WFC Runners: WFC Runners - AGM, parkrun tourism, OMM, news, race calendar

AGM

After the Thursday session we all went to the pub for drinks and it was here that we held our first ever Winchester Fit Club RC AGM.

The purpose of the meeting was four fold:

1) to outline the vision for the future of the club
2) to discuss and vote on affiliating the club with UK athletics
3) to vote in the initial running club committee
4) to agree the club constitution

1 Vision for the future

Key notes from Coach James' presentation:

Seek to grow and expand the club
Maintain emphasis on participation, enjoyment and support
Continue to encourage people into running including set up of a Couch to 5km programme
Training and development of additional coaches to provide support for Coach James and enable expansion of sessions
Increase the number of sessions per week potentially including regular track sessions
If numbers continue to grow, potentially split the Thursday session into multiple groups
Potentially entering the Hampshire Road Race and Cross Country leagues
Remain integral part of Winchester Fit Club

2 UKA Affiliation

Coach James presented the benefits of UK Athletics affiliation for both club and member.

You can read all about the club benefits here: https://www.englandathletics.org/clubs--community/club-affiliation/benefits-of-affiliation

And the athlete benefits here: https://www.englandathletics.org/england-athletics/athlete-registration

The fees were discussed and it was agreed that the £2 subs would remain in place and that the £15 member affiliation fee would be passed directly on to UK Athletics.

Following this a vote was taken on if we should move to affiliate Winchester Fit Club RC with UK athletics. The vote was unanimously in favour of doing so.

3 Club Committee

The proposed Winchester Fit Club RC committee was proposed as follows:

Chair – Michael Day
Club Secretary – Anne Arnold (supported by Karen Parker)
Membership Secretary – James White
Treasurer – Laura Day
Club Coach – James White
Member Representative – Sharon Smith
Member Representative – Simon Holman

The committee was voted in unanimously.

4. Club Constitution

The Club Constitution has been previously circulated and reviewed. The link to it is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AsbciLLI6T7XKySvZ3jFVYZ82NxcD0zm

This was approved subject to the following caveats:

- Final review and feedback within the next week (by Sunday 11th)
- Agreement on the club colours

This is a key step in the development and future of the club. Thank you to everyone who contributed and for your support for the plans. I can't wait for us to take that next step!

News

This past Sunday Coaches Mike and James went to the Wyvern College to take the UKA Leadership in Running Fitness training course. The course took us through the planning and execution of running sessions. This includes risk assessments, planning, goals, warm-up, cool down, review and improvements. It was a mix of classroom and practice learning and gave us some great ideas for new sessions and improvements to the way that we currently structure and lead our sessions.

With Winchester parkrun cancelled because of the prep for the fireworks Fit Clubbers were given the opportunity to spread their wings and try some parkrun tourism.

Lynn visited Southampton, Glenna was at Whiteley, Jenny at Eastleigh, Shelley at Newant, Trish at Salisbury and myself at Cirencester. There are reviews from myself and Trish below!

Here is a link to the consolidated parkrun report for Winchester Fit Club: http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=26888&eventdate=2018-11-03

This week's Thursday saw the runners take part in a spook-tacular halloween run around the city in aid of Leonard Cheshire Disabilty, Anne Arnold's London Marathon charity.

The Fit Clubbers were out in force and didn't disappoint with their fancy dress efforts; we had skeletons, a couple of pumpkins, Batman, a cat, Santa, a warrior princess, Wednesday Addams, a ghost, a machete murderer and a bloodied cheerleader as well as a number of runners in normal kit!

The runners were made to work for their post-run cake though, with a truly "wicked" uphill first mile and a half at the start of a 3.9 mile run around the city.

