NEWSLETTER – SEPTEMBER 2001 ISSUE 290
EVENTS DIARY:
OCT 7th
BRISTOL half-marathon inc. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP.
13th
HANTS. XC League at FARLEY MOUNT
14th
GREAT SOUTH RUN at PORTSMOUTH
20th
21st
ABINGDON Marathon, SARUM 8km Cross-country
25th
FOXDOWN HANDICAP
27th
28th
RELAYS versus ANDOVER & NEWBURY at OVERTON
NOV. 3rd
HANTS. XC League at READING
4th
SALISBURY half-marathon & LORDSHILL 10 miles
22nd
VILLAGE HANDICAP
25th
HAYLING 10 miles
DEC. 1st
HANTS. XC League at GOODWOOD
2nd
VICTORY 5 miles at PORTSMOUTH
9th
CHRISTCHURCH 10 km
20th
FOXDOWN HANDICAP
PLEASE CHECK NOTICE BOARD OR RUNNING MAGAZINES FOR FURTHER INFO.
FRANNY’S BITS!!
A highly successful month on the roads with club members winning prizes galore. Despite wearing his “other” vest Jamie is to be congratulated on winning the Overton 5 and taking second place in the Newbury 10. This certainly went a long way to paying the mortgage this month. Brother Chris gave the club great cheer when finishing third in our own race and helped the men’s’ squad to two team victories. Not to be outdone the ladies won their team event at Overton with Cath taking first vet. Further details later.
A reminder to all….. If you sign up for a race on the notice board you must first fill in a universal entry form which, as well as your details, contains the normal race disclaimer. Some clubs may refuse your race entry if Emma cannot supply a signed form so please fill one in ASAP. If your details (address) have changed recently then fill in a new form, these are available from Emma.
The winter handicap season commences on October 25th on the Foxdown course. The league will be decided on your best five races (from six) and starts at 7:30. Handicaps are posted on the notice board and are based on your best time from your last three runs over the course. ANY questions please see me ASAP, please don’t leave it until the night.
This year we are hosting the annual relays against Newbury and Andover. It is hoped the long leg will be around the Harrow Way course with the short leg over an out and back loop down the Lynch. Further details nearer the day.
Finally the consistency league is underway. Events for this league are marked on the fixture list on the club notice board.
If any one has any results for the newsletter please can you let me (FRANNY) have them before the last Thursday of the month. If necessary you can phone me on 01256 895723 though, because I work shifts, I would appreciate no calls before 2:30pm.
Some advice on night running from Franny
Now that we are stuck with running round the village on dark nights please can we all remember to take a little extra care, especially when crossing at the bottom of Dellands and at the Stute. Extra care should also be taken around Station hill because of the extra traffic using the road whilst Station Road bridge is out of use.
On handicap nights please keep to the left coming down Foxdown hill and do not cross-over until you reach the speed limit signs by the church.
Please try and make yourself more visible to other road users, reflective bibs and arm bands are ideal for warning approaching motorists but when they are worn over dark clothing you become invisible to pedestrians and other runners (especially round the Lynch).
So please remember the old saying…AT NIGHT WEAR WHITE.
Thanks to JT for the following report that missed last months deadline.
STRAGGLERS 7km at Bushy Park, 27th JULY
This Friday evening attracted nearly 600 finishers, including some 100 who were allowed to run without numbers, as the Stragglers were not taking entries on the day. These were recorded in the race as “unregistered” and given a time! Presumably these unregistered runners had paid no entry fee and I hope they did not receive a T-shirt and any spot prizes.
The course is run over traffic-free park roads and grassy footpaths with a double lap and an out and in section. Ian was our first home in 14th place and second Vet. With an excellent time some three minutes in front of Keith Clark who ran with Martin Churm’s number on his chest. Eric had a real flyer, probably his best race for some time, showing a clean pair of heels to Jill Hills, Geoff, and Audra who occupied places spanning a mere two minutes behind. Liz completed the ladies team to take third team overall…an excellent performance.
A struggling JT and Moira completed the club interest, who also seemed to struggle to record a moderate time. Everyone, who the writer talked to, seemed to have slower times than last year probably down to the warm conditions.
14th
I.FORD
24m 53sec
2nd VET
67th
K.CLARK
27m 48sec
124th
E.TILBURY
29m 35sec
136th
J.HILL
29m 56sec
4th VET LADY
164th
G.CLOKE
31m 01sec
172nd
A.DENNISON
31m 24sec
231st
E.SANDALL-BALL
33m 04sec
251st
J.THOMAS
33m 36sec
5th VET O/60
416th
M.WEST
39m 29sec
3rd LADIES TEAM. 596 Finishers.
