Open meetings, 10Ks and two-wheeled conveyances
On the recent surge of cycling popularity, Captain Chris had this to say, via Facebook: "Today, Chris Hartley, member of London Heathside, will be running. Remember running?" Just imagine how peevish he's going to be when the cross country season kicks off and half of us are away mountain biking.
We'll kick the report off with running then, and a call to action. Well done all the track and fielders who made it out to the various opens this week. We were represented at the Woodford Green Open, at the Lee Valley Sprint Evening Open (the next night, props to anyone who doubled up) and David Ayre made it along to the Mile End Open yestereve.
All the track and field results are below and here's the big plea: don't forget The Great Escape this Saturday in Bedford. We're in danger of relegation from the very prestigious SAL Division 2N to the dank and nasty Division 3N. We've lost cheap points all season simply by not having enough participants - you can help by coming along and making sure that isn't the case in the last fixture.
Don't worry, we're not going to be herding you over the steeplechase jumps with a rifle - just come and do what you can. We've got a bus leaving Finsbury Park at 9am on Saturday and we want you on board - your club needs you!
Away from the track, we had the usual eclectic mix of running events. Three ran at the final Orion Forest 5, where Cathy B Jeremiah was an agonising fourth lady (that is, she was fourth lady and she looked fairly agonised when she came past). Rebecca B breezed to a huge 40:01 PB in the Self Transendence 10K, finishing fifth lady. "Four laps of flat loveliness," trilled Rebecca, who was clearly taking the self-transcendence bit to extremes as she levitated past.
Sneaky ninja update #1 Tom and Steve also took part in the ST10K. Tom hurtled to victory in 32:02, which is now his new PIN. (Disclaimer: may not be.)
A more down-to-Earth event (or possibly not) was the Great British Beerathon on Saturday afternoon in which Dave Hellard was gunning for glory and Claire S was, er, dressed as a banana. Don't be fooled by the name, the Beerathon isn't just a piss-up - you also have to eat food. Sadly, a particularly splendid pasty at the penultimate stop knobbled Dave, who slipped from second place to eighth and waddled over the line like a pregnant sow. Claire the banana, who'd already run Oak Hill parkrun that morning, bundled in some two hours behind him. Pretty impressive, given the Beerathon is only five miles long.
There were only two Heathsiders at the Regent's Park 10K, where Jonathan finished eighth and Ollie narrowly missed out on a PB after a Paula Radcliffe moment (not the weeping kind, the other kind). "The toilet facilities at the hub are woefully inadequate for an event of this size," yelled Ollie from behind a tree. "The queue was so huge I just held on thinking I'd probably be ok. As it turned out, I was wrong about that."
On the parkrun front, there was an eye-catching 18:02 from Andy W at Finsbury Park, an apparent PW for Gabi at Ally Pally ("beaten by my best friend who was visiting from Devon") and Most Exotic parkrun was won this week by Julie at Albert Park, Middlesborough who promptly gets a DQ as it's apparently her eighth run there.
Velocipede corner
In cy*ling news, it was the inaugural Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100, "a fantastic day riding on closed roads with an incredible atmosphere, topped off with a sprint finish down the Mall". (Thanks Charlotte!)
Several Heathsiders pulled on their lycra in a daring bid to show Cav how to go up a hill; the fastest cat out of the bag in a shade under five hours was Anthony H who also racks up a DQ as he was riding with someone else's number, the perfidious rogue. Official times were 5:55 for Paul McCrossin and 6:35 for Charlotte whose official time is distorted by the fact she stopped for a coffee and waited for 40mins at Hampton Court to regroup with Paul as they were in different start waves. In other words, the reason Charlotte didn't beat Paul is because she had a head start. I think.
Our other finishers were Chris (5:52) and Sandra (6:54). Many thanks to Sandra for sending in the results* - as she observed it was a 'challenge' event and not in any way a race, oh dear me, no.
Sneaky ninja update #2: there were definitely a few more participants in this - thus far we've tracked down Jackie and Martin and plopped their results below. You can run, but you can't ride.
Them results
Woodford Green Open 30 Jul 13
100 SX 6
2 Eugene Turay 12.44
3 Darnell Plummer 12.45
200 SX 1
1 Darnell Plummer 24.87
200 SX 4
5 Eugene Turay 25.93
800 SX 2
7 Michael Abrahams 2:40.30
800 SX 3
12 Izaiah Turner 2:50.79 SB
800 SX 6
9 Daniel Szajna 2:17.48
800 SX 7
11 James Wooldridge 2:06.16 PB
3000 SX 2
8 Miron Woldemichael 9:50.40
20 Philip Bentley 10:36.83 SB
LJ SX
9 Darnell Plummer 5.02
Lee Valley Sprint Evening Open, 31 Jul 13
100 SX
1.22 Tina Peate 13.92
100 SX
1.7 5 David Ayre 11.96
100 SX
1.85 Cardelle Fenton 11.88
100 SX
1.10 7 Jeffrey Rice 11.84
100 SX
2.23 Tina Peate 13.85
100 SX
2.85 David Ayre 12.09
100 SX
2.91 Jeffrey Rice 11.72
Better Athletics Mile End Open External Results, 5 Aug 13
100 SX
4 3 David Ayre 12.24
Self Transcendence Battersea Park 10K
1 Tom Aldred 32:02
13 Steve Monaghan 35:0851
Rebecca Bunting 40:01
Regent's Park 10K Series
8 Jonathan Hopkin 00:38:09
170 Oliver Pound 00:47:42
Orion Forest 5
10 Daniel McKeown 29:45
41 Cathy Jeremiah 35:27
75 Jane Higgins 39:05
Great British Beerathon (5 x 1 mile, four pints, four pieces of food)
8 David Hellard 45:09
110 Claire Sliwerski 2:38:00 (DFL)
Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100
Martin Potter 05:45:51
Jackie Wastell 05:45:51
Paul McCrossin 05:55:20
Charlotte McCrossin 06:35:02