News
With a number of races coming up in March and April this was a quiet week in terms of racing. We did however have Sarah L running the Rhayader 5 mile race. The website describes the race as follows:
"Rhayader lies in the very heart of Wales and is the first town on the River Wye.
The first Round The Lakes Race, then 20 Miles was in 1984, the race has grown in popularity since. A 5 mile race was introduced shortly after.
The 30km Race starts from Bryntirion Lane a short distance from the Leisure Centre in Rhayader. The route take runners out of town and around the beautiful Elan Valley Dams.
The dams, reservoirs and 73 mile aqueduct of the Elan Valley were built over a hundred years ago to supply desperately needed clean water to Birmingham. It was an epic feat of civil engineering set within an area of outstanding scenic beauty.
The 5 Mile race starts at Garreg Ddu Dam (A Submerged Dam) and runners run back to Rhayader finishing at The Smithfield in Rhayader."Well done Sarah, and a great run considering you missed out on your parkrun PB by just one second earlier in the day!
This week saw 24 Fit Clubbers at 3 different parkrun venues. We had a club record 22 at Winchester, Jake at Moors Valley and Catherine at Vicarstown. We had PBs for Fran (30:12), Karolina (29:59), Shelley (26:23), Lucy (25:36), Alf (24:19), Stefan (20:08) and Charles (18:53). In addition Jake bagged a course PB at Moors Valley with 23:19. Lastly, Catherine paced her mum to a new PB at Vicarstown.
Congratulations everyone!!
After the run a large group of us headed to the King Alfred pub for a well earned breakfast! It was a great social event and lovely to see so many there. We will look to do this again in the coming months...watch this space!
Here is the consolidated parkrun club report:
Thursday 28th Feb - Park and Ride sprints
This week the runners were once again back at the South Winchester park and ride for more interval training. 22 runners were in attendance with Sally joining us for the first time. Welcome to the group Sally! Despite the risk of showers the rain held off giving the runners good conditions for their intervals.
In keeping with the theme of recent weeks the aim was to do progressively longer intervals with jog recovery in between. The purpose of this is to get the body (and mind) used to running hard on tired legs, whilst also building speed and endurance. The session was therefore as follows:
4 x 15 sec with jog recovery back to start
4 x 30 sec with jog recovery back to start
4 x 1 min with jog recovery back to start
2 full laps (roughly 0.5km) with 2 mins rest
It was one of the harder sessions we have done, with stacks of running at a high intensity, jog recoveries and only short rest periods. The team were superb though, supporting each other through it and really encouraging each other to run that bit harder and bit further.
Next week’s session will be meeting at Abbey Gardens at 7pm.
Race Reports
Winchester 10km - Philippa Drew
I was planning on a decent night’s sleep before the race but this proved elusive due to having more than one nightmare about arriving at the start line without my race number/safety pins/trainers.
I finally got up at about 6am, googled whether it was a good idea to run with conjunctivitis and then prepared myself a heady concoction of Lemsip and Berocca (other cold remedies / water soluble multi-vitamins are available).
By 7:40am, fuelled by peanut butter on toast, I was ready to go, and I headed down the road to meet with PG, PG’s sister Hannah and Alf. The WFC Runners had agreed to congregate outside Chococo (obviously) where we had a couple of group photos, ran back and forth to the loo numerous times and talked about the cake that Mr Humber had hidden behind a wall near the finish line. We also bumped into WFC Runner extraordinaire, the one and only Adam Stachowiak (supporting rather than running on this occasion).
It may have been sunny, but it was also rather chilly. Thankfully, just as teeth were starting to chatter, the gun sounded, the race began, and we were off! The first kilometre took us from the Guildhall, down towards the King Alfred statue, onto the one-way system around the Brooks shopping centre and up towards Jewry Street (the first notable uphill stretch) before turning right and heading off towards Hyde Street. Kilometres 2 and 3 took us out onto Worthy Road where we then proceeded along a ‘gently undulating’ stretch towards Kings Worthy. Here I fell into step with Mr Humber and One R and along the way we were cheered on by Mr Mike Day (from his bedroom window). As we hit the 4 kilometre mark and turned into Bedfield Road we had our very own paparazzi in the form of Mike & Anna Hastie (thank you for the support and the fab photos!). We were really out in the sticks now and kilometres 5 & 6 saw us taking in the scenic Springvale Road and Wellhouse Lane, another gently undulating section of the course with a strategically placed water station. I am used to running with music (mainly to drown out my heavy breathing) but I must admit I really enjoyed the sound of so many feet trotting along together in the sunshine and the combination of chatter and gasping-for-air from the runners around me.
