTT appearances with 85 and 73 to their credit
respectively. McDermott is third with 72 ahead of John Hanscomb on 65.
Special t-shirts were presented to all runners and helpers and a whole host
of prizes were awarded. See the BPTT web site for a full list.
1 T Haughian (WSEH) 16.22
14 Nick Wright 18.01
18 Iain Wilson 18.09
36 Stewart Ward 19.05
52 Darren Wood 19.38
56 Chris Camacho 19.44
60 Rachel Rowan 19.52
63 Jonny Rowan 19.54
75 Roger Brankin 20.06
87 Stephen Logue 20.26
100 George Inman 20.44
104 Andy Morris 20.48
117 Adam Wright 21.04
118 Andy Hayward 21.06
125 Lloyd Bridger 21.13
134 Luke Penney 21.26
137 Chris Wright 21.37
139 Dave Taylor 21.40
151 Max Bridger 21.59
163 Luke Wilson 22.15
188 Alfie Purdue 22.49
192 Karen Broadbent 22.53
193 Carola Richter 22.53
201 Paul Bisping 23.08
205 Michele Gibson 23.13
215 Ollie Penney 23.37
224 Neil Myland 23.55
234 Niall O'Connor 24.16
235 John Scally 24.18
239 Zuzana Lhotanova 24.31
248 Holly Clemens 24.57
249 Stephanie Croucher 24.57
276 Dawn Bates 25.45
292 John Hanscomb 26.29
322 Bea Purdue 28.26
323 Holly Wilson 28.27
336 Emma Hughes 29.23
337 Jackie Harrison 29.31
340 Alice Clemens 30.03
341 Danni Croucher 30.12
342 Deborah Blakemore 30.13
EUROPEAN DUATHLON CHAMPIONSHIPS Sunday 8th October at Rimini, Italy
Jenny Lloyd-Jones reports:
"I won my age group (the gold medal!!) at the European Duathlon
Championships in Rimini and was 6th overall woman.....so pretty happy with
that! It was a windy day and both the run and the cycle course were a bit
longer than standard distance, but all that running and cycling practice in
the wind in Richmond Park obviously paid off. Really nice to have achieved
this after feeling like I was never going to be able to walk without pain,
never mind run again, in the summer!"
Distances were supposedly 10km run, 41km bike and 5km run. Jenny finished
two minutes clear of the rest in the W35 age group.
1 Jenny Lloyd-Jones 2.23.30 (44.47 / 75.51 / 20.53)
KINGSTON RUNNING FESTIVAL Sunday 8th October
Marie Synnott-Wells is never one to miss a local race, and she, Fari Shams
and Kerrie O'Connor were all in action again the day after their Surrey
League heroics. Marie and Fari were the second and third women home in the
16 miles event and Kerrie was 5th in the 8 miler.
16 miles
1 D Marsden (Sevenoaks) 1.29.25
21 A Levene (Woking) 1.43.16 (1st W)
32 Marie Synnott-Wells 1.46.00
34 Fari Shams 1.46.11
8 miles
1 T Kingsnorth (TH&H) 44.45
9 E Adams (AFD) 50.02 (1st W)
54 Kerrie O'Connor 56.55
55 Simon Rothwell 57.01
122 Layla Smith 60.30
309 Harry Yan 67.05
467 Julie Naismith 71.22
580 Janet Turnes 74.31
778 Gillian Ali 81.37
ROYAL VICTORIA MARATHON Sunday 8th October on Vancouver Island (Canada)
John Atkinson writes:
"Ran the Royal Victoria Marathon on Sunday -- and went agonisingly close to
breaking 3 hours. It was a wet one, with the heavens open for most of the
race, and that made it slippery in places; but it didn't bother me that
much -- except for the fact that my number had virtually disintegrated by
about half way ... I think it was made of tissue paper. Every time I
approached a photographer I had to hold the fragments up! I was on course to
break three hours comfortably, having started at 2:50 pace and maintained
that for about the first 15K. I'd slowed a bit by half-way, but felt pretty
good and was still on course for 2:56. However, by about the 32K mark my
pace was dropping; and by the 37K mark I pretty much hit the fabled 'wall'
and had to grind it out the rest of the way -- the last K seemed to take
forever. Whereas I did the first 5K in 20mins, I did the last in 28...
Once I knew I wasn't going to break 3, I just wanted to make sure I was
inside 3:10 -- to qualify for Boston (which I'm looking at doing in 2008) --
and so was happy to be comfortably inside that, at 3:04:46. It was still,
technically, a PB by almost 15mins, but I know I can go under 3. A recent
hectic schedule out here in BC didn't aid my preparations -- but I still
fancied my chances. Ah well, I'll just have to do it in London in April
instead!
Well done to all the teams in the Surrey League last weekend -- and good
luck to those doing the Cabbage Patch 10 on Sunday".
1 S Osaduik (Canada) 2.16.49
62 John Atkinson 3.04.50 (chip time 3.04.46)
DULWICH 10km Sunday 8th October
1 J Jarvis (Unatt) 33.43
371 Alan Meaden 56.29
432 David Meaden 60.51
BERLIN MARATHON Sunday 24th September
Carola Richter writes:
"I ran the Berlin Marathon on the 24th of September. My time wasn't as good
as expected as it was too hot and I ran off too early. The time at the end
was 3:55 instead of the expected 3:46".
1 H Gebreselassie (Eth) 2.05.56
909 Carola Richter 3.57.26 (chip time 3.55.35)
FINALLY...
Alastair Sinclair writes:
"One Saturday morning, outside my house, I was talking to my neighbour Sonia
O'Sullivan who had just been out training. My father-in-law was visiting for
the weekend, and he wandered out of the garage and into the conversation
with the remark 'You look like a proper runner, you do'..."