Home
Newsdesk 2002

 **************************************************************************
 RANELAGH HARRIERS E-NEWS # 78         17 OCTOBER 2002
 Web site:   www.ranelagh-harriers.com  
 **************************************************************************

 SURREY LEAGUE DIVISION 1 12 October 2002 Women at Epsom Downs, men at
 Brockwell Park

 Clare Nicholson reports from Tattenham Corner:
 "I did a mental calculation of who I thought would be turning up for our
 opening Surrey League fixture this last Saturday at Epsom Downs and came up
 with a magical figure of 12. I was a factor of 1/3 out ... 18 women started
 the first cross country of the Surrey League season in the senior women's
 race on Saturday wearing Ranelagh vests - 18. I have to keep saying it
 because I can hardly believe it myself - "18 women started the first cross
 country of the Surrey League season"..... 

 Boiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnngggg.....

 To say we swamped them is a huge understatement ... Our first scoring team
 comprised our Captain "Big Ted" Sarah Seal in 13th, Ms Cuthbert + Semple
 19th and 20th with a second between them (that must have been a battle in
 the closing stages), Kathy Mallet 30th in cracking form and Sue Healey whose
 Sunday mileage and speedwork are clearly paying off in 32nd. Margaret
 Auerback headed up the 'B' scoring team of Sophie, Jenni, Eliete and Anna.
 Sonia, Julie, Louise, Corinne and Teresa were our 'C' team then Jo Pike and
 Lynn Buist for our 'D' girls.... 

 What initially looked like a 4th placing (excellent for the first match of
 the season) from our 'A' team was later promoted to a 3rd place as a Thames
 non-scorer was discounted. This would not have been quite so possible but
 for the depth of our ladies team which put the 5th Thames 'A' team scorer at
 74th (we'd already cleared 2 1/2 teams by that point).
 An absolutely outstanding performance by all concerned, I can't wait for the
 next one ..." 

 No less pleasing were the performances of the juniors: Anair Beverly set off
 in the combined U17 and U20 event as if she meant to continue where she left
 off last season - in front! In the end she had to settle for 2nd but with
 Estelle and Jessie not far behind and Hannah and Laura backing up it was an
 easy team win.
 The U13s almost emulated this: Alex, with a great 3rd place, Emily and
 Natalie technically finished 2nd team but on the same number of points as
 the winners.  

 Marcus Gohar was at Brockwell Park:
 "Ranelagh of late seems to have become a club of extremes. The other week
 our V60s surged to silver medal glory in the Southern Road Relays, and this
 week the under 13s held the flag high in the Surrey League. Hang on in there
 boys...
 As for those in between, well we had quite a good squad on the line, who
 charged up the hill with Hugh Jones towards the rear of the thin blue and
 yellow line. By the time we were going up the hill on the second lap most of
 the field had shown due deference to his pedigree by stopping to wait for
 him, only a dozen remaining in front when he ran out of course. 
 Unfortunately most of them didn't wait for me and I missed my Surrey League
 PB by one place. Everyone ran well, fastest senior (not vet or junior) in
 the Page Cup Paul Graham being the tenth man home. Julian increased his
 mileage for the last six months to something just under 100, and still
 finished well in the top half of the team. Kevin failed to repeat the
 victory he had had the last time he raced in Brockwell Park. I had being
 hoping to beat Herne Hill rival Tony Harran, and when he never appeared at
 the finish I thought he'd given up. As it happened he was so far ahead of me
 I couldn't even see him.
 I don't know the team results but I think we are safely in mid table.
 Meanwhile, what is it about Brockwell Park which makes such an easy looking
 course so hard?"
 As Marcus mentions, our three new Under 13s all ran well for second place in
 their team event and Dan Jermy was third Under 15 home in the combined Under
 17 / Under 15 race. 

