News
This weekend saw the Winchester 10km hit the streets of our fabulous city! We had an amazing group representing Winchester Fit Club with 24 runners competing. The near perfect running conditions made it a great opportunity for Fit Clubbers to bag PBs, and they didn’t disappoint with at least 14 of our runners recording either all time or course PBs.
Rumour has it that the team were spurred on by the promise of cake from Alex awaiting them at the end of the run. There are a number of write-ups coming from various members, so look out for more details next week. Here are the full results:
Charles M – 39.04 *
Allen W – 40.25 *
Stefan – 42:37 *
Tom L – 44.17
Colin B – 44.26
Luke – 44.32
Matthew P – 47.44
Lynn M – 48.44 **
Rachel M – 51.13 *
Elise G – 51.40 *
Steve L – 52.01 *
Catherine W – 51.22 *
Lucy G – 53.23 *
Sarah L – 53.27 *
Philippa D – 55.49 *
Sharon S – 55.44 *
Alex H – 55.55 *
Simon M – 57.56 *
Karen P – 58.12 *
Glenna – 59.25
Camilla W – 61.38
Alf R – 62.51
Philippa G – 62.53
Simon B - 72.32
* Overall PB
** Course PB
Elsewhere we also had Anne running the Wokingham half. This was as part of Anne's marathon training and Anne recorded a superb 2:13:41 for the 13.1 mile course. An excellent sign for the next couple of months training ahead of her!
This week saw 16 Fit Club runners at 5 different locations. There were 12 Fit Clubbers at Winchester as well as Jake at Barnstaple, Trish at Cleethorpes, Jo at Hove Promenade and Coach James at Severn Bridge (see .
There were PBs aplenty as well with the following times being recorded:
Karolina - 30:25
Alice - 25:27
Jenny - 24:10
Sarah - 24:10
Carrie - 23:21
Anna - 23:09
James - 20:58
Congratulations to everyone who ran!
Consolidated report can be found here: http://www.parkrun.com/
Next week is Winchester's 300th run and to celebrate we are having a post parkrun Fit Club breakfast at the King Alfred pub! It would be great if you could join us.
Thursday 21st Feb - Social Run
Huge thank you to the wonderful trio for stepping in and covering the session.
Next week sees us head back to the South Winchester park and ride for some more sprint training and fun and games!
Race Reports
Severn Bridge parkrun - by Coach James
This week I have been on holiday in the Forest of Dean, so I took the opportunity to visit the unique Severn Bridge parkrun. This was to be my 100th different UK parkrun (102nd overall) and my first in Wales!
I made the half hour journey down and arrived at 8:30. I met up with my brother and we went for a warm-up up to the bridge, unfortunately it was shrouded in mist with the pylons barely visible. With the sun already poking through and the wind just a light breeze it was perfect conditions for running!
After the run brief we headed to the start where we were asked to keep right and were warned about the cyclists on the bridge (apparently the cycle way on the other side of the bridge was closed). With very little fuss there was a simple countdown and we were off!
I have been working hard in training for the past 6 weeks with the aim of breaking my PB of 21:01 which had stood since July 2015. I had had some encouraging training sessions and felt that this may be my chance to finally go under the elusive (for me) 21 minute mark. This meant targeting 4:10/km or 6:43/mile. This was the pace that Allen, Mike and I targeted in our track session a couple of weeks back, so I knew that I could maintain it for at least a km. I therefore set off at this pace.
Now the issue with having the bridge shrouded in mist at the start was that it meant I had no idea how much the bridge rose upwards for the first mile and a half!! I therefore was working really hard to try and maintain the pace I needed. Consequently I found myself just about able to stick to my plan for the first mile, but way off pace on the second mile. It all came down to the final mile, where I knew that I needed to hit 6:30 but I knew that it was all downhill. I was starting to hurt (as the wonderful pictures will attest) and was in a world of pain by the time I dropped down off of the bridge to the path leading to the underpass. A quick check of my watch and I saw that I only had seconds to spare. It was going to be close!
The real sting in the tail is the very short uphill finish and one last effort saw me cross the line in 20:58, collect my token and promptly have to immediately lie down, before I feel down. I had done it, I had finally broken 21 minutes and I had a shiny new PB to take home from my holiday.
However there was more!! In the touring community there is a challenge called parkrun bingo. Collecting finishing times with each second from 00-59. On average it takes 281 parkruns for runners to achieve this. For some time now I had just one to get, you guessed it, 58. So not only did I get PB but I completed bingo!! It would be remiss of me not to mention the fantastic core team and volunteers who put on such a fabulous morning's running. They were really helpful, really supportive and, without fail, lovely people.
This meant a great deal to me. Last time I set my PB I had been in the best shape of my life. I had spent 2015 focussing on training and really pushing myself to achieve the best times I possibly could. In the run up to breaking my PB back then I had also broken my 10km, half and marathon PBs and was hitting my best form.
After setting my PB I thought I was invincible but it was shortly after that my injury issues started up. Beginning with a torn calf I was injured for most of the second half of 2015, with various injuries. 2016 wasn't much better and with Elsie coming along, the loss of my Dad and then subsequently Bertie being born, I started to think I would never rediscover that form. Starting the running club has inspired me to focus more and work harder. Seeing the times and PBs that all of you are recording on a regular basis has driven me to get close to the level of fitness I used to have. I can't wait to see what the next few months and years will bring!
New Year Running Challenge
Week 7 saw the majority of runners hit both their number of runs and their long run targets. We are now down to 29 runners in the competition of which 11 have used their wildcards.
As we move into week 8 you should start considering what your targets should be for weeks 9-12. You should also start considering what your race target is going to be!
Week 7 saw the majority of runners hit both their number of runs and their long run targets. We are now down to 29 runners in the competition of which 11 have used their wildcards.
As we move into week 8 you should start considering what your targets should be for weeks 9-12. You should also start considering what your race target is going to be!
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
Race Kit
The full range of kit available to purchase and instructions on how to order can be found in the following link: https://wfcrunners.blogspot.com/2019/01/kit-details-and-prices.html
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