WFC Runners: WFC Runners - Winchester Half, Disney Half, parkrun,

News

The big event this week was the Winchester half. Representing Fit Club we had Tom, Steve, Rachel, Philippa, Charles and Karen. The weather gods were not playing ball and we awoke on the morning of the race to heavy rain and winds. This didn't deter a large group of Fit Clubbers meeting up at Mile 1 to cheer on the super six!

A little after 10 the lead car came flying through closely followed by the lead runners. We were all surprised and delighted to see Charles in the top 10 and absolutely motoring! A short while later the rest of our representatives came through, all smiling and all looking strong, if a little wet.

After this the support crew split up and went to various points on the course. Glenna and Dave were at Mile 8, Anna and Mike at Mile 12 and Simon M at the finish. We also had Mike and Lynn volunteering in the finishers village. As the morning progressed we all got updates of how our amazing runners were getting on.

There were some superb performances with Charles finishing in the top 50, Philippa and Steve both running PBs and Rachel, Karen and Tom all running their first half marathons. Results were as follows:

Meanwhile across the channel Sarah was running the Disneyland Paris Half marathon. The weather was much the same as it was in Winchester with lots of rain. The medal more than made up for this though!! Sarah said the following about the race:

"The beginning is fab, stopping and meeting the characters...there is so much to distract you on the course with some very goof fancy dress efforts by the runners."

See next week's blog for full race reports for Winchester and Disney by Tom and Sarah.

This week saw 15 Fit Clubbers Running at Winchester parkrun, making us the 2nd best represented club after WADAC! We also had Charlotte W at Southampton.

Yet again there was some fantastic running and yet more PBs! At Winchester Simon M ran a fantastic 28:41, an improvement of 1m11s. Jenny ran 27:28, a 25s improvement, and Jenny’s forth consecutive PB!! Charlotte W knocked 34s off of her PB running 22:10 at Southampton. Superb efforts!

In addition to the PBs we also had Charlotte R running her first ever parkrun and Trish running her 100th! Trish has run 80 of her runs at Winchester, 12 at Cleethorpes, 2 at Andover and 1 each at Basingstoke, Penrose, Trellisick, Kesgrave, Newbury and Cambridge. Trish’s PB is 27:50 set at Cleethorpes in May this year.

This week saw 21 amazing Fit Clubbers smashing out hill sprints on Blue Ball Hill. 12 x 30 sec reps up the hill with jog recovery in between saw the runners pushed hard in a tough but fun session. Not even a heavy downpour deterred the spirits of this fantastic group!

Read all about it here: http://wfcrunners.blogspot.com/2018/09/wfc-runners-20th-september.html

Hursley 10km by Alex Humber

With a distinctly autumnal feeling to the start of the day, I realised I couldn't stay in with a fry up, a pot of tea and back to back repeats of Supermarket Sweep on Challenge TV. It was less ‘Get the turkeys’, more ‘Get to Hursley’. Dale’s sensational tie and jacket combos would have to be marvelled at another time.

The Hursley 10k is a multi-terrain undulating course around the IBM/Home Farm estate. One figure-of-eight lap across a couple of fields and through plenty of woodland. A 10:30am run is a bit of a late start for me — I'd rather get going well before my brain has realised what I'm doing.

Who was there? Anna, Mike, Lynn, Caroline, Tom, Mikaela, Sharon, Simon (E + B), Alice, and me (Alex). Once registered, the WFC Runners met up with spirits lifted by DNCE’s 'Cake by the Ocean' blasting through the PA system. And cakes aplenty there were indeed; a highly satisfactory assortment of delectable baked goods including apple cakes, flapjacks, Victoria sponge, iced fairy cakes and some professional looking brownies with melted marshmallows on top. The organisers clearly took note of our club association when we originally signed up and prepared nourishment to meet our requirements.

The rationale behind the race numbers was initially unknown. After the inevitable japes about the numbers being one's age, it was correctly deduced that they were based on predicted finished times that you state when you sign up. Mike and Mikaela, both #80-something, were likely to be fast finishers. Tom, #100-and-something, was just being modest.

A pre-race mass warm up to music, led by a Sergeant major type disguised in lycra, got the 500 or so entrants loosened up. This involved a mass chicken shooing segment; the smug WFC Runners led the way here with an impeccably demonstrated shooing technique that put the lacklustre shooing efforts of the rest of the masses to shame. They had more than cake knowledge to learn from us.

Jogging across the first field at the start I could see the front runners sprinting across the other side. The first few kilometres were really rather pleasant through the farm estate and woodland, with the hills not too challenging to start with. 3km in introduced less pleasantries with quite a long and nasty hill. Time seemed to pass quickly with lots of varying terrain and a few single file sections. 7-8km was punishing, being entirely uphill, and a few people had to walk part of it. I made it up ok, remembering not to hunch forward and instead keep my head up, shoulders back, maintain deep and calm breaths and trying to stay positive.

After that, it was pretty much downhill all the way back to the cake stand and only a short dash to the finish line stood in the way. Sharon, Simon E and Alice provided some good competitive tussle with me. I was chuffed enough to finish at just over one hour without walking or stopping. Strava tells us that in the last km Anna did a 4:47, Lynn a 4:39, Mike a 4:04, Sharon a 5:35 and me a 5:19. Great efforts all round. And the post-race marshmallow-topped brownies were delicious.

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!