Committee Meeting. 17/9/01
Present: G. Cloke, P. Wheeler, C. Wheeler, R. Francis, G. Mclaughlin.
Apologies: M. Dennison.
Matter’s Arising:
Andover- Newbury relay – Geoff has spoken to both teams. The course will be the Harroway for three large laps and Northington farm and back as the short lap. We will send a route map to both clubs. The teams will be the same as last year
Men-8, Vets-8, Ladies-6, B-Mixed-6
N.B Returning down by the river extra care will be needed, watch out for the faster runners.
Paul to arrange the hire of hall at Bridge street, the presentation will take place soon after the race.
Mob Match trophy – Gwyneth has this in hand.
Overton 5 –Very successful. Evening’s went very well enjoyed by all. Need to meet with police for mop up meeting, also to check on our finances. Many thanks to all involved in the week-end
Consistency league – so far we have 12 confirmed races.
Geoff has visited the Clere school and given a presentation to the pupils about the sport. He will try Testbourne next.
Treasurer’s Report
Income £648.50
Expenditure £815.30
Current £319.20
Reserve £1964.28
Secretaries Report
Application form for Club of the year has been sent to us. Have decided to submit this to the sports council.
A.O.B.
1)Discussion over Newspaper reports. Does any one feel like taking on the job. Must be committed to doing this, but must have the backing of the members.
2)Standard scheme still awaiting presentation. The certificates are still with J.T
Meeting closed at 9.30p.m. Date of next meeting 8/10/01
OVERTON 5 miles. 1st SEPTEMBER.
Another highly successful day for the club with the well-organised race going off without a hitch. Congratulations to all those people who put so much time and effort into organising such a fine event. Jamie is running well of late as he prepares for his autumn marathon and despite early opposition from an Aldershot runner he had a convincing victory with must have been the biggest winning margin in the history of the event. I believe Chris made a late decision to run and led the club interest home in a superb third place. Alton’s Keith Vallis got the edge on Ian Ford who did well to finish 8th to take third in the Vets. Completing the “A” team was Keith Clark whose tenth spot earnt the club victory in the team event. Paddy was his usual cheerful self as he led fellow vets Gavin and Eric to fourth team overall (was there a vets team prize). Gavin was narrowly beaten by Cath who was third lady overall and winner of the Vets prize. Eric had a good run though Franny, who was having his best Overton 5 in years, was rather too close for comfort at the end. Dave Bright has been putting in some good training during the summer and must have been slightly disappointed with his time after paying for a fast start.
Audra was first Vet 35 and got the judge’s verdict in a photofinish with Darren after the timekeeper could not separate them. Darren closed the “C” team which finished 8th. Close behind this pair came Dave Henery who was another to make too fast a start…..Not only did the wheels fall off but someone shot the horse pulling the cart as well !!! Liz put in another good effort to close a victorious ladies team and give the club the double. Steve hadn’t raced since January and his training recently is best described as sparse, therefore his run should have given him some incentive for the coming winter. Alistair was pleased with his time in what was a rare competitive outing to complete the “D” team in 11th place out of 13 teams.
3rd C.JONES 26m50sec
8th I.FORD 27m 32sec
10th K.CLARK 28m 23sec
28th A.KEENAN 30m 42sec
33rd C.WHEELER 31m 29sec
34th G.DUNCAN 31m 39sec
43rd E.TILBURY 32m 20sec
45th R.FRANCIS 32m 31sec
50th D.BRIGHT 32m 45sec
62nd A.DENNISON 34m 01sec
63rd D.CUFF 34m 01sec
65th D.HENERY 34m 12sec
71st E.SANDALL-BALL 34m 39sec
80th S.McNAIR 36m 30sec
93rd A.PAUL 37m 30sec
139 Finished.
OVERTON FUN RUN.
The fun run attracted a good field of 32 runners and gave the club another victory as Matthew made a fast start and maintained a good pace to the finish. Our next finisher was Gareth in 6th with Ian Vosser showing some promise in 9th. Young Adam was so pleased with his run that he intends trying the cross-country this season while Claire shook off all of the pre race publicity in the race programme to finish third lady. Angela and Chris had a close finish with Angela getting across the line 2 seconds in front. Hopefully all of them are available for Farley Mount.
1st M.BRIGHT 17m 08sec
6th G.PLUMB 20m 00sec
9th I.VOSSER 21m 10sec
13th A.FRANCIS 22m 23sec
14th C.BOYLE 22m 42sec
23rd A.DIGGINS 27m 45sec
24th C.WOODS 27m 47sec
32 Finished.
NEWBURY 10 miles. 9th SEPTEMBER.