 Under 17
 1 D Seddon (Belgrave) 13.06
 5 Dan Jermy 14.32
 Teams (5 to score)
 1 Belgrave 30
 5 Ranelagh 125 

 Under 13
 1 P Humphrey (SLH) 13.57
 6 Ben Gateley 15.24
 10 Matt Hirschler 16.14
 16 Zach Foy 18.09
 Teams (5 to score)
 1 South London 19
 2 Ranelagh 90 

 FARAWAY PLACES...
 Besides Jenni Kruse whom we mentioned last week, two more Ranelagh Harriers
 were in Berlin for the marathon on September 29th: Grant Lemke finished
 1139th in 2.57.47 and Marina Quayle was number 21240 across the line in
 4.40.05, some fifteen minutes behind her husband Simon: "We had a great
 weekend, and would recommend the Berlin Marathon - nice and flat and lots of
 atmosphere (and beer)". 

 Sophie Timms ran the Geat North Run Half Marathon in 1.52.27 and the
 Daventry 6 last Sunday in 46.23.
 Jo Shearsmith ran the "Hardley a Half" Half Marathon near Southampton in
 1.45.11.
 And closer to home, in Sunday's Kingston running festival, Adam Tapley
 completed the Marathon in 3.12.27 and Bridget Cuthbert the 16 miler in
 1.54.55. Probably there were others at Kingston - more details when I get
 them. 

 Chris Spink gave the London to Brighton race a miss this year but helped
 marshal the route in Brixton before going on to the Nike road races held in
 Battersea Park: "A very low key, friendly run in Battersea Park: there was a
 3, 5 & 8 miler running concurrently and I was placing 2nd until the bloke in
 front of me finished at the 3 miles point. I ran hard and finished the 5 in
 28.17, but I certainly don't think it's worth a mention!" 

 LYONS
 Brian Chard writes:
 "Mandy & John Newton are inviting interested runners/partners to take part
 in an interesting run in Lyons on 17th November. The event is called "le
 Jogg'iles" and there is a choice of events (from 5 to 30 k). There are a
 number of social events planned (by the city) for the weekend but I am sure
 good Ranelites will find additional watering holes.
 I am trying to put together a group to go. The intention would be to fly out
 from Heathrow on the 15th (am flight) and return on the 17th (evening
 flight) or on the 18th. Mandy & John will arrange accommodation at a hotel
 near where they live. So far I've got about 12 interested. Mandy thought
 that they could arrange accommodation for about 20/25 quite easily without
 having to be very far from them.
 Cost is estimated as follows, flight £90 return, accommodation £20 per
 night, race entry £8. Interested? Contact me at
 bac@cheval-properties.co.uk". 

 SOUTHERN CHAMPIONSHIPS
 David Wright has been burrowing into some venerable club Gazettes:
 "In reply to Marcus Gohar's question in e-news #76 concerning THE FIRST
 SOUTHERN MEDALS SINCE ... I think that the answer is 31 January 1976, nearly
 27 years ago when our current over 60s team were presumably in their prime.
 The occasion was the Southern Counties Junior Championship over six miles at
 Parliament Hill where the team of Hugh Jones (7th), Tim Woods (35th), Kevin
 Harrison (60th) and yours truly (63rd) claimed bronze medals. What was
 particularly remarkable about that day was that we should have put out a
 much stronger team. Malcolm East whom coincidentally you mention in this
 e-news and who a few years later ran 2:11 in the Boston Marathon, was
 injured and Anthony 'Ants' Orr was stricken with 'flu. As Surrey Junior
 champion Ants could have been expected to be somewhere in the top 20 and
 Malcolm was of a similar standard at that age to Hugh. Kevin and I were
 extremely lucky to make the scoring team and we only just beat yet another
 teammate, Steve Ewington of whom I have not heard in many years. The Lotinga
 Cup club Junior Championship in those days was very competitive!
 Ranelagh's senior team that day, in finishing order, was made up of the
 following hardy souls, some of whom are still competitive, including the
 first man who almost ran last week: Bill Harvey, Guy de Boursac, Dave
 Daniels, Gordon Whitson, John Pratt, Jim Forrest, John Hanscomb, John Kirk,
 Dave Dunn and Allen Horne. 

