Sent: 25 March 2007 23:52

Sent: 25 March 2007 23:52
Subject: VS Update - Marshals required, Tuesday Training, Pie and Peas, Results, Performance Awards, Correspondence, London Marathon sponsorship

Forthcoming Events

Marshals Required

For Meanwood Trail Race, Saturday 14 April. The race should raise well over £1000 for Lineham Farm Children’s Centre. We have 32 volunteers but need 70, please email if you are available please. All marshals will receive a bottle of Meanwood Meander beer.

For Pulse Race (Roundhay Park), Sunday 20 May, have 9 need 15

For Yorkshire Vets race from Leos, Tuesday 22 May, have 6 need 20

The website has the lists for all three events, please check www.valleystriders.org.uk/vslists.htm

Tuesday Training

Next Tuesday (27 March) will be hills by Eccup Reservoir, meet at Leos 6:45, most Striders run across the fields; slower Striders run up The Avenue.

Tuesday 3 April will be the Meanwood Trail Recce Run, we’ll do most of the Trail route, those arriving by 6:30 will get in the loop round the woods North of Leos, we’ll then come back at 6:45 to pick the rest up and head down the Trail via Seven Arches, under the Ring Road and to Meanwood Park. We’ll probably have two groups, the fast group should be able to do the whole 7 mile route before it goes dark, the slower group will probably get to Parkside Road and then return. If you want to see the route, check the website www.valleystriders.org.uk/trail.htm DON’T wear your best road shoes! This will also be Pie and Peas night.

Tuesday 10 April will be Club Handicap 10k, first runner off at 6:55pm prompt from Eccup Res, also Pie and Peas.

Pie and Peas

On 3rd and 10th April. Orders for each close Sunday night 11:00pm by email or Monday Morning 11:00a.m. by text to 07775 898 558.

Please state which night(s) you require, whether meat or vegetarian pie and whether peas or baked beans.

Manchester 5 mile Road Race – 8 April

If you were thinking of doing this, think again, it has been cancelled

Sport Direct Cross Country Presentation Night

This will take place on Friday 13th April at The Firehouse on East Parade. Tickets are £2.50 (including a light buffet and disco). I need to know who wants to go soon so that I can order the right number of tickets (these are limited by the size of the venue, so I need to order them fairly soon).

Rothwell 10k

Entries are now closed, however transfers are possible, so if you want to run but haven’t entered, take a look at www.ukresults.net to see who are the 18 Striders who have entered and then nobble one of them.

We are Valley Striders

When you’re filling in the club details on a race entry form, put “Valley Striders”, not Meanwood Valley Striders, not Leeds Valley Striders, not Valley Striders Leeds.

Results Section

Spen and East Hull 20

Grand Prix points for Spen and Hull are allocated simply on time. But Spen is much hillier, you say! Well if you want to go to Hull, take double the travelling time, pay double the entry fee and get attacked by the kids on the council estate then you deserve the advantage of a flatter course.

Paul McGuigan, in his first race in a Striders vest, took the 100 grand prix points. Paul is preparing for Belfast Marathon in May. Jim and Lyn are running Connemara on 1 April, Patrick and the Grants are running Rotterdam the week before London, most of the rest are in London except Geoff and myself who were both running for fun.

Spen 20

GP Pts

20 Jon Uttley 2:17:38 99

30 Ian Sanderson 2:23:05 97

35 Bob Jackson 2:24:22 96 M55 1st

42 Adam Parton 2:28:11 95

43 Roy Flesher 2:28:40 94 M50 3rd

64 Steve Trout 2:37:01 90

73 Simon Redshaw 2:40:27 88

121 Jim Towers 3:00:13 85

154 Geoff Webster 3:14:28 84

165 Lyn Eden 3:27:06 83

M Tinker was 2:54:13 but not our M Tinker, whose current training is a daily 5 mile walk including hills.

Spen is normally windy, this year it was VERY windy. And it hailed intermittently. It always seemed to start hailing as we ran into the wind. We all got a skin peel on our faces for free, do we look 10 years younger?

Eden’s law of wind says “if the first part of a race is into the wind you can be sure the wind will have changed direction by the time you are on your way back”

The winning time was 2:06:23, the first woman was 2:20:34, these were the Yorkshire Championship winning times. I can hear muttering from Steve O and Keith who both ran low 1:50’s on the course.

And the showers were cold.