Read all about it here: https://wfcrunners.blogspot.com/2018/11/wfc-runners-1st-november-halloween.html

Other notices

The Naomi House Santa Fun Run is being held 2nd December this year. Last year we had a huge turn out from Fit Club and it looks like it'll be the same this year so get booked on early! https://www.naomihouse.org.uk/events/448-santa-fun-run

The Southampton Marathon and Half 2019 has changed it's date to the 5th May due to planned roadworks on the original date. Note; this now no longer clashes with the London Marathon!

There are a number of 2019 races now open for entry:

Stubbington 10km is now FULL!!

Romsey 5: It is being held on the 27th January 2019 and you can enter here: http://offbeat-events.com/event/romsey-5-mile-run/

Winchester 10km: It is being held on the 24th February 2019 and you can enter here: http://offbeat-events.com/event/winchester-10km-road-race/

Eastleigh 10km: It is being held on the 24th March 2019 and you can enter here: https://www.fullonsport.com/event/hendy-eastleigh-10k-2019/profile

Other Fit Club Dates

November 4th - Fit Club Coffee Morning
December 2nd - Santa Fun Run
December 2nd - Christmas Jumper Social - Slug and Lettuce, 2pm
December 7th - Fit Club Christmas Party - The Willow Tree 6:30pm

Race Write-ups

OMM by Mike H

The OMM (Original Mountain Marathon) takes place at a different mountain location each year. The format hasn’t changed since the first event in 1968, with teams of two tasked with finding a number of checkpoints on Day 1, staying at a remote mountain campsite before doing the same again on Day 2.

Past OMM competitors have included adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who took part in 2006 before his climb of the North Face of the Eiger. The OMM is proud of a number of its quirks and traditions. One example being that no competitors know what the course is beforehand, with runners only learning the location a few weeks before the race, and receiving their course maps as they cross the start line. The event is also always held in the last weekend of October to guarantee challenging weather!

Last year my friend Scott and I attempted our first OMM in the Lake District, and had to abort on the first day after getting lost and running out of daylight hours in challenging weather. As we were grappling with the OMM’s 1:40000 scale maps, and struggling to find checkpoint markers the size of a teatowel on the side of a misty mountain, we realised pretty quickly that there was no point being fit and fast if your navigation isn’t up to scratch. So preparations this year have included a lot of running with a map in hand, including solo efforts on the South Downs, adventure races with Anna, and orienteering races with fellow fit-clubber Eric.

So onto October 2018, and OMM attempt number 2 for Scott and I, this year in the Black Mountains area of the Brecon Beacons. There were seven course options available, the most extreme being double-marathon length! Scott and I had unfinished business with the ‘B-course’ and were attempting this one again, which would challenge us with approximately 30 miles of running and 2400m of climb across the weekend. After the now familiar drive to the event (with phone signal vanishing as the mountains rise up for the last few miles), we were ready to go.

Part of our Day 1 map. Each contour line
represents 15 metres of height change!

As we crossed the start line, we were handed our course map which showed a 400km² area, complete with a dozen checkpoints that we had to visit in order, followed by our overnight camp. The weather on Saturday morning was as promised - crisp, clear and extremely cold. This was both good and bad - although the visibility meant sighting potential routes was much easier, our navigation also involved a lot of map-work and taking bearings from a compass. Wearing 4 layers and two pairs of gloves due to the cold meant this was going to be increasingly challenging as the day went on

The day started well, and finding the first few checkpoints without drama was a real confidence boost. The location chosen was absolutely beautiful, and as we climbed up the first plateau we had amazing sunny views of Wales to our left and England to our right.

As the terrain turned steeper, we quickly adopted a walking uphill and running on flat / downhill strategy. This was where we started to find things difficult. Despite us both doing the majority of our running over the year off road, we realised quickly that trail running, and even more so fell running, is a real skill. The route meant we were rarely running in a straight line on footpaths, and moving quickly on a mountain, whilst placing your feet on the right patches of rock, heather and bog, is an art that I’ve definitely not mastered yet. We were generally holding our own on the flat bits, and even doing okay on some of the climbs, but we were getting overtaken by practically everyone on the downhills. These were also the most painful for us, with lots of sore toes, twisting ankles and aching quads!

