A new WAC newsletter and a new editor. After a few years of writing the newsletter Ian has passed the baton on to me. Don’t worry he will still be sending the Monday e-mails so you won’t miss out on the important stuff. Craig Dixon
It seems like the year has just started but already we have seen some great performances in the League to continue our success of last year. There were a record number of 29 WAC finishers (for a race greater than 10k) at Lytchett 10 this year. See the picture below although a few are missing. Many of us have been running new races or distances, a few Grizzly virgins have found out just how tough it is and a few others have explored new runs including the Meon Valley Plod which may end up becoming a regular on the Wimborne AC calendar. One of the biggest changes to the road runners has been the move from QE to Wimborne Town FC which was agreed at the recent Road Runners forum. This had been talked about for a while and now having made the move I personally think it was the right decision. I know some are reluctant to leave the bar at 6.30 on a Thursday but a run is all the better for a pint and a chat afterwards!
NEW MEMBERS The past 3 months have seen many new members join us including Debbie King, Roy Long, David Long, Bev McLaughlin and Steve Headley. There have been several others joining us on a Thursday such as Anne Osland, Paula Miles and Mike Hilborne. Andy McDonald is no stranger to the Hampshire Cross Country league as he is a member of Reading AC but has been training with us in the week whilst temporarily working for Flight Refuelling in Wimborne. A special thanks should also go to Jon Tice who has begun training with us and gave a hand marshalling at the Wessex Cross Country race at Avon Heath. And finally there is Paul Waite who won the Winter Time Trial in February.
KEY DATES XC Awards – Wednesday 7th April (more later) Virgin London Marathon Sunday 25th April Flaghead North Dorset Chine Village beach Marathon barbecue – Sunday and run 2– nd Thursday May 29th April (more later) RRL Wessex – Purbeck Ridgeway 10k – – Sunday Wednesday 23rd May 12th (more May later) RRL – Puddletown Plod – Sunday 13th June Blandford Bridges – Sunday 27th June (more on this later) RRL – Portland 10 – Sunday 4th July Wayfarers Relay – 24th July RRL – Sturminster Half – Sunday 1st Aug
SUNDAY LONG RUNS The period from January to April for many is the build up to a Spring marathon whether that be London, North Dorset or Barcelona! At the start of the year we introduced the organised Sunday morning runs to some success. We had a few weeks of this before League races and The Grizzly got in the way. At its peak we had around 18 runners one Sunday morning running out from QE which is great to see. It would be great for this to continue throughout the Summer, even if it was not as long a run but even 8-10 miles. The Sunday runs were discussed in the Road Runners forum (more later).
LONDON MARATHON Good luck to all of you who will be running in the London Marathon in April whether it will be your 1st Marathon, 1st London or 18th London in a row. Having run it a couple of times in a Wimborne vest I know how big a day it is especially knowing that when you reach the final stretch you will be met with a mass of Wimborne support with flags, bells and encouragement to carry you for the last 150m across the line. Just before the final corner make sure you stick to the right and aim for the Wimborne flag in the tree and the sound of Barbara’s bell, you can’t miss them (unless you’re Tim Box of course). Numbers for London are still to be confirmed but I guess we will be seeing at least double figures!
Saturday night pasta in London Nicki has booked an Italian for the Saturday night. At the last count there were 12 people, but more can be added if you let Nicki know. Contact her by email nickiroe@googlemail.com
POST LONDON BEACH HUT RUN – Thursday 29th April – 7pm As is our tradition, the first Thursday run after London will be from Julie and Adie’s Beach hut. We run along the Prom from the beach hut, which is between Flaghead Chine and Shore Road in Sandbanks, always a good night. There will be barbecues (bring your own food and drink) on the go. Hope to see lots of you there.
ROAD RUNNERS FORUM With the club having grown massively in the past couple of years it was felt that a more official club forum should be created for people to air any issues or suggest anything that the club could be doing differently. There were a few key points that came out:
Thursday Night Beginners Group – Although Bob has done a great job with this group the past year or so it still needs more support. A plea went out and Julie Gosling is now helping with this. Thanks Julie!
Move from QE to Wimborne Town FC – Great idea, good beer and a very welcoming new home for the road runners.
Sunday Morning Runs – Everyone agreed these were a good idea with the number of people marathon training. One of the issues was with the number of routes that were feasibly possible from QE or the surrounding areas. With the use of multimap/google maps etc we can plot some of our long runs and create a log for suggested routes. This is an issue that is definitely going to be picked up again towards the end of the year when we look to plan dates, distances and routes for the 4 months in the build up to the Spring Marathons. We would all appreciate your thoughts on this and again on whether people would be interested in a Summer Sunday morning social run.
