WFC Runners - Winter Run, wintery parkrun, challenge update, Romsey 5 write-up

News

This week's main event was the Winter Run in London.  A 10km through the streets of the capital.  Starting at Trafalgar Square and finishing at Whitehall near Downing Street the route is a fast and flat 10km.  We had Jenny, Sarah and Simon H all running. Results were as follows:


Sarah H - 53:01
Jenny L - 53:01
Simon H - 56:13

Look out next week for Jenny's race report!

With over 40% of the parkruns across the country called off we were extremely lucky that Winchester was still able to go ahead.  The snow was laying fairly heavily and the main paths were sheets of ice, so care was needed as we ran.  We were advised to try and run on the grass as much as possible and to take care at each corner.  This said, the majority of the course was in good condition and was good to run on.  

We had 15 Fit Clubbers on the day, including Lynn volunteering and Mike and Jo pacing.  There weren't any PBs but the standout performances were most definitely from Mike and Jo who both hit their pace targets (25 and 35 respectively) spot on.  Fantastic running!! 

Over at Eastleigh they were also on, and Sarah L was able to record a course PB!  Superb effort given the conditions! Here is a link to the consolidated report:

http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=26888&eventdate=2019-02-02

Thursday 31st January - Session cancelled!

With snow and ice predicted this week's session was cancelled to ensure the safety of you runners!

Next week's session will be meeting at Dean Lane park at 7pm.  

New Year Running Challenge
  
And so we find ourselves at the end of the first block of the challenge.  35 runners remain in the challenge and we have logged 495 runs collectively.  29 runners are still on 100% however 9 have used their with another 3 already signalling intention to do so in the next 4 weeks.  With challenges gone and winter yet to fully bite I am suspecting we will start to see the leaderboard start to fragment.  

Weeks 5-8 are all about planning out your long runs.  These will form part of your plans for your target race in March and beyond.  Here is the table so far:

Best of luck for week 5!  Please keep the stories and updates coming!  

Race Write-ups

Romsey 5 by Elsie Gilbert

I woke up at 06.30 looked out the window and it was windy, wet and cold, all I wanted to do was get back into my nice warm bed. We arrived into Romsey about 08.20 to find no parking apart from Aldi where only one machine was working and I ended up queuing for 35mins. Myself & Pete made our way to the start, we missed the race briefing due to the parking ticket queue and couldn’t find any fellow fit clubbers. 

We decided to position ourselves in the 40-45 min finish time. I was aiming for sub 45 as we had done a 5 mile training run one lunchtime and did it in under 50mins, however as you all know Winchester is hilly so I was quite confident I could achieve under 45. Myself and Pete do like a bit of healthy competition but I told him I wasn’t really feeling it so he would probably beat me. The race started at 09.00 and as we left the start line the sun was shining brightly and I couldn’t really see, the start was really busy and I was already panicking about doing it in under 45min and decided to sneak away from Pete to get a good lead. 

As I started to warm up I started to relax and really enjoy the run. I was happily running when Pete arrived alongside me saying “how on earth did you sneak off" to which I replied “more to the point how on earth did you catch up see ya" I then sped up to ensure a good lead. It was a flat course and made up of 3 laps however on the 3^rdlap we had to turn right up a tarmac path which seemed to go on for ages, however as you had to run up and turn and come back down it was a good opportunity to look out for fellow fit clubbers and to see how far Pete was behind me. It was really good doing laps as every time you passed the start the crowd were cheering everyone on and it was very motivating and a good atmosphere. 

The hardest part of the course was at the end of each lap as it was very uneven under foot. As I approached the finish I dug deep as James always says finish strong and the support from the crowd really helped. I passed the finish and collected the weighty medal and a bottle of water and went over to meet my friend who had come to support us, I was really happy when he said the time was 09.43 which meant I had achieved sub 45. 

We waited for Pete who wanted sub 50 which he also achieved. As we were leaving we bumped into Glenna and managed a few photos. I really enjoyed this race the course was lovely and although it was cold it turned out really nice. I would definitely recommend it. I wish I had looked at the course beforehand and read my race pack as missed out on sweets at the end!! 

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

The race calendar is now stored here:  https://wfcrunners.blogspot.com/2019/01/race-calendar-2019-and-beyond.html

Kit

Details and prices of kit can be found here: https://wfcrunners.blogspot.com/2019/01/kit-details-and-prices.html