Kilometres 7 & 8 took us back into civilisation and southwards along Andover Road. Despite having driven along this road thousands of times I was under the misapprehension that it was downhill most of the way. I was wrong. Still a good hill or two to conquer along this part of the route but it felt something of an achievement to be over half way and heading back towards the city. We took the sharp turn back onto Worthy Road for kilometre 9 where another we encountered, yes you guessed it, another hill! I personally found this the hardest of the upwards climbs as the end was so near and yet still felt so far. The 10thand final kilometre took us on a right turn off the main road and back towards the playing fields behind River Park Leisure Centre where One R unceremoniously overtook me. I have to admit at this point the finish line still felt like an age away but after a bit of squinting it finally came into view and I managed a sort-of-sprint-finish, just edging back ahead of One R at the last moment (N.B. she still beat me on chip time!)
I jostled along with the other slightly dazed but elated runners collecting medals, t-shirts, bananas and Haribo sweets before locating the growing cluster of WFC Runners. It was smiles all round and PBs for many, including a couple of particularly spectacular times from Charles and Allen. Most importantly though, Mr Humber had retrieved his cake and we were all treated to a chunk of delicious Italian lemon sponge, leaving most of us covered in a suspicious-looking white powder (a taste analysis confirmed this to be icing sugar).
It was the first official race I’ve taken part in since becoming a WFC Runner and I felt very proud to wear my WFC t-shirt and to be running behind/ahead-of/alongside a truly lovely bunch of people. Well done to all and roll on the next one!
Winchester 10km by Sharon "One R" Smith
One of the great things with a local race is a little bit of insider knowledge. This was my main thought as I walked past the lengthy queue for the toilets at River Park to use the empty ones on the floor above
! After this I braved the chill to meet up with the rest of the club outside Chococo for the obligatory photo. It was a great atmosphere, everyone seemed relatively chilled as we found our spots on the start line.
Before I knew it we were passing the halfway point and my time was pleasantly surprising. I heard a few swears around me as Andover Road stretched out ahead of us and I definitely had to dig deep up the hill. What goes up must come down though so we were rewarded with a lovely downhill and I picked up my pace. Climbing Worthy Road again was pretty painful but I kept pushing and even caught up with PD's swinging ponytail that I had been following for 8KM. Turning down towards the Rugby club I could see we had around half a mile to go so the finish was not going to be where it had been last year. There was then an agonising few minutes when I couldn't see the finish and was desperate for it to appear. Obviously as soon as I could see it Philippa cheerily sped past me to finish in front.
When I was considering my training plan for the London Marathon I found a plan that said week 9 training should be a long run of approx. 13 miles which funnily enough coincided with the Half Marathon in Wokingham where my Leonard Cheshire running buddy happens to live so it was a no brainer and we signed up happily to do this.
I decided in my head just to treat this run as a training run and not push myself too hard I needed to break the negativity within my head. I did a time of 2 hrs 15 in my last half so decided that my strategy should be to run with the pacers. This turned out to be a very effective strategy for me (not sure how the pacers felt) as I stuck like glue to them for 11 miles they then clearly had had enough of me and they encourage me to go off faster but steady to get a sub 2.15 time. I tried to kick up a fuss but they made me do it!
Winchester 10km by Sharon "One R" Smith
One of the great things with a local race is a little bit of insider knowledge. This was my main thought as I walked past the lengthy queue for the toilets at River Park to use the empty ones on the floor above! After this I braved the chill to meet up with the rest of the club outside Chococo for the obligatory photo. It was a great atmosphere, everyone seemed relatively chilled as we found our spots on the start line.
The start was different to last years; heading down the high street towards King Alfred's statue rather than up towards the market and James's drain. As we joined Worthy lane and started heading up and out of town I settled into a reasonable pace. It was great seeing all the WFC tops bobbing around. Our great leader and founder even managed to get out of bed to cheer us on from his window.
