Another busy month with two championship races, more triathlons and a successful club trip to Crystal Palace for the London Grand Prix. Yet there is more to come: next week is the highly anticipated club's 20th anniversary party to which all are invited, then, in September, the Cirencester Park 10k. Read on .
CLUB ANNIVERSARY PARTY
Everybody should have received an invitation to a garden party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Cirencester A.C. hosted by Wendy Jones and Justin Nicholls on Saturday 13 August ( 6.30pm ) at their home and large garden at Totterdown Farm, Fairford.
Totterdown is the ideal venue for a summer party; there is loads of outdoor space, large Arabian tents will be erected in the garden and Wendy & Justin will be preparing a pig roast with all the trimmings including salad. This will all be funded by the club, there is no charge. Bring a bottle - the club will also be providing drinks (a barrel of beer and wine). Wendy & Justin have lots of chairs & picnic benches but anyone wanting to bring their own seating are welcome to do so.
There will be some fascinating historical photographs and press cuttings on view cataloguing the development of the club from 1985. Look out in particular for some interesting photos of Ellen Leggate (née O'Hare), Cathy Cook (née Bourke), Helen Langsam (née Underwood), Marc Fallows, Martin Pitts, John Burgess, David Edelsten, Bob Ferris and others. It promises to be a brilliant evening so support it by coming in great numbers! Turnout is looking good at the moment: we want old members, new members and especially ex-members to join the party so please spread the word. Bring tents if you want to stay overnight, plenty are (there will be a leisurely Sunday morning run in Fairford for those that can face it). To facilitate easier travelling, if anybody either driving and happy to give lifts or preferring not to drive and wanting a lift, wants to contact David Wright at the details at the end of the newsletter, he will do his best to coordinate such travel.
The map on the back of the flier issued with membership renewals shows the exact location of Totterdown Farm. Be aware that the road leading to the house becomes a gravel track for the last half mile and there is a large speed bump at the start of the track. Use www.multimap.com to locate the house by keying in the post code of GL7 4DG or contact Wendy / Justin on 01285 712639. There will be a red & white sign on the Horcott road indicating the turn off to Totterdown.
RESULTS
26 June Orpington 10k, Kent . 43 Niel Dunnage 42.18. 458 ran.
2 July Dorney Dash 10k, nr Windsor . 34 Paul Barlow 37.15, 244 Tony Curry 45.38. 918 ran.
7 July Aerospace '5', Cheltenham . 85 Dick Waldron 37.22. 131 ran.
11 July Frampton-on-Severn 10k. As ever this race was run in absolutely sweltering conditions despite the 7.30pm start. There was not a cloud in the sky and the first two miles were run straight into the lowering sun. Pancho felt at home in these conditions and went off faster than planned (unusual that for Pancho!). He later paid the price not least because he had eaten a meal in the late afternoon. He just managed to hold off the fast finishing (steady starting) Wendy Jones and Paul Barlow. Wendy won the ladies race outright by nearly four minutes and Paul purloined sufficient bonus points to close the deficit on the absent (injured) Bill Leggate in the club championship. Most others had less than average runs in the brutal conditions: Niel Dunnage suffered badly having been drinking lucozade all day in an effort to counter the dehydrating effects of drinking duty free wines the night before, following a trip to the continent. It was unclear whether he was blaming the wine or the lucozade for the poor run! The official results listed age grading performances alongside finishing positions. This system, which is becoming quite popular, grades each runner's time against their age. Sadly for Niel (and Paul who was coming off some "sessions" unrelated to running tracks) the system does not take into account alcohol intake. A note for those who look a long way ahead: no late entries will be accepted in 2006.
1 Julian Baker (Les Croupiers) 32.44 (age graded 82.79%)
19 Pancho Diaz (Cirencester) 37.14 (72.44%)
21 Wendy Jones (1st lady, 1st FV35) 37.19 (80.38%)
22 Paul Barlow 37.21 (72.22%)
56 Chris Illman 39.51 (67.69%)
80 David Wright 41.34 (71.15%)
120 Niel Dunnage 43.57 (61.37%)
190 Jon Young 47.16 (58.55%)
202 Dick Waldron 47.57 (70.36%)
212 Sue McKeeman 48.26 (66.62%)
225 Corinne Clark 48.59 (61.08%)
280 Kveta Kroulikova 50.58 (58.70%)
292 Andrew Fraser 51.27 (52.43%)
472 John Prout 62.39 (48.74%)
569 finished
20 July Barbury Castle Track & Trail '5', nr Swindon . Per Keith Firkin this race was "not for the faint hearted": 1 S Cadywould ( Swindon ) 29.51, 15 Keith Firkin (Cirencester) 36.08. 129 finished.
