News
It was another cracking turnout at parkrun on Saturday with 20 members running or volunteering! We had 18 runners at Winchester as well as Anna H handing out tokens. We also had Alf running at Whiteley parkrun. Lucy G was the only PB of the day, very impressive given the conditions at Winchester. Well done everyone!!
Consolidated report here:
Thursday 7th Feb - Lamppost Sprints
Following last week’s cancellation due to poor weather there was a good turnout at Dean Lane park for this week’s Thursday session. 20 runners joined coach James in the park, including new member Karolina.
The session was another sprint session. This week we were focussing on holding a fast pace for increasingly longer sprints, separated by jog recoveries and short breaks. We warmed up by jogging through Weeke and up Fromond Road, before running down an alleyway to Burnett Road. Burnett road has a set of evenly spaced lampposts (roughly 30m apart) along the length of the roa
d. It was these that we used to measure the sprint intervals. The longest distance between the start lamppost and the end was ~250m.
The session was structured as follows:
Sprint to lamppost 2, jog back to start
Sprint to lamppost 3, jog back to start
Short recovery
Sprint to lamppost 4, jog back to start
Sprint to lamppost 5, jog back to start
Short recovery
Sprint to lamppost 6, jog back to start
Sprint to lamppost 7, jog back to start
Short recovery
Sprint to lamppost 8, jog back to start
Longer recovery
This was just over 2km with half of this being at a fast pace. This was repeated twice through.
Afterwards we jogged back the way we came and cooled down in the park, before heading off.
Next week’s session will be starting at Abbey Gardens at 7pm.
New Year Running Challenge
Week 5 update to follow! (sorry timed out this week)
Race Write-ups
Cancer Research UK 10k London Winter Run – by Jenny Leishman
I woke up to a strange sound on Sunday 3rd February. It was a sound that I hadn’t heard for the last three years; my alarm. I actually got up before the kids. We had to be at Winchester railway station in time to catch the 7:23am train to London Waterloo. There was still snow on the ground, which set the mood perfectly for the Winter Run. However, it did make for a rather cold and slippery walk to the station.
When we arrived in London, we had to make the 15 minute walk from Waterloo to Trafalgar Square to join the other 23,000 runners. We dropped off our blue plastic drawstring bags that had been provided for us before the race without having to queue and headed to the centre of the square for a few photos and a warm-up. Before we knew it we were heading towards the start line.
In the race pack, we had been advised to wear an old top to keep warm heading towards the start line. Just before the start line there was a jumper drop where you could leave your top to be donated to Cancer Research shops. This was definitely a good idea given the sub-zero temperatures!
Everyone was buzzing as we approached the start line. As we removed our nice warm hoodies and left them at the jumper drop, the excitement was really starting to set in. Before we knew it we were off and running past the National Gallery and towards The Strand. Once on The Strand, we ran past the Adelphi Theatre and The Savoy. The route was very flat, with only a very slight incline just after the 1km mark.
Since the race was named the Winter Run, there was lots of winter-themed encouragement along the way. When we neared the 2km mark, we could hear the unmistakable beat of The Baha Men’s ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ on repeat. As we ran past the 2km sign we were greeted by a pack of huskies ready to give us a high five and cheer us on. Following their encouragement, we continued through the City, past the London Stock Exchange and towards Cheapside. At the Guildhall Yard, just before the halfway mark, we found the drinks station which had a Swiss chalet theme. We then ran around the Bank of England. We then came across the penguin party, where a group of penguins were dancing along to Beyonce’s ‘Crazy In Love’ and encouraging runners on with high-fives.
We were soon running towards St Paul’s Cathedral, for me this was the most impressive of the sights on the route. There was a small gospel choir outside the cathedral singing ‘Oh Happy Day’ and applauding racers as we ran by. We soon found ourselves running back down The Strand and back past the high-fiving huskies. The end of the race saw us running down Whitehall, finishing just before Downing Street. Here we crossed the line holding hands in celebration before collecting our medals and taking a few selfies with some polar bears.
After taking a few minutes to rest and take some celebratory photos (including some WFC jumping shots), we headed back towards Trafalgar Square to pick up our bags. Queues were short and fast-moving at the bag drop, which was surprising given the number of people taking part. There was still a great atmosphere in Trafalgar Square as there was an after party going on featuring Take That and ABBA tribute acts. They were also selling a selection of t-shirts, hoodies and other merchandise. The hoodies seemed to be selling particularly well given the freezing temperatures.
Since the race took part in central London and roads had been closed for it, there were lots of crowds and we were cheered along the entire route. This really helped to keep us going. The route was very flat and fast, although the vast number of runners did mean that we sometimes had to slow a little. The event was very well organised with plenty of marshalls along the entire route. It was a great race for my first 10k and I can’t believe that we managed to do it in 53:01, when our aim had been to finish in under an hour. I really enjoyed this race and would love to do it again.
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
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