Last year, the first consistency event attracted only a few runners but this year every man and his dog turned out. A field of 13 first claim harriers plus Jamie “wrong vest” and Martin “right vest” attracted some well received comments from other clubs at the starting area.
The course is undulating for the first four miles and a gusting headwind did not help for fast times. Neither did the big climb around halfway, which must be almost a mile long, before a generally fast run back towards Newbury with a couple of smallish climbs thrown in the last couple of miles. Jamie got on the prize list again with a super second place and showing once again that the marathon training is going well. Mike led home the club interest in fifth place to win the second Vets. Prize. Chris maintained his good form in to finish in 8th. Mark put a lot of effort into his run as he came home almost a minute clear of Keith who completed the scoring team which won the event by only two points over White Horse Harriers.
Martin led home the B team finishing outside the hour but had a huge gap to our next finisher. Gavin and Andy must have had an interesting race as only seven seconds separated them and both will be looking for better times on a flatter course. Eric showed a big improvement on the previous week to finish 4th in his age group. Dave Henery showed he can raise a sprint when it’s needed to sneak past me in the last 20 yards but I was pleased with my run considering I ran the second half over two minutes faster than the first. Dave Bright again paid for a fast start but once he sorts out his pacing his times and positions will improve dramatically.
Further down the field Martin got the better of JT though John must have been pleased to be less than half a minute down at the end. Steve, having not raced for months, was having his second in a week. Considerable lack of training miles showed but at least he seems to be starting on the long road back.
2nd
J.JONES
53m 14sec
5th
M.BLISS
54m 32sec
8th
C.JONES
55m 53sec
20th
M.SIMCOX
58m 40sec
22nd
K.CLARK
59m 39sec
29th
M.CRAWSHAW
60m 51sec
52nd
G.DUNCAN
65m 57sec
53rd
A.HARTLEY
66m 04sec
62nd
E.TILBURY
67m 17sec
71st
D.HENERY
68m 17sec
73rd
R.FRANCIS
68m 19sec
85th
D.BRIGHT
69m 35sec
137th
M.CHURM
75m 15sec
141st
J.THOMAS
75m 42sec
164th
S.McNAIR
78m 16sec
295 Finished.
1st
OVERTON
55 points
2nd
WHITE HORSE HARRIERS
57 points
3rd
NEWBURY
99 points
4th
READING ROAD RUNNERS
112 points
THANKS TO MARK SIMCOX.
For spotting this result in a recent copy of Athletics Weekly.
ALICE HOLT FOREST 10km ( short course due to marshalling error, see Ian’s report) 9th SEPTEMBER
3rd
IAN FORD
33mins 39secs.
This looks like another good run from Ian who finished less than a minute behind the winner and took the first Veterans spot by 2 seconds.
Medley of Results from Ian Ford
Every time I see Geoff he reminds me I’ve got to write something for the newsletter and so finally getting round to doing it reminded me that I hadn’t reported back on the Europeans in Portugal. I actually
finished 7th in my age group and at the time wasn’t exactly happy with that, a top six place would have sounded much better, but things didn’t exactly go according to plan. We very nearly didn’t end up travelling there at all, but having finally got to Mafra, British Airways had managed to damage the bike in transit – this culminated in a Portuguese mechanic having my bike in bits just 45 minutes before the race was due to start, with me trying to remain calm! So suppose considering this and that I was passing blood before during and after the race the final result wasn’t too bad.
The other positive note was that as I move up an age category next year, all things being equal then a medal position is a definite possibility. Anyway having got back from there it was into a mixture of time trials and road races leading up to the Worlds in Rimini.
On the running side this included:
Wedding Day 7k – 24.54 – 12th overall and 2nd Vet (Not 3rd as reported in the last Newsletter!)
Milland Valley 10k – 35.26 – 1st overall
Race the Train 10k – 39.43 – 6th overall and 1st over 40 vet (A slightly generous 10k, last kilometre which was flattest of the lot took 6minutes!)
Overton 5 – 27.32 – 8th overall and 3rd Vet
Alice Holt 10k – 33.41 -3rd overall and 1st Vet
Duathlons included:
Castle Coombe 11th and 1st Vet
Hart Leisure Centre Duathlon 10th and 3rd vet
Castle Coombe 6th and 2nd Vet
Cycling:
A number of time trials including PB’s at both 25 and 10 miles
So despite a rough patch through illness in the middle weeks it was a pretty good sequence. That was until the weekend before Italy, when on the Saturday had a particularly bad 25 when lower back and backside
stiffened up badly and then on the Sunday I got tripped in the first 10 metres of the Alice Holt which badly grazed all my left hand side from shoulder to ankle! Chased the whole race which ended up mucking up my left calf and to add insult to injury the race was sent the wrong way so we didn’t end up doing the full 10k!