Despite this, we were making steady progress across the course, and celebrated our 6^th checkpoint (and therefore the new furthest distance we’d ever completed in an OMM) with a pork pie. By the way – this is one of the best parts of the OMM. The amount of calories burned, and the fact you’re running at a slightly slower pace than a more normal road run, means that eating is a big part of the event! Our mobile larder for the weekend included nuts, cereal bars, pork pies, banana sandwiches, energy gels, Mars bars, honey sandwiches, pepparami, midget gems and Haribo. Another difference to more traditional races is that there are no water stations either, so about 4 hours in we stopped briefly at a waterfall to refill our water bottles.

As the afternoon came we were reminded of how quickly conditions can change in the mountains. Within a few minutes the previously blue skies had turned to cloud, and strong winds and two heavy snow blizzards meant navigating was much trickier. We had to really concentrate at this point, visibility had suddenly dropped to less than 50metres and tired minds and bodies meant it would have been easy to take a wrong turn. Luckily we managed to make to all the checkpoints, and a mere 6 hours and 57 minutes after we started we had arrived at our overnight base camp.

Being nearly 500m above sea level and in an exposed part of the Brecon Beacons, the campsite was cold! Dinner was eaten as soon as we could boil enough water to make our freeze-dried Chicken Tikka and rice edible again. It actually wasn’t too bad, and whilst I’ve had better curries on a Saturday night, the 800 calories were very welcome!

All teams stayed at the same campsite, and it was really interesting walking around the campsite and marvelling at the minimalism of some of the tents. We’d used Scott’s small 2-man tent, but there were some absolutely tiny shelters used by some of the elite competitors (who clearly had no intimacy issues either) in an attempt to keep everything as light possible.

A fairly cold night of camping followed – the weather was sub-zero for most of the weekend, even colder at altitude, and felt like -12^oC with wind chill included. I counted that I was wearing 7 layers, a down jacket plus a sleeping bag at one point! It was also the first time I’ve ever been unhappy at the extra hours sleep due to the clocks going back – by about 5am we couldn’t sleep anymore and were ready to go! Starting up the stove in the freezing wind was a bit grim, but after a cup of coffee and spaghetti bolognaise we were warmed up and ready to go.

The first part of day 2 involved some of the steepest climbing of the weekend, and on a number of occasions I wasn’t just walking, but inelegantly scrambling on all fours like an arthritic gorilla. One vertigo-induced wobble / sense of humour failure aside, the climb was really satisfying, and unlike the first day, Sunday stayed snow-free and sunny. Our downhill technique still needed work though, in the end we resorted to sliding on our bums for large sections of a descent through moorland and heather. This proved much quicker, although ripped a big hole in Scott’s waterproof trousers!

There weren’t too many other mishaps though, and after 5 and a bit hours (and an overall total of 31 miles in 12 hours and 6 minutes) we arrived at the finish line. Our final finishing position was 91^st place out of 163 pairs, we were happy with this and were delighted to finish the event in full this year. The atmosphere in the marquee at the end of the race was great too. All finishers stay around at the end, enjoying a free hot meal and cakes (lemon drizzle & chocolate brownies were the most popular for those keeping track J), and it was fascinating hearing some of the stories of the other competitors. We sat across from a tough-as-teak 64-year old women and her partner, veterans of 10+ OMMs and who had comfortably beat us around the mountain on the same course as us on day 1!

Overall it was a fantastic weekend. It was by far the coldest and hardest race I’ve ever done, and I’m very aware that this type of event would not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, I loved the fact that this was more than just running, and that the teamwork, navigational and problem-solving elements were just as important as the fitness. We’ve already agreed we’re doing the OMM next year, maybe see a couple of you there?

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!