East Hull 20

GP Pts

21 Paul McGuigan 2:13:24 100

44 Eric Green 2:22:28 98

72 Paul White 2:28:59 93

83 Patrick Barrett 2:33:57 92

87 Caz Farrow 2:35:13 91

96 Michael Grant 2:37:52 89

114 Hayley Palmer 2:41:50 87

150 Mivvy Tekchandani 2:51:33 86

223 Kay Duggleby 3:10:46 85

264 Sheila Grant 3:30:38 83

South Leeds 5

88 Jonathan Brownbill 37:53

133 Tom Ridgway 40:39 first race in Striders vest

141 Peter Lambert 41.07

Ackworth Half Marathon

This was also the Yorkshire Championships and was won by Ian Fisher who also led home the Otley AC team (Ian, Jamil Parapia, Julian Mawson) to the Yorkshire Team Championships ahead of Leeds City.

Thirteen Striders were present and there were some good battles for Grand Prix points, particularly around the 86-88 minute mark and the 93-95 minutes. Jon Uttley took the 100 points after his 99 last week.

The PB’s included yet another for Carmel. And it was Liz Adams’ first race in a Striders vest. Carmel and Liz are also running London, but were wise enough to avoid the extreme conditions for the 20-milers the previous week.

GP Pts

43 Jon Uttley 1:23:17 100 M45 5th

64 Adam Parton 1:26:33 99

70 Eric Green 1:27:14 98

74 Roy Flesher 1:27:27 97

76 Steve Trout 1:27:42 96 PB

83 Gary Sutherland 1:28:22 95

84 Bob Jackson 1:28:23 94 M55 4th

148 Patrick Barrett 1:33:24 93 PB

165 Carmel Barker 1:34:24 92 PB L45 5th

175 Simon Redshaw 1:35:05 91 PB

209 Hayley Palmer 1:38:04 90

328 Liz Adams 1:46:59 89 PB

377 Mike Brown 1:50:43 88

Wakefield 10k

74 Andy Thorpe 38:58

101 Tim Towler 40:14

195 Tony Haygarth 43:38

348 Peter Lambert 47:27

418 Keith Barker 48:52 first race in Striders vest

502 Peter Stevenson 50:58

776 Sarah Nixon 58:00 first race in Striders vest

Half Tour of Pendle

178 Madeleine Watson 1:38:34

Performance Awards

All the above are either on the 2007 Performance Data or will be input in the next couple of days. www.valleystriders.org.uk/vsperfs.htm

We are collecting ALL Striders race times for 2007 onwards for an awards scheme. The scheme will work as follows.

Runners' race performances will be compared with the theoretical world record (see below for definition) for that distance. A time just inside double the world record will be awarded Grade 1, and there will be a scale such that a time close to the world record will be Grade 10, beating the world record will be Grade 11. For more detailed calculations see below.

The distances available are 5km, 5 miles, 10km, 10 miles, half marathon, 20 miles, marathon

The theoretical world record is taken from a set of tables. This may be a slight adjustment from the actual world record if a record is considered too easy or too hard (e.g. 10 miles is infrequently raced at world standard so may be out of date).

Men and women are treated separately i.e. we use women's world records for women!

Different ages are treated separately, the tables we use (the Age-Graded Tables) have a theoretical world record at each distance for every age.

The grades will be set at 5% bands as follows, the example shows for a half marathon for a man and woman, both aged 27

V.S.    Percent W.R.     Time better than

Grade   Range              or equal to

                         Men      Women

   1    50%-54.9%      1:58:26   2:11:40

   2    55%-59.9%      1:47:40   1:59:42

   3    60%-64.9%      1:38:42   1:49:43

   4    65%-69.9%      1:31:06   1:41:17

   5    70%-74.9%      1:24:36   1:34:03

   6    75%-79.9%      1:18:57   1:27:47

   7    80%-84.9%      1:14:01   1:22:18

   8    85%-89.9%      1:09:40   1:17:27

   9    90%-94.9%      1:05:50   1:13:09

  10    95%-99.9%      1:02:20   1:09:18

  11   100%+           0:59:13   1:05:50

NB Striders achieving lower than grade 1 will be awarded grade "R" = runner.

Awarding of Certificates

When a Strider has achieved 5 performances at the same grade at 3 different distances, they will be awarded a certificate at that grade.