Before I knew it we were passing the halfway point and my time was pleasantly surprising. I heard a few swears around me as Andover Road stretched out ahead of us and I definitely had to dig deep up the hill. What goes up must come down though so we were rewarded with a lovely downhill and I picked up my pace. Climbing Worthy Road again was pretty painful but I kept pushing and even caught up with PD's swinging ponytail that I had been following for 8KM. Turning down towards the Rugby club I could see we had around half a mile to go so the finish was not going to be where it had been last year. There was then an agonising few minutes when I couldn't see the finish and was desperate for it to appear. Obviously as soon as I could see it Philippa cheerily sped past me to finish in front. 
We then joined the scrum for our medals, water cans and tops and then headed back to join everyone crowded around Alex. For anyone who wasn't aware, Alex had brought the largest cake in the world with him and hid it behind the bridge just past the finish line. Definitely a better incentive than a banana and a medal. The sun was shining as we had our giant cake slices and figured out what size tops we should have ordered.
It was a fab morning and made all the better with such a large number of us there. Definitely one that’s in next year's calendar already, hope Alex is coming!
Wokingham Half by Anne Arnold
When I was considering my training plan for the London Marathon I found a plan that said week 9 training should be a long run of approx. 13 miles which funnily enough coincided with the Half Marathon in Wokingham where my Leonard Cheshire running buddy happens to live so it was a no brainer and we signed up happily to do this.
As some of you know the training was going really well until I hit week 8 OMG everything went wrong I got a sore knee, sobbed in the showers at work after my usual Wednesday morning run and totally crashed and burned in the long 15 mile run on the Sunday – tears tantrums the works! But Hey Ho week 9 was another week and after some TLC and much needed rest I headed off to Wokingham with an air of anticipation albeit I was totally scared.
I decided in my head just to treat this run as a training run and not push myself too hard I needed to break the negativity within my head. I did a time of 2 hrs 15 in my last half so decided that my strategy should be to run with the pacers. This turned out to be a very effective strategy for me (not sure how the pacers felt) as I stuck like glue to them for 11 miles they then clearly had had enough of me and they encourage me to go off faster but steady to get a sub 2.15 time. I tried to kick up a fuss but they made me do it!
The last 2 miles were harder as I did push myself but I felt great and still had miles in my legs as I went over the finish line at around 2.13. What a difference a week makes and my mojo was well and truly back!
The half marathon itself was just lovely a fantastic sunny day well organized (lots of marshals, lots of water) event and more importantly flat …but isn’t everything compared to Winchester!! I can definitely recommend it and, for those of you who like to chase a PB, this would be a great course on which to do it. So much so I considering signing up or next year although I am never running again after the London Marathon!!!
New Year Running Challenge
The competition is down to the final 26 competitors with a whopping 17 still on 100%. 11 have now played their wildcards with 4 of those using them to maintain their 100% record. As we move into the final block all is to play for.
The final block of 4 weeks sees the competitors predicting their number of runs per week, the length of their longest run and a predicted race time. This is what people have been working towards during training and should be a stretch target.
Points will be awarded for how close you get to your race time, based on a point per %age basis. I.e. If you say a 30 minute 5km and run 33 mins you are within 10% of your target and would receive 90 points. You will lose points for being slower or faster than your target time, as the purpose is to be confident in your pace and what you can achieve. If you are massively under your target time you are clearly not as tuned in to your pace as you thought (however you will have a nice shiny PB to alleviate the pain of dropped points!)
Here is the table so far:
The competition is down to the final 26 competitors with a whopping 17 still on 100%. 11 have now played their wildcards with 4 of those using them to maintain their 100% record. As we move into the final block all is to play for.
The final block of 4 weeks sees the competitors predicting their number of runs per week, the length of their longest run and a predicted race time. This is what people have been working towards during training and should be a stretch target.
Points will be awarded for how close you get to your race time, based on a point per %age basis. I.e. If you say a 30 minute 5km and run 33 mins you are within 10% of your target and would receive 90 points. You will lose points for being slower or faster than your target time, as the purpose is to be confident in your pace and what you can achieve. If you are massively under your target time you are clearly not as tuned in to your pace as you thought (however you will have a nice shiny PB to alleviate the pain of dropped points!)
Here is the table so far:
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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