WFC Runners: WFC Runners - Hursley 10km, parkrun, race reports and unexpected marathons!

News

This week we had a number of Fit Clubbers running at various races across Europe!

We had a massive 11 Fit Clubbers running at the Hursley 10km on Sunday and they put in some amazing performances. Sharon, Alice, Alex, Lynn, Simon B, Simon E, Caroline, Mike H, Anna H, Mikaela, Simon E and Tom all superbly represented the club with some fantastic performances and a great display of team work. Here are the results:

On the Saturday we had Adam running a 55km mountain ultra in Poland and his amazing wife Magda followed that up on Sunday with a 24km mountain race. Not to be left out their kids also got in on the action running a 200m race. That's a 4 medal weekend for the Stachowiak family!

Meanwhile in Germany Alistair was running the Berlin Marathon. Well it was supposed to be just Alistair but at the last minute Tina decided that she would run with the aim of quitting at 10km. 10km became 21km as Tina made it to half way. Realising she could walk the rest and still complete inside the cutoff time Tina cracked on and ended up completing the whole thing. Pure madness, but a wonderful demonstration that sometimes you can push yourself through these challenges with superhuman mental strength. Alistair finished in a superb 4:53:02 and Tina in an equally impressive 5:51:51.

This week saw 11 Fit Clubbers Running at parkruns in 2 different countries!

Tina and Alistair represented us in Hasenheide parkrun (Berlin) ahead of Alistair’s marathon on the Sunday. Tina described it as:

“2 lap course, mostly through woods with a sneaky hill thrown in. Record numbers for them. Last week they had 77 finishers. This week it was 550! They might have broken the national record (parkrun only just taking off in Germany). Highly recommended. Took it easy with Al.”

The rest of us were at Winchester where conditions were perfect for running. Olivia was celebrating her 50th parkrun and decided to dress as Harry Potter, as you do! She was so chuffed that the Fit Clubbers were out in force to support her! Thank you. Obviously spurred on by having a wizard chase them Jenny and Matthew both recorded new PBs with some fantastic running! Well done both.

Another huge Thursday turnout of 31 runners celebrated our first anniversary in style by smashing out 6 sets of shuttle sprints in North Walls Rec with a longer effort to finish each off. We then went for drinks and cake to further celebrate what has been an amazing year.

Read all about it here: http://wfcrunners.blogspot.com/2018/09/wfc-runners-13th-september-1st-birthday.html

BACCHUS WINE HALF MARATHON – DENBIES WINE ESTATE - by Anne Arnold

As most of you know I like a little drinky from time to time so when One R sent a text with a link to this half marathon with a tag of ‘I saw this and thought of you’ how could I refuse. So I sent the link through to my partner in running and fancy dress crime and we were signed up…. But what to wear? Well a wine bottle fancy dress costume of course …gotta love the Internet. Following this little thought was put into this Half Marathon until the day.

Clearly one does not want to be driving to a wine half which advertises 5 wine stops on route followed by a hog roast and more wine. So a simple train journey Winchester to Reading and then Reading to Dorking picking Kate up on the way. It wasn’t until we got off the train and started walking up the road with hoards of people dressed as anything from Minions to Power Rangers through to Crayola crayons and homemade bunches of grapes made out of green and purple balloons, did the nerves start kicking in! What had we done? The pep talks between us started ‘it’s only for fun, just going to enjoy it, it doesn’t matter about the time’

The wine estate itself is absolutely breath-taking with the vine yards running up the whole of a massive hillside……. Yes you read it right all up a hill side. So off Kate and I set, me hearing coach James words in my head ‘power your arms’ but as the first wine stop was at 3 miles we huffed and puffed to the stop to be greeted by a table of white wine and cheesy nibbles and a bagpiper. So after the obligatory photos and a few snifters we set off again to mile 6 this time another set of hills rewarded by pizza and wine! We had quite a long stop and chat here and a few tasters so it was quite hard to set off again.

The Next part of the run was hard steep, styles to negotiate and single track paths and of course more hills. Next wine stop Rose wine and Cream cakes so was worth the slog a quick trip to the loo serenaded by a 1950’s retro singer. Next wine stop …not good and wasn’t even partaken. We are very discerning wine drinkers. Finally we got to the last stop on the run and boy it was party central a live band and as much red wine or champers as you liked. We had a good boogie with Wonder woman, the incredible hulk, another wine bottle, devils and angels and then a long down hill to the end with more dancing and eating. Our Half marathon time was 4hrs 33 mins! 2hr 15 for the running and a similar time for drinking!

The day was a great experience and to be honest those taking part were clearly runners as it is quite a hard run or even if walked you would need to be fit. There was clearly a number of running clubs there and it is a great social environment. Kate and I loved it and are planning it again next year and would love some WFC Runners to join us.

Remember ‘Forget the time it’s all about the wine

New Forest Half by Sharon Smith

The race instructions for the New Forest Marathon weekend advised aiming to get there 3 hours before the start of your event. My event, the half marathon, started at 9:55. Setting off that early seemed a bit extreme but I knew that the traffic around Lyndhurst was often a nightmare plus I hadn't managed to collect my race pack the day before as they'd recommended. I actually arrived around 7:30 and had the extreme fortune to bump into one of my old University buddies in the car park. Together we collected our numbers and then had over 2 hours to kill. Sheona has done a bit of running in the past but not for a few years and this was the furthest distance she'd attempted. I persuaded her that the cereal bar in her bag was probably not enough to run 13.1 miles on and we set off to find her some breakfast!