 The Gazette reported that a Cheese and Wine party was held at the Dysart
 that evening - I vaguely remember it as being more wine (& Directors Bitter)
 than cheese. To keep the continuity with the current e-news I can report
 that Gordon Seconde, who sadly died last week, would almost certainly have
 been at the party thoroughly enjoying another convivial Ranelagh evening.
 Congratulations to the O60s team and let us hope that it is not another 27
 years before Southern medals are collected". 

 In fact David has overlooked another success for the old-timers: our over
 50s team won Southern gold medals in February 1981 at Lloyd Park - a mere 21
 years ago! John Disley led the team in 6th place with Ken Powley 11th and
 Don Martin 16th. Backing them up in 40th place was Chris Brasher. Don Martin
 had also been a member of the over 50s team that had won National silver
 medals at Parliament Hill in 1976, just three weeks after the junior success
 described by David. Don's team mates on that occasion were our present-day
 regular pioneers Bob Maslin and Colin Bishop.  

 BUGBEAR
 Bob Beatson sends some further information about the Bugbear virus:
 "It's very easy to get caught out by the Bugbear virus, and the consequences
 can be very nasty, particularly for those with their own PCs at home. By
 wrapping itself in an email extracted from an infected machine, Bugbear
 disguises itself very well. The 69K size, mentioned by Ken, can be a give
 away, but I've heard that infected emails of other sizes have been seen. The
 apparent sender's name may or may not be familiar to the recipient, and is
 not the true source. The virus can be activated by simply opening or
 previewing the main body of the email, without doing anything directly with
 the virus attachment. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express with the preview
 pane enabled, just selecting the email to delete it can activate the virus.
 Versions of Outlook and Outlook Express with certain security updates don't
 have this weakness, but, if you're in any doubt about the version you use,
 DON'T USE PREVIEW. Even if you have anti-virus software on your machine,
 it's unlikely to prevent the virus getting in unless it's been updated very
 recently to cover Bugbear. Once in, the virus attempts to terminate a range
 of different anti-virus tools that might be running on the machine. It also
 makes the machine vulnerable to tampering by hackers via the internet when
 online, and starts collecting keyboard input, presumably with a view to
 capturing things like credit card numbers and passwords. All in all, Bugbear
 is a very nasty piece of work. Symantec have provided a free self-contained
 tool that checks for and if necessary removes the virus. To download it, see
  http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html and search for "bugbear".
 If you have any reason to suspect that your machine has been infected, it's
 best to stay offline, and to try to get someone else to download the removal
 tool for you". 

 CONGRATULATIONS
 to Janet and Manuel Turnes on yet another "Best Garden" award for their pub,
 the Wych Elm in Kingston.
 
 NEXT...
 More details of the following from Andy Bickerstaff (07966 552302 /
 mailto:norris.hobs@ndirect.co.uk ) or
 Sarah Seal (020 8995 2380 / mailto:sarahs@walker.co.uk ).
 
 Saturday October 19th Surrey Veterans Cross-Country Championships at
 Richmond Park. 2.30pm start.
  
 Sunday October 20th Cabbage Patch 10 miles road race at Twickenham,
 incorporating our Callis Cup 10 miles road championship. 10 am start.
 Entries £9 (payable to The Cabbage Patch Run) to 29 Stourton Avenue,
 Hanworth, Middlesex TW13 6LA. Entry forms can be downloaded from
 www.stragglers.org . Entry on the day £12.
 
 Saturday October 26th Mob Match v Orion Harriers 7.5 miles at Chingford.
 2.30pm start.
 
 Saturday November 2nd Priory Relays at Reigate
 
 QUOTE OF THE WEEK
 "My feeling is that any day I am too busy to run is a day that I am too
 busy". John Bryant.
 
 Steve Rowland
 e-mail: srowland@calorgas.co.uk
 Tel: 01926 318734
 Fax: 0870 4006901