Archive for Everything Else

Frazzled In Paris

David Scrimshaw writes (in full gory detail):

Sunday 10th April, and I was toeing the line on the Champs Elysees among the 3:00 to 3:15 hopefuls. The morning had started cool thanks to the 8:45 start but there was anticipation of the heat to come as the sun was beginning to sneak through the buildings and hit the road, with the memory of the previous days heat still fresh in the mind!

The race started efficiently amongst a great buzz from the crowds and participants, shouts of ‘allez allez’ coming from all angles. I had aimed to set out at 7:10 mileing moving up to 7:05 once I had got into my stride and space was more of a luxury following the early first 2 miles. All was going to plan and once settled I really began to enjoy the race, the heat being kept at bay by the cold water buckets and sponges all runners had received at the expo the previous day.

I had seen Amy at mile 3 and at mile 6 was surprised to hear a booming ‘come on Beckenham Running Club’ – I turned around to see Steve Smythe (Claire Elms Coach) standing on the sidelines cheering me on! He was out in Paris with Asics having helped coach some of the ‘Asics Super 6′ – I also caught up with Steve again at mile 16 in one of the long tunnels when he joined me for a minute on the road to offer some words of encouragement – a real unexpected boost!

I had come through the halfway point feeling pretty good in 1:32:44, so bang on schedule for my target time. I saw Amy again at mile 18 and was still feeling pretty good although I had started to feel what felt like it could be the onset of cramp in my left calf by about mile 18-19 and was also starting to feel the heat as the temperatures crept up and the sun rose in the sky meaning there was now very little shade to hide in.

I had been conscious of hydrating in the heat to ensure that the cramp was kept at bay and with it getting so hot I was feeling pretty dry and thirsty so kept taking on fluids to ensure I didn’t dry up like a raisin in the sun! Unfortunately I feel I must have been a little to enthusiastic with the liquids…. I’d started to feel the pain around mile 22-23 and had dropped a slower mile of around the 7:40 mark – on the back of this I pushed the next mile and clocked a 7:26, however, I had started to feel my stomach feeling pretty heavy. My body was obviously not able to absorb the liquids I had been feeding it and at mile 24 I had to pull over to evacuate said liquids!

I spent a couple of minutes throwing up all of the last 5 miles liquid intake before getting my head back together and getting back in the race, but by this team I was totally shot and only managed to crawl around the last couple of miles for my 3:12:09.

I was really happy with the time in as much as this is a new PB for me by 28 minutes, but I felt I could have got under the magical 3:10 for good for age had I not made what was a bit of a school boy error – I guess this is the problem with winter training for a spring Marathon, all the cold weather training hadn’t prepared me for managing my body in the heat and I got it a little wrong!

Anyhow, its a great learning and a building block to what I know will be a sub 3:10 next time I set out over the distance.

The course in Paris is absolutely fantastic – fairly flat, really picturesque and some great support from the crowds. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone!

I’ve attached the Garmin Connnect link to my run for those who want to look at my mile 24 collapse!

Garmin Connect

20110414-113102.jpg

No Comments

Paris Marathon 2011

We train all winter in the freezing cold, trudging through snow….to run a marathon in 25 degree heat, great for spectators but carnage for the runners. Fortunately David Scrimshaw survived the roasting in Paris to smash his marathon PB by 28 mins to finish in 3:12, frustratingly just short of his 3:10 target but considering the conditions I would say that’s a very good day out at the races. Well done David, can we have a report please ;)

No Comments

Assembly League 2011

Leaves are appearing on trees, the thermostat has been moved down to 0, evening runs are now in daylight, beanie hats, gloves and running tights have been stuffed into the back of the running wardrobe… it can mean only one thing, the Assembly League is once more upon us. 6 rip roaring high quality  short fast races once a month over the summer, but are for ALL abilities. The 1st is hosted by us at Beckenham starting at 7pm. The ladies teams have generally outshone the men at this over the last couple of years, will they do so again this year, or will the men be able to get teams out for all the races?