New Wimborne Race – Wimborne AC currently holds the Wimborne 10 in November and often a Wessex Cross Country race in the Winter. A suggestion was put forward for a summer race organised by the road runners, possibly a 5k. Issues would be finding a route and headquarters. WTFC or Wayfarers Sports Centre were a couple of the suggestions.
Website – Tied into the Sunday morning runs was the idea of expanding/redesigning the website to incorporate a forum to advertise social runs which would be open to Wimborne members only. Although it was acknowledged that the e-mails work, they are limited and require Ian to send several e-mails a week.
Kelly Williams has done a smashing job in preparing the new website ‘forum’. It is almost ready to go live we will let you know by email once the forum is up and running.
If anyone has any thoughts for the next meeting then please make Jerry or Ian aware, this is your chance to have your say on how the roadrunners are run. Keep an eye on Ian’s Monday e-mails for details of the next meeting.
CROSS-COUNTRY 2009/2010 SEASON ROUND-UP – LEAGUE TITLES AND 5 WESSEX LEAGUE CHAMPIONS The cross-country season came to a close at the weekend with the final Wessex League race of the season. It was a great way to sign off our best season yet. Our senior men’s team finished as league champions, as did our veteran’s men’s team and under-13 girl’s team. As individuals Paul Hine, Paula Hine, Lynn Hutchings, Sharon Hutchings and Ryan Walbridge are all Wessex League Champions. With gold, silver and bronze awards the medal haul didn’t stop there – a full list appears in the race report for Wessex League Race 5 on the website. It was encouraging to see some new faces for this final race and the return of some older, familiar ones in the senior races. Laura Harvey (u17) did her first races for ages and sister Kirsty was also one of our returnees along with Trudi Carter. Meanwhile race debutant Lisa Copeland got stuck right in, getting the better of both Kirsty and Paula. For the senior men we had most of the ‘usual suspects’, plus WAC WXC debutant Roy Long. Roy led the team home in Rambo-esque fashion, he looked as if he had been in a war, having taken a tumble out on course.
The Hampshire League had concluded a few weeks earlier. Many of our juniors have shown some excellent form here, and this led to some of them being selected for Dorset – see race reports on the website. For the second year in a row bionic Graeme Furley finished top of the WAC men’s average. In the 2008/2009 season the senior men won promotion to Division 2. The first aim was to maintain our status in the higher division, this we managed comfortably, finishing 4th out of 10 clubs. Our veteran men’s team finished 3rd in their Division 2 – narrowly missing promotion. We have struggled to put out a Ladies team in the Hampshire League, with one runner who has consistently been out there putting it in race after race – Lynn Hutchings is one of the club’s fastest improving runners – she has had an outstanding season. Those returnees in the final Wessex race gives us some hope that we will do better as a Ladies team next year.
WAC had 22 runners on the start line for to the South of England Cross-Country Championships at Parliament Hill on a gloriously challenging course. Unfortunately with Daryl Davies getting into difficulties with his achilles we only managed 21 finishers. We were still the best represented there of any of the Dorset clubs.
Last year three WACers were selected to represent Dorset at the Inter-Counties Championships, in 2010 this number doubled. Abbie Hine, Sharon Hutchings, Piers Copeland, Ryan Walbridge (all under-13s), Callum Kennedy (u15) and Graeme ‘Bionic’ Furley (SM) all got the call. For the under-13s this was their County debut. Graeme has competed at this level before and pulling on a green Dorset vest was the fulfilment of a dream. He had been a promising junior and steadily improved as he reached each higher age group until taking the title of Under-20 Dorset Champion – a fiercely fought category. Fast forward to Graeme’s car accident a few years later that put him into a wheelchair for almost 12 months. After winning the battle to survive, he then had to fight to walk again. Wheelchair gave way to crutches, and slowly the crutches were relinquished as he began to walk. Slowly but surely things improved and Graeme wanted to run and started to train. He had a frustrating comeback race in late 2007 and this spurred him on to push even harder. Since the 2008/2009 season Graeme has been on a fantastic upwards trajectory. The target became to win a place in the senior men’s Dorset team, not only did he do this at the Inter-Counties Championships, but he was the first Dorset man home. The Inter-Counties brings together the very finest of the country’s cross-country runners. Graeme’s race was won by the awesome Mo Farah. The whole event was televised by Sky Sports and all our WACers were spotted on screen. Graeme has still more targets, he’s determined to beat team-mate ‘Speedy’ Ready (Colin Read) in a straight fight in the Hampshire League.