Italy was great – got stopped at both passport control and had bags searched on arriving there. Airline didn’t manage to damage the bike but the maid in the hotel did the very next day, knocking the bike over
and breaking the computer! First trip out on the course and punctured.
But to the race – the first 10k wasn’t bad ending up 6th having been caught by 3 Italians in the last 2k, problem was that wasn’t comfortable and was working far too hard. This proved to be the case as the bike
leg was lousy especially as I got stopped twice for draughting. The first occasion I was too close but felt hard done by the second time, especially as when I was stopped a group of 12 or more went by the other way. It seemed to be that if you were an Italian the rules didn’t apply and also if you got into a big enough group you were safe – muggins here didn’t understand those rules until it was too late! In this country two stops would mean disqualification so by that point had really lost the plot, which combined with back and shoulder pains (the latter from the Alice Holt tumble) and it started raining meant that I just went through the motions on the last 5k.
End of the day finished a disappointing 26th, (four places down on Calais the previous year) – know should have been much higher as one of the GB riders was 13th and in four out of five races in this country
this year have beaten him or finished with in 10 seconds of him whereas in Italy I was nearly 5 minutes down. Having finished I then spent the next 3 hours viewing various items of Italian porcelain!
However, despite my efforts the GB team overall did exceptionally well coming out
the top country in terms of medals and placings.
Suppose not surprisingly I came down with a cold on my return so have had some time off before I start trying to get back in shape for the cross country season and the usual last few Duathlons of the year all of which take place over the coming couple of months.
Southern Counties Road Relays at Rushmoor Arena 29 September from Geoff
A good afternoon in pleasant conditions saw Ian and Paddy get off to flying starts with Ian coming home in 15th position. Martin took over from Ian but despite a solid run slipped back to 22nd place. Mike, trying to get back to form ran an absolute blinder, picking up 14 places to finish 8th in what was the fourth quickest time of the race. It was left to poor old Gavin to hang on in there, which to his credit he did completing the relay in 17th place.
Geoff took over from Paddy and despite a reasonable first lap slowed up badly in the second lap before handing over to Eric who pulled back places but not enough to make a significant difference. It was left to JT to complete the glory leg, which he did in fine style, before escaping with Eric to conduct the post race inquest at the Ball and Wicket at Hale.
Results
M40
Lap1
Lap1+2
M50
Lap1
Lap1+2
Leg1
Ian Ford
9:58
20:35
Paddy Keenan
11:11
22:48
Leg2
Martin Crawshaw
10:45
22:05
Geoff Cloke
12:12
25:04
Leg3
Mike Bliss
9:37
19:33
Eric Tilbury
12:00
24:22
Leg4
Gavin Duncan
11:32
23:51
JT
13:52
28:16
CROSS-COUNTRY.
Last season the men’s squad had it’s best season ever in the Hampshire league finishing third overall. The Vets team have dominated their division for several seasons and in recent years the women’s squad have proved that they can be serious title contenders in both senior and vets divisions. Mike, Ian, Paul and Cath have all won individual medals in recent years whilst Geoff’s junior squad have started to make a name for themselves.
At the Newbury Ten I heard several comments on the size of the Overton turnout and this is possibly our big strong point…Last season we always managed to put out a large team for the cross country league. With Chris Jones hopefully joining Mike, Ian, Chris Try, Andy Hoiles, Mark, Keith Clark, Paul, Bob Taylor, Voss and Martin Crawshaw who knows, we may improve on last years position The Vets team should start as favourites again but injuries always mean that a solid backup is required. The ladies team can also compete for medals in both senior and the Veterans sections so let’s hope we can muster a fit squad of the caliber of Cath, Audra, Jill, Nicky and Liz.
But the best possible result for the club would be a really huge turnout at every fixture whatever your standard. So, no excuses, get those spikes/studs cleaned off and join the rest of the club at Farley Mount on October 13th. If possible get there early and give the juniors some support, make some noise, and let’s get the club noticed.
Bionic of the Month
This month seems to be all about Ian Ford, with good results in the Wedding Day 7K, Alice Holt 10K, and the ITU World Duathlon Championships. All good preparation for the forthcoming cross country season and helping to put Overton Harriers on the map.
Stop Press
It looks as though all that training with Overton Harriers has paid off yet again for Jamie Jones who is still celebrating his win at the Robin Hood Marathon September 30 in 2hours 35minutes.
Also Franny completed the tough Clarendon Marathon September 30.
More next month.
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