Here are the fixtures for the summer all 7:15pm starts except for the 1st race which is at 7pm.

Beckenham 07/04/11

02 Arena 05/05/11

Victoria Park 02/06/11

02 Arena 07/07/11

Victoria Park 04/08/11

Beckenham 07/04/11


No Comments

parkrun Mob Match

On Friday I got email after email with tales of sick notes and injuries so I was a little worried that I’d set up a mob match that no one was going to attend! In the end we had a healthy 29 runners pitch up to take on the impressive numbers of Petts Wood and Orpington, thanks to everyone who came. And if it was your 1st parkrun, welcome to the cult that will take over your Saturday mornings ;) . The race it self took place in bright and breezy conditions and seemed to have inspired the whole of Bromley to come along!  Numbers swelled to a huge 266 runners smashing the previous record of 188. Fortunately Martin Cunningham has set up a slick team of volunteers who coped with the numbers excellently (but they always need more if you’re at a loose end).

The actual race was hard fought and (sorry to the Petts Wood guy I accidentally elbowed!) competitive. We dominated the top positions but the key to mob matches is the middle order, which Petts Wood had plenty off!. Results are still under deliberation and appear very close! But I’ll post them up as soon they are agreed.  But all in all a successful event, which I hope that we can make a regular fixture………

1 Jim ADDISON 17:40:00 Beckenham RC
2 Clare ELMS 17:53:00 Beckenham RC
5 Nolan WILKENS 18:07:00 Beckenham RC
8 Christopher LYDON 18:26:00 Beckenham RC
10 Craig WILLIAMSON 18:40:00 Beckenham RC
11 David William SCRIMSHAW 18:42:00 Beckenham RC
14 Richard P SELWAY 18:47:00 Beckenham RC
16 Chris MINNS 18:57:00 Beckenham RC
18 Simon C CARTER 18:59:00 Beckenham RC
22 Simon HARRIS 19:11:00 Beckenham RC
23 Will WITHECOMBE 19:24:00 Beckenham RC
30 Ben CALASCIONE 19:54:00 Beckenham RC
38 Melanie BURDETT 20:20:00 Beckenham RC
39 Theunis BOTHA 20:23:00 Beckenham RC
65 Hugo DAVIS 21:23:00 Beckenham RC
75 Steve FERRAR 21:37:00 Beckenham RC
84 Kate MARCHANT 21:56:00 Beckenham RC
90 Ken BAKSH 22:09:00 Beckenham RC
95 Paul David Joseph FLETCHER 22:18:00 Beckenham RC
96 Andrew HINDS 22:19:00 Beckenham RC
114 Andrew SMALL 23:02:00 Beckenham RC
119 Georgina SELWAY 23:14:00 Beckenham RC
127 Nicky HOWARD 23:29:00 Beckenham RC
129 Pat KERRINS 23:38:00 Beckenham RC
130 Ian S MCCARTHY 23:45:00 Beckenham RC
150 Paul CREGG 24:56:00 Beckenham RC
165 Deborah FORD 25:39:00 Beckenham RC
170 Ruth BUNN 26:07:00 Beckenham RC
190 Carolyn TUSTIN 27:12:00 Beckenham RC

The masses are off!

Here’s Orpington’s Jason Cherrimans video on face book, not sure you’ll be able to see but here goes…. parkrun

No Comments

Baby News

Jen Writes:

For those that knew Will Smit,  he was a South African who used to belong to the club and has since moved to Singapore.  He and his wife Toni had a baby early on Saturday morning, 2nd April.  She weighed 6.6 lb and is called Mia Rose.

Mia Rose

No Comments

Worthing 20

5am, 6am…. I didn’t have a clue what the time was when I got up, all I knew is that I had to ignore the fuzz in my head thanks to the 5 pints the previous day watching England destroy wales whilst the other England limply lost to Sri Lanka, and drag myself out of the door for the drive to Worthing for the 9am start / 8am start on the know where you are winter time clock.