XC AWARDS BASH – CHRISTCHURCH SKI CENTRE – 6.45 FOR 7PM WEDNESDAY 7 APRIL With the racing done it’s time to celebrate the team’s achievements. Our XC Awards night will take place at Christchurch Ski Centre at Matchams. We will be ringoing down the slopes. For those up for the ringos we need you there by 6.45. The cost of a ringo will be £4.50. If you would like to book a ringo please let me know (01202-577081 or ian@wimborne10.co.uk) in advance, if you are just coming along to watch/support just turn up – the more the merrier. It will probably be around 8pm by the time we get to present the awards. We really want to see all those who have contributed to the cross-country team in any way, shape, or form. It’s an attractive environment to spend the evening and has a bar so come and join us. Hope to see you there.
Ian Kennedy
WESSEX RIDGEWAY – 2010 By now you should have had a couple of e-mails from Ian regarding this. If you’re still thinking about it then act quickly and I bet you won’t regret it. Loads of great write ups are on the website and rarely a bad word is said about the race (well not afterwards anyway).
The task: 100km relay race cross-country from Tollard Royal to Uplyme (near Lyme Regis), split into 12 legs (average distance 6 miles), teams of 6 so each runner runs 2 legs/12 miles. There are marshals only at the start and finish and at two of the major road crossings, we finish in the pub. Runners have route notes to tell them the way but you will need to go out in the weeks preceding the race to learn the route…so act quickly.
Contact Phil Burgess at philip.p.burgess@btinternet.com
BLANDFORD BRIDGES – 2010 27th June, 10.30am – The race is organised by Wimborne AC Member Steve Guy with the co- operation of WAC and Dorset Doddlers. As with all the races we run each year, this one will need a fair number of marshals. If you are able to help please phone Steve on 01258-455647, it may only take a few hours of your Sunday morning. The race website is found at www.blandfordbridgesrun.co.uk
RUN TO THE COAST – SUMMER 2010 – (11th July?) Those who have been with the club for a few years will know that Wimborne used to run an annual Sunday Club “Run to the Coast”. This is a Sunday social run from Dream Boats in Wimborne and follows the River Stour to Hengistbury Head (approx 15 miles). This was missing from the busy Wimborne Calendar last year and hopefully it can make a re-appearance this Summer. If you’re interested then let me know. I’ll try and find a free date and then we can pray for a nice day! Initial thoughts are to do it on 11th July.
HOLT IT RIGHT THERE – PARTY AT TIM’S – SATURDAY 17th JULY Although still in the planning stages keep 17th July free. Tim is planning a Summer social at his farm in Holt, not exclusively for WACers but hopefully lots of WACers will be able to make it. Disco, BBQ and live music are being planned.
BERLIN MARATHON 2010 – 8 WACers and Counting As you may have read a couple of months ago, Claire and I are heading to Berlin for a pre wedding get together. Although flights are going up in price now it is still an open invitation to anyone who fancies a weekend away, whether to run or not. If Barcelona is anything to go by then it should be an interesting trip. The date is 26th September. Currently entered to run are Craig, Claire, Jerry, Nicki, Anthony, Nick and Jeff with Michelle Shield as support plus a few other non WACers. Speak to any of the above if you’re interested.
NEW STORIES ON THE WEBSITE The website can only be updated with your stories of races. Please write up your races for the website, it doesn’t have to be a 10,000 words with lots of pictures, it could just be a few paragraphs. Try it, you might like it!
Wessex League Race 5 – Avon Heath – 28 March 2010 Five WACers are crowned Wessex League Champions as three WAC teams win their categories.
WAC medals haul at Ferndown Rotary 2.5, 5 & 10ks – 21 March 2010 Callum Kennedy’s report
Inter-Counties XC Champs – 13 March 2010 WACers race for Dorset.
Barcelona Marathon – 7 March 2010 Craig Dixon reports on the long snowy weekend in Catalonia.
WACers in the pink – The Grizzly – 7 March 2010 The slurry, the pipes, the bog, the stairway to heaven and the final twist! Paul Hougham reports.
Meon Valley Plod – 28 February 2010 21.6 miles mainly off-road and largely under water. Jon Braund reports.
March 4mile Handicap Time Trial Roy Long wins, while David Long sets course record.
Hampshire League XC Race 5 – Salisbury – 13 February 2010
Wessex League Race 3 – Ham Hill – 21 February 2010 Sharon Hutchings finds her mojo as juniors shine.
Lytchett 10 – 14 February 2010 Record turnout on Valentine’s Day. Paul Teck reports.
Stonehenge Stomp – 31 January 2010
South of England XC Champs, Parliament Hill – 30 January 2010 The bionic man’s report. Racing back to fitness at Parliament Hill – 30 January 2010 David Long’s report on his excellent WAC race debut