Some small print : Note that some courses e.g. Rothwell 10k offer significant advantage in that they are point to point so may benefit from prevailing winds and/or altitude drops. Such courses will be marked (A) for Assisted and a runner may only include one such event in any 5.

Striders achieving 5 grade "R" will also be awarded a certificate

· Click for full list of Striders performances for 2007

· Click for full list of Striders performances for 2007 (Excel format)

Supplementary Information

· Click for full table showing sex, distance, age and times corresponding to each grade

· Click for more information on age-grading

Note that Eric Green got his fourth grade 6 performance at Ackworth, so just needs one more to be the first to receive a certificate.

Correspondence

From Louise Cleghorn

I have been meaning to email you for a while. We are relocating back to Switzerland after receiving a job offer from my old company.

It has all been very last minute so we are very frantically trying to get ourselves together as we are leaving in 2 weeks time. Not really any excuse for me not attending training for the past few weeks!

Switzerland is the perfect opportunity for me to get back into my running a bit more seriously. See the below with times from 2005 before I had Guy.

21.07.05	Altstadtlauf Bad Säckingen	6	6 Km W 20	31.55,1
25.06.05	Hellebardenlauf Sempach	32	17.3 km Frauen I	1:37.33,1
21.05.05	Zumiker-Lauf	18	10.9km Frauen 1976-85	1:01.58,4
14.05.05	Pfingstlauf Wohlen	13	8.2 km Hauptklasse Frauen	45.53,6
05.05.05	Flughafenlauf, Kloten	46	17.3km Frauen 1976-85	1:46.48,5
12.12.04	Silvesterlauf, Zürich	544	9.1km Frauen HK	1:03.10,9

Anyway, it is not likely that I will see you before I go so I wish you all the best and hopefully I will see you in the future.

(Editor’s note, 17.3km is 10 miles)

From Claire Taylor (sent to Kathy Kaiser)

Just to let you know that on Tuesday 13 March at 5.51pm I gave birth to a baby girl, Catherine, who weighed in at a bouncing 9 lb 3 oz. We are both doing fine & settling in well at home. Lara is helping look after her new sister. You can see photos of our new arrival online at: http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/5166904

Ian Roberts Fell Race at Marsden (from Martin Horbury)

Thanks for the mention at Ian Roberts Fell Race.

I can expand on the organization catastrophes on the day. Firstly, I had a stall at the race that day so arrived early to see that car park at Marsden Cricket Club, venue for the race, was completely full of Touring Caravans who where holding a rally there that weekend. So that was a good start….. very little parking available.

Then as you mentioned because of the lovely weather they had a massive increase in numbers 60 to 150. The organizer had only bought 100 numbers so fortunately Tim Cock had a few in his car. I at one point I abandoned the stall to help process entries. With the last number issued 10 minutes before race start time I issued myself a number and got on the start line.

A couple of minutes in a realized that I had got not my head into race gear so I told the first marshal I had dropped out. Now, after the first marshal point the course is effectively a figure of 8 doing a loop of around one hill coming back to the where the first Marshal point and then the race does a loop around a second hill and on to the finish.

I decided to jog the reverse of the first loop following the flags, to meet the runners coming round and after a short while did wonder why they were not coming past me. Eventually I could see that at a fairly critical point when the runners should have turned right off a well defined path, they had all gone straight on running way off course. I shouted all the runners I could back and accordingly the second half of the field went the proper course. At the turn off point there was a family with a dog, not officials of the race. It appeared that the first two runners had missed the turn, because there was a few missing flags, but the family told all the rest of the runners “they went that way” and pointed over the hill towards Oldham and many of the lost runners believed they were marshals and just followed.

In the end the leaders took the next right turn after a reservoir, ran on the A62 for a mile and then rejoined the correct route back the first marshal point. So half the field did 7 miles the other half did 9. So from what I can make out between positions 41 & 141 there is a complete mix of runners some who beat club mates they usually get no where near.

The finish line was chaos for some time because there was no funnel and they were only geared up for 60 runners. Add the fact that the navigation cock up meant that there was quite a big peak in a short period there was real bun fight at the finish. The ladies & vets results are complete mix of people who did different distances.

The best thing from my point of view was that they spent a while trying to make some sense of the results, the finish marshals had recorded some people twice, some not at all so they had more time to look at the stall and I did some very good business.