3 August Bugatti 10km (Gretton, nr Winchcombe). A bit of a drive out to this new addition to the club championship series but a very worthwhile outing despite the extreme severity of the course. It seemed remarkable that an out of the way tough midweek race during the holiday season could be so popular but entries closed when the limit was reached a few weeks before the race. The naïve members of Cirencester discovered why rather too late: having strolled back to cars to recover and change then return to the pub for some sustinence and, in Wendy's case, the prizegiving, a queue snaking halfway back to Cheltenham had been formed by later finishers immediately upon crossing the line. The reason: a t-shirt, burger/hot dog & beer all incorporated into the reasonable race entry fee. The Ciren gang didn't miss out completely - after a couple of beers at the pub and some discussion on whether there is a tougher 10k course known to man (the answer seemed to be no), the queue had reduced. The story about Wendy enjoying Pancho's sausage is probably best left to the Christmas party! In the race (oh, yes, almost forgotten) Pancho and Joe had a titanic battle with the mad Uruguayan just prevailing in a remarkable time given the tough hills encountered. Joe won the race to be first junior by a few seconds and Wendy, consistent as ever, ground the opposition away on the 4k climb in the middle of the race. Definitely a race to be recommended.
1 Jeremy Bradley ( Cheltenham ) 33.43
15 Pancho Gonzalez-Dias (Cirencester) 36.35 - personal best
16 Joe Barrowclough 36.47 - 1st junior man
22 Wendy Jones 37.40 - 1st lady, 1st FV35
28 Paul Barlow 38.11
53 David Wright 41.02
143 Dick Waldron 48.06 - 4th V60
255 David Edelsten 56.59
346 finished. Full results on www.cheltenhamharriers.co.uk
RANKINGS
After seven of nine races in the club road race championship it is bubbling up into quite a climax. Paul Barlow has taken the lead for the first time but with only the best six from nine races to count the winner could yet come from any of the topfive:
1 Paul Barlow 74pts (5 races), 2 Bill Leggate 71pts (5), 3 Chris Illman 61pts (4), 4= Wendy Jones (1st lady), Pancho Gonzalez-Dias 59pts (both 4), 6 Jonathan Young 48pts, 7 Dick Waldron 39pts, 8 Duncan Atkinson 37pts, 9 Niel Dunnage 33pts, 10 David Wright 31pts, 11 Jane Wassell (L) 28pts, 12 David Edelsten 26pts, 13 Dave Cook 24pts, 14 Justin Nicholls 22pts, 15 Chris Riches, 20pts, 16= Carol Clarke (L), Kveta Kroulikova (L) 16pts, 18 Joe Barrowclough 14pts, 19 Kim Ingleby (L) 13pts, 20 Chris Sherrington 12pts, 21 Sue McKeeman (L) 11pts, 22 Sue Brown (L) 10pts, 23= Elaine Wilson (L), Kevin Ferris, , Terry Ranger 9pts, 26 Corinne Clark (L) 8pts, 27 Bob Ferris 7pts, 28= Tony Curry, Dorian Matts 6pts, 30= Diane Moore (L), Chris Brough 5pts, 32 Andrew Fraser 4pts, 33 John Prout 3pts, 34= Lyn Ferris (L), Fred Robson, Ken McAnespie 1pt.
