WFC Runners - parkrun, hills, hills, hills, Try Athy and vitality 10000 writeups

News

It was a quiet week for the running club with no racing. With Endure24 coming up next weekend members were keeping their legs fresh ahead of the 24 hours of trail running ahead of them.

As ever we had a strong turn-out at parkrun and another cracking session at St Giles hill on Thursday. Read all about this below!

parkrun Summary - 8th June

This week we had 18 Fit Clubbers running at 5 different parkrun venues. There were 13 at Winchester, Cat at Skipton, Mike and Anna at Rickmansworth, Alice at Bushy and Glenna at The Eden Project.

Despite the wet and windy weather there were yet more PBs:

Alice - (22:37) - Bushy
Lucy - (23:45) - Winchester

Here is a link to the consolidated report:

http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=26888&eventdate=2019-06-08

Thursday Running Club Session - 6th June

This week the runners were heading to the pub after the Thursday session for drinks and cake.  When this happens there is only one session that we will be running....HILLS!!

We met in Abbey Gardens and there was a cracking turnout of 26 runners, lured in by the gorgeous weather and the promise of cake and drink.  

After a warmup we headed over for a little warm up at Blue Ball hill.  Here we did two reps of the hill up to the junction and back down. 

Once done we then headed up the hill to St Giles Hill.  Unfortunately we took a wrong turn and ended up going up a hill to a dead end.  A short jog back down, back up another hill and then another steeper hill we found ourselves in St Giles Hill park.  We headed over to the centre of the park.  Here we headed to path along the bottom.  

The main session was simple....run from the bottom of the park, across the grass to the top of the park.  Ten times!  It was tough, especially as we had already done Blue Ball and run up to the park!
After we had completed our 10 reps we ran a lap of the park, including a stop at the view point for the obligatory photos.

As we had some time to kill we decided to do two more reps.  This time from the bottom corner, up the diagonal path to the top.  

Once we had done this we headed back down the hill to Abbey Gardens for a cool down and stretch.

We then headed to Number 5 Bridge Street for a drink and a cake sale for charity. There was a wide selection of cakes to choose from; brownies, cookies, lemon shortbread, muffins and chocolate coconut slices.  This raised a whopping £204 for charity, which is absolutely amazing!!  Thank you.  

Next week's session will be meeting at Deans Lane Park (opposite Waitrose in Weeke).

Race Reports

Try Athy by Allen

Back in 2012 I was over in Athy, Ireland visiting Cat's family and we went to watch the finish line of Tri Athy (now in its 13th year). This was the first time I'd seen a Triathlon event live and to top things off, we found out the next day that Jenson Button had competed the day before! Ever since then I've wanted to have a crack at the event but it took a few more years before I'd do my first Triathlon.

Tri Athy offers 4 different distances, Super Sprint, Sprint, Olympic and Double Olympic. I chose to race the Olympic distance (1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run) because I stepped up to this event distance last year in the Cotswolds and really liked it! Having swum since about the age of 5 I think it's the race distance I'm most suited to because I can gain a bit of an advantage from the swim start.

Being an event abroad I had to fly my bike over in a huge box and both dismantle and reassemble the bike in the days leading up to the race. Heading over to Ireland a couple of days before the race was certainly needed to make sure everything with me was in working order! It always surprises me how much equipment is required to race in Triathlon but I wont bore you with all the details!

Race day came and it was a really late start. My distance didn't kick off until 12pm which was mega late compared to other events I've done. It did mean I was able to see my brother in law John start his very first Sprint Triathlon.

Through transition and onto the bike to complete a 40km loop which was mainly out and back along the same road. Because around 2,000 people enter Tri Athy its a closed road event meaning it was just me and other cyclists on the roads with no cars... jackpot. The bike leg passed with no major drama, I hit my target pace of 30 kmph average and felt good heading onto the run and passing Cat and her family cheering me into transition for the second time. 


The swim took place in the river Barrow and consisted of a 600m swim upstream followed by a quick 180 turn and back down the river for 900m. I positioned myself quite near the start of the pack as I prefer as much clear water as possible to swim in and the middle of a Triathlon swim pack can get a bit hairy!! The first thing that struck me diving into the water was how cold it was, my face felt instantly numb and I had a swim hard to warm up. I completed the swim in 24 mins 11 seconds, good enough to finish 13th out of 452 in that leg of the race!

Overall I was really happy with the race and immediately signed up to the 2020 event for another crack at the course. If anyone is thinking of trying a triathlon I'd be happy to talk you through the sport anytime

Transition 2 flew by, I dropped the bike, put shoes and a visor on and bolted onto the start of the 10km. First km of my 10km flew by in 4:23 which was absurdly fast and something I'd pay for later. First 5km I completed in 22:30 but I dropped off in the second 5km and started to suffer in the final part of the race. My aim on the run was to limit the number of people that over took me, and chase down some of the fast cyclists that had dropped me on the bike. I has some success here!

Vitality 10000 by Sarah H

Before I became a runner, I used to think that running was merely a form of exercise to keep you fit and that it was quite a solitary and boring affair. Well, I couldn't be more wrong. Running brings people together and it was truly proven to me at the London Vitality 10km where we ran as part of the #celebrateyou movement. Celebrate you was set up by Bryony Gordon who wanted women to run the 10km in their underwear to empower them to love themselves no matter what shape and size they are as every woman is beautiful. 

Katie and I were introduced to this race and movement by Jenny who follows Bryony (and other celebs taking part) on instagram. Fast forward 8 weeks and there I am in the capital city about to do a 10km run in only my underwear! Thanks Jen! We (Jenny, Katie and I) arrived and nervously began searching for the other worried faces. Soon, we spotted a pen full of half naked proud, confident, happy women all having a laugh together despite the camera crews all around them. 

Bryony instantly put us all at ease with an inspirational speech (which included a chat about sperm!) but also a message to ignore any negative comments that we might hear as it says more about the people commenting then it does about us. Thankfully none of us heard any negative comments throughout. In actual fact the level of support from fellow runners and the crowds was incredible and we were told by several women just how much we had inspired them. 

After the talk, we headed together to the bag drop followed by a group warm up. Overall the organisation was excellent and we were very impressed with how smoothly it ran. We just had time for a few bum wiggle photos outside Buckingham Palace before we headed to the start line. 

Thankfully the sun was out so we didn't feel too cold in our attire. The run was such fun. We all stuck together laughing and chatting all the way round. It is a beautiful course but very congested. For us though this run wasn't about getting PB's, it was about acceptance (wobbly bits and all!) and having a whole lot of fun.

General Announcements

WFC Running Club Calendar

- 11th June - Running Club committee meeting
- 13th June - Deans Lane Park
- 20th June - Garnier Road
- 22nd June - Fit Club 3rd birthday party
- 27th June - South Winch p&r
- 29th June - Coach James’ 250th parkrun and team breakfast afterwards
- 1st July - Track Session

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 - NEWLY UPDATED!

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