Finally my brother John, was running his first ever fell race and after the first 10 minutes or so attempted to stick with an “older” lady who was setting a good pace as far as he was concerned, she beat him comfortably in the end he said. You will notice a John Horsbury finishing just behind Sylvia in the results, He couldn’t have picked a better pacer for this race.

(Editor’s note, Martin is the “Up & Running” shop at Huddersfield and is second claim Stiider)

London Marathon Sponsorship Requests

Choose which Strider and/or which charity you would like to sponsor.

Most of the Striders have “justgiving” web-pages where you can pledge your money (or even have it deducted immediately). Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also a very efficient method of sponsorship, the charity will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

Liz Adams – Martin House http://www.justgiving.com/lizadams

On 22nd April, I will be running the London Marathon to raise money for Martin House, the Yorkshire hospice for children and young people, which relies almost entirely on voluntary donations.

This will be my first marathon, and training seems to be going ok so far (at least, the bit about eating loads of pasta) but there are lots more miles still to cover between now and the big day! Valley Striders running club have been a fantastic help in providing valuable advice, support and good company on training runs - thanks to all at the club, and also to all at the Forum Gym at Quarry House.

Any donations and messages of support you are able to give will help to get me round those long training runs and, of course, the marathon itself. Many thanks from me and Martin House for your support.

Carmel Barker – Guide Dogs for the Blind

I am raising money for Guide Dogs for Blind. If anyone would like to sponsor the charity or me donations greatly appreciated!

Hayley Palmer – Yorkshire Cancer Research http://www.justgiving.com/hayleylaurapalmer

I am raising money for Yorkshire Cancer Research when I run the London Marathon. It is a great charity and any sponsors would be greatly appreciated. You can find my donation page on the justgiving website.

Simon Redshaw – Diabetes UK http://www.justgiving.com/sredshaw

The Story so far... Okay so I have a point to prove to myself!

I attempted to gain entry via ballot into the London Marathon firstly in 2003 and was rejected. In 2004 I submitted my application again but also via ballot through Valley Striders and was rejected by both! I became a reserve for Striders in case anyone pulled out, so I continued training and entered Edinburgh Marathon as a Target to aim for should I not gain entry. As nobody pulled out in the club I ended up doing Edinburgh Marathon which I completed in 04:07min, just missing the elusive 4hours, not bad for a first attempt I thought.

Finally in 2005 I was lucky enough to receive an entry to London through the normal ballot route. Great this was my chance! My training started in earnest but unfortunately I had to pull out due to a football injury and also due to problems with Shin Splints. I deferred my entry to 2006.

April 2006, the run started well, the atmosphere was truly fantastic, the number of people cheering us on was amazing. At approx 12 miles I noticed a gentleman running alongside me at roughly the same speed we chatted a bit as we went along. At about 18miles he was struggling to stay at my pace and was starting to fall behind. I was due to drink a bottle of Lucozade sport to keep my blood sugar up, however I felt as though I couldn't face another bottle. Not to worry I thought I will take a gel shortly, I feel fine . . . fatal mistake!

Apparently I collapsed 0.8mile from the finish right in front of Big Ben next to where the Diabetes UK support Cheering crowd were stood!(going for maximum effect!) I woke up an hour and a half later in St Thomas' Hospital with Christine stood next to me! My first words were "Did I finish?".

I managed to catch the race number of the gentleman I ran with from a Diabetes UK Race Photograph taken along the route. He finished in 3hrs 40min!!

Well here I am again with some un-finished business. Diabetes UK have given me a place in the Marathon providing I raise a further £749 which is the difference between what I earned through all you generous people last year(£751) and the cost of a Golden Bond Charity place this year(£1500). Very decent of them as I missed the ballot once again this year!!

Once again any contribution that you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Please dig deep and sponsor me. Many thanks for your support.

Paul White – International Glaucoma Association http://www.justgiving.com/paulmwhite

At the age of 59 I am ready to take up the challenge of successfully completing my first Marathon. Although I have been running seriously for 13 years and have completed over 200 races I have never attempted a Marathon.

Having suffered from glaucoma for the last 20 years, I would like to raise funds for the International Glaucoma Association. The IGA is a registered charity which works to prevent glaucoma blindness and provides support to thousands of sufferers.

I would be delighted if you feel able to support this worthwhile cause. The easiest way is on-line through the just giving website.

Alternatively if you prefer I have a sponsor form, just let me know the amount you wish to donate.