Remembrance Day 5km and 10km (Portchester) – 10^th November

https://www.eventrac.co.uk/listed-races/poppy-run-10k-%28supporting-the-royal-british-legion%29

Gosport Half - 18th November

http://www.gosporthalf.org

Festive Frolic (6 hour challenge, 4.7 miles laps) – 25^th November 2018

http://www.onthewhistle.co.uk/winter-festive-frolic/

Victory 5 - 2nd December 2018
http://www.athleticevents.co.uk/page2.html

Resolution Run (6 hour challenge, 4.4 miles laps) – 6^th Jan 2019

http://www.onthewhistle.co.uk/resolution/

Stubbington 10km - 13th January 2019

http://stubbingtongreenrunners.net/index.php/10k

Romsey 5 - 27th January 2019:

http://offbeat-events.com/event/romsey-5-mile-run/

Farnborough Winter Half and 5km – 27^th January 2019

www.farnboroughhalf.co.uk

Ryde 10 - 3rd February 2019
http://www.rydeharriers.co.uk/the-ryde-10-mile-road-race/

Portsmouth Coastal Half - 3rd February 2019

http://www.fitprorob.biz/half-marathons/

Longleat 10km - 3rd February 2019
https://www.letsdothis.com/e/longleat-10k

Hampton Palace Half – 17^th February 2019

http://hamptoncourthalf.com

Bramley 20 and 10 milers – 17^th February 2019

http://www.readingroadrunners.org/bramley.html

Winchester 10km - 24th Feb 2019

http://offbeat-events.com/event/winchester-10km-road-race/

Wokingham Half - 24th Feb 2019

https://www.letsdothis.com/e/wokingham-half-marathon-17697#source=header_search

Batty Bimble (6 hour challenge, 3.1 miles laps) – 3^rd March 2019

http://www.onthewhistle.co.uk/batty/

Bath Half - 17th March 2019
https://bathhalf.co.uk

Reading Half - 17th March 2019
http://www.readinghalfmarathon.com

Fleet Half - 17th March 2019

https://fleethalfmarathon.com/entries/

Eastleigh 10K - 17th March 2019

https://www.fullonsport.com/event/hendy-eastleigh-10k-2019/profile

Hampton Court Palace Half - 17th March 2019

https://www.palacehalf.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwsMDeBRDMARIsAKrOP7HuyPHMBlN6FyNNKOay414ajc2Ma4LoNqKhX883znS8IFi25Bej2UEaAlc3EALw_wcB

London Landmarks Half - Ballot - 24th March 2019
https://www.llhm.co.uk

Wickham 20 – 31^st March 2019

https://www.eventrac.co.uk/race-course-map/wickham-20-wickham-20-31-03-2019-00-00

Manchester Marathon - 7th April 2019

https://www.greatermanchestermarathon.com

Brighton Marathon - 14th April 2019

https://www.brightonmarathonweekend.co.uk

Salisbury 10 - 14th April 2019
https://www.evententry.co.uk/the-rod-smith-salisbury-10-mile-road-race

Goodwood Marathon, Half, 10km and 5km - 14th April 2019
https://www.runninggrandprix.com/event/goodwood-half-marathon/

London Marathon - 28th April 2019

May the Forth (6 hour challenge, 3.3 miles laps) – 4^th May

http://www.onthewhistle.co.uk/may-the-fourth/

Revenge of the Fifth (6 hour challenge, 3.3 miles laps) – 5^th May

http://www.onthewhistle.co.uk/revenge/

Southampton Marathon, Half and 10km – 5^th May

http://www.abpsouthamptonhalf.co.uk/

Alton 10 - 12th May 2019

Netley 10K - 19th May 2019

Hook 10K - 19th May 2019

Alresford 10K - 16th June 2019

Liverpool Rock and Roll - 25th May 2019

https://www.runrocknroll.com/events/liverpool

Endure 24 - 14th-16th June 2019