As we had a good catch up over coffee and bananas the time flew and I completely forgot I was there for a race. We had the obligatory toilet stop and then made our way to our separate waves in the warm up area. After a frankly exhausting warm up we wandered across to the start line where we were very efficiently released in our waves.

The 1st few miles were a little congested but that actually helped to check my pace and we soon evened out. The course was awesome, everything you'd expect from running through the forest. Views, fords, trees and obviously ponies. A whole herd of them were charging around an adjacent field at one point which was a pretty incredible sight.

Despite multiple events being on that day the course was brilliantly signposted and well marshalled. There was a fab atmosphere without ever feeling crowded. The only cruel touch for the half marathon is when you arrive back into the race village and then realise you've only done 12 miles and have to complete a 'victory lap' before you get to the finish line, praying it's around every corner! The full marathon and 10k runners get to avoid this pain.

After the race Sheona and I caught up again and then headed off home. The race village was great though with free massages for runners, bands, cafes and bars. It was a great event and one I'd definitely consider doing again.

Stockbridge 10km - 9th September by Coach James

It was a fairly late decision to enter the Stockbridge 10k, but with Bertie getting along fine and the race allowing me to run with Elsie in the buggy I decided to go for it!

On the day Rachel decided to join me running the 10k and Will came along to run the 2k junior race.

The race HQ was at Stockbridge primary school and after we collected our numbers we did some jumping shots in the playground. Unfortunately Elsie had a little pre-race accident (the joys of potty training) so we had to raid the schools lost property for a change of clothes. A definite first for me at a race!

We headed over to the start a few minutes before the race started and listened to the pre-race briefing. Then we were off!

The race started with a small loop around the roads near the start and then a longer loop past the church, down to the national trust car park and back to the start. After that the race headed out along Marsh Court road. This was gently undulating and great for running with the buggy.

Just before 3 miles there was a short sharp hill, at least that’s what it looked like! In actual fact it was just the start of Cow Drove hill. A long drag of a climb that seemed to go on forever. With the heat and pushing the buggy I decided to have a couple of strategic walk breaks on the way up. At the top of the hill there was the only water station.

Shortly after this the route turned and headed down a steep, uneven hill to the Test Way. The last 2 miles were all along a fairly flat, hard packed gravel trail. Elsie and I had slowed a little but were heading for a good time when disaster struck...Elsie dropped her water bottle, I trod on it, turned my ankle and fell. Elsie went flying off into a bush and I ended up sprawled on the ground. After being helped up and extracting Elsie from the bush we jogged into the finish.

I was chuffed to finish in 52:30, a new buggy pushing 10k PB for me. Rachel followed shortly afterwards having also smashed her PB!

It was a nice race, well organised with a small field. I’d recommend it for anyone wanting a challenging but fun 10km route.

Exmouth parkrun – 1^st September 2018, by Rachel Mills

The Mills Family were on holiday in Devon for a week at the end of August. So, before our week away, I investigated where the nearest parkrun to our cottage was (I must definitely have the running bug, as a year ago I wouldn’t have even considered running whilst on holiday!). I really liked the look of Killerton parkrun, however having done a recce at the beginning of the week, I realised we would have to get up way earlier than I wanted on the last day of our holiday! Instead we settled on Exmouth parkrun. This is a lovely flat (hooray!) run along the Esplanade, and an ‘out and back’ course rather than laps. It is a relatively new parkrun, with our run on the 1^st September being only number 36.

Simon and Will decided to run too, but Felicity ducked out having had a PV (parkrun vomit) a couple of weeks before. She made a great photographer and supporter. It was Simon’s second parkrun post injury and Will’s first ever parkrun. As I had eaten a ridiculous amount of cake and drunk a reasonable amount of gin over the week I had planned a gentle run. The novelty of a new location, or perhaps the sea air must have had an effect as I managed a PB of 25:24, and Will smashed his first attempt in 32:37 running with Simon! It was a really enjoyable run by the seafront. We were all made very welcome by the run director and volunteers, and we would definitely recommend to anyone heading that way.

General Announcements

WFC parkrun Club

Winchester Fit Club Runners is set-up as a club with parkrun. If you go into your profile (there is a link to it on the parkrun results email and newsletter email) you can select your club. Change yours to Winchester Fit Club Runners and you will appear in the consolidated club report that we get each week.

WFC Runners WhatsApp Group

There is a WFC Runners WhatsApp chat group where we generally just wang on about running, races and cake. If you are not already part of this then please get in contact with Coach James or Coach Mike who will add you.

WFC Runners Strava Club

If you are a Strava user there is a Winchester Fit Club Runners club page. This can be accessed here: https://www.strava.com/clubs/WFC-Runners. Request to join and we will approve!

Booking onto sessions

Booking onto our training sessions enables the coaches to plan the session accordingly. You can book on in the following location: https://winchesterfitclub.simplybook.it/v2/

Race Calendar

Here is an updated race calendar. If you have any others that you wish to add, please let me know!

Winchester Half Marathon – 23^rd September

http://winchesterhalf.co.uk/