It was abit like Sidcup 10 by the sea, 4 laps of West Worthing wasn’t the most inspiring of courses, coupled with quite a stiff breeze and lots of people to lap it certainly wasn’t an easy run. But you have to hold your hats out to the marshals who gave up their Sunday to stand infront of roundabout junctions etc, blocking cars until the last straggler has gone by for the 4th time!

London is scarily close now so not wanting to burn all my matches before the big race I took the first 5 mile lap easy in 7mm, and then ran each lap abit faster. The 10 mile split was 1:07 with the 2nd in 1:04 to finish in 2:11 and 18th place,  I even got to practice my marathon finish pose (touch wood!!). At the end I waited for Steve Winfield to finish, he looked like he’d put a hard day in at the office as he crossed the line in 2:39, and was rightly chuffed to bits with his sub 2:40 effort, we even got to meet Jonathan Redman who it turns out was only just ahead of Steve.

GunPos No GunTime Surname Forename Gender Cat Team/Club Chip Pos Chip Time
18 182 2:11:28 Wilkens Nolan M SM BECKENHAM RUNNING CLUB 18 2:11:26
126 446 2:39:08 Redman Jonathan M M50 BECKENHAM RUNNING CLUB 129 2:39:03
129 522 2:39:41 Winfield Stephen M M40 BECKENHAM RUNNING CLUB 132 2:39:09

No Comments

Orion 15

This weekend I took the place of Sophie and Anika’s usual long run partner Ben (while he was in Lisbon), and escorted them to Chingford for the Orion 15. Thanks to Sophies 10 year old who programed her cars inbuilt sat nav, we made it in good time to arrive in a parallel universe. A cricket ground club house doubling up as a race HQ… which also had problems with providing ladies with a hot shower(sound familiar?), ha, at least we have ladies showers. To be fair, it is only Orion’s temporary home while they build a new one…onto the race.

Have to say, the Orion 15 is my new favorite race! It had everything you could want, mud, bogs, trails, countryside, woods, roads…golf course..and hills, hills, hills and then a very steep hill at mile 11 which was enough to make you cry at the top and shuffle along like 9o year old who’s put their hip out. It was proper old school cross country only marked by saw dust. Running along the trails you could just imagine gentleman in their leather shoes and baggy shorts and vest whatever the weather running this race back in the good old days! With trail shoes weighing a ton with all the accumulated mud, it’s an achievement just to finish, so the plastic cup of champagne at the end was a really nice touch. And the cost of this great race…nothing. All they ask for is a donation. The only downside was a mini load of chavy t@%ts who ignored the marshals at a road crossing honking their horn at all the runners… but thanks to Orion and the marshalls, superb job.

27 Nolan Wilkens Beckenham RC M 1 48 10
183 Anika Jones Beckenham RC F V 35 2 14 0
184 Sophie Bishop Beckenham RC F V 35 2 14 1

Orion 15 -047

Anika and Sophie

,

No Comments

March Handicap Results

The wait is over……..drum roll please….. March handicap results are out!

Results

Overall points table to follow soon….Andy?

No Comments

What happened to Britain’s 51st best long jumper?

Athletics Weekly have recently been running a regular Best of Brits ‘where are they now’ type feature based on all time UK track and field rankings. Mentioned alongside Olympic greats Kelly Sotherton and Denise Lewis……what happened to Britain’s 51st best ever long jumper? The answer lies in the AW article  attached :)

AW article

How cool is that!

No Comments

Parkrun mob match alert

Just a reminder that on the 2nd of April, Beckenham are going to take on our neighbours  Petts Wood and Orpington in a 3 way mob match. The race will take place at Norman Park over the 5k parkrun course.

We had a massive turn out for the last mob match we took part in against Blackheath and Bromley and ran them really close. It would be fantastic to try and match that again and this time win! If you haven’t run a parkrun before you need to register on the site and print off your barcode. Easy.

And to motivate you all to turn out here’s a GCSE course work style poster!

No Comments