With the next club race a 10 miler, herewith club records for the classic road racing distance:
Women:
Sen 1.01.44 Cathy Bourke (now Cook) 1993
O35 1.10.47 Mella McMahon 2000
O40 1.21.48 Ruth Fulford 1991
O45 1.15.38 Molly Fisher 1990
O50 1.24.35 Carol Clarke 2004 (Witney)
O55 1.22.33 Mary Campbell 1999
Men:
U20 1.02.06 Marc Fallows 1992
Sen 53.23 Mike Smith 2000
O40 58.58 Brian Wither 1990
O45 58.32 Brian Wither 1992
O50 1.05.49 Tony Curry 1994
O55 1.18.08 John Jameson 1999
O60 1.32.27 David Edelsten 2004 (Witney)
FORTHCOMING RACES & CONTACT DETAILS:
6 August (Sat) Cranham Boundary Chase ( 18:00 ) www.gloucester-athletic-club.fsnet.co.uk
18 August (Thu) Globe Inn 5k ( 19:45 ) www.severnac.co.uk
29 August (Mon) Arlingham 4.5m ( 11:30 ) www.severnac.co.uk
18 September (Sun) Woodchester Park 8m m/t ( 10:30 ) www.stroudathleticclub.org.uk
2 October (Sun) Cricklade 10k & ½ Marathon ( 10:30 ) fast flat courses www.crickladefunrun.co.uk
2005 CLUB ROAD RACE CHAMPIONSHIP
The remaining races and entry details for this year's championship are as follows (entry forms can be found by the noticeboard at the leisure centre):
11 September Witney 10 mile www.witneyroadru n ners.org.uk
23 October Stroud ½ Marathon . Entries close 8th October or when entry limit of 2,600 reached. www.stroudathleticclub.org.uk
CIRENCESTER PARK 10k
The club's road race promotion takes place again on Sunday 25 September. Note the earlier start time than in previous years of 09:30 . David Edelsten has been touring the area distributing entry flyers and will no doubt be looking for help with officiating and marshalling over the coming weeks. Entry forms can be downloaded from the club website www.cirencester-ac.org.uk .
TRIATHLON
Bob Ferris reported in the last newsletter that " I believe Kim (Ingleby) qualified for her age group in the world championships" following her effort at the Windsor triathlon. This elicited the following response from Kim: " Just a quick amendment for the newsletter - really kind of you to say I had qualified for the world champ age groups - hmm I wish!! I came 17th in my age group at Windsor and am going to the British National Age Group Championships in Kent in two weeks which is a qualifier for the World Champs - my times are way out but it will only be my second full triathlon so quite exciting to qualify! Then I go to London 3 weeks after for the age group there if I get sub 2.40 at Ashford which hopefully will happen! All quite fun considering this time last year I was riding a horse or two! Anyway - thought I better clarify as not that good yet! Glad to hear the club is going so strongly at the moment - its great - well done to all."
Cathy Cook is continuing her excellent comeback. Not content with stunning performances in off road running events she has now turned her attention to triathlon where she has tasted success in the past. She writes: " . I did Andover Triathlon on Sunday [17 July] (440m swim, 30km bike, 7.5km run). I was pretty nervous as this was my first triathlon since Florida Ironman in 2000! I really enjoyed the whole thing and was pleased and surprised to win. My total time was 1.39.20 (6.18 swim, 58.53 bike, 34.09 run). My bike split was a little weak as I haven't really been doing the miles and on several occasions I found myself on my own with no one to chase. It was hard work to keep motivated and I was two minutes down on my nearest rival at T2. It was a hot day but as most of my run training has been in the midday heat, I flew round the hilly run route while everyone else seemed to be melting! To be honest, it was a lot easier doing the triathlon than the Cotswold Way Relay and I don't feel tired or sore." Cathy finished 16th overall out of 115 competitors. Her swim and run times were amongst the fastest overall, male or female.
24.07.2005 Milton Keynes Triathlon (Olympic distance: 1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run). Bob Ferris writes: "This epic event saw the much awaited debuts of Wendy and Justin to the world of open water swimming plus the Olympic distance triathlon. After spending most of Friday sitting on a coach, we then decided to spend another couple of hours Saturday afternoon driving up to Milton Keynes; fortunately Barnesy's map reading was an improvement on our coach driver's and we arrived at the Holiday Inn, Milton Keynes in reasonable time (I only went around one roundabout twice, it was a very nice roundabout, the best in Milton Keynes in my opinion).
Team Cirencester consisted of Wendy, Justin, Lynn you-won't-get-me-on-a-bike Ferris ( ed: aka Barnesy ) and myself. The swim section at MK was in a lake, the layout making for a zigzagging course with about five turns in all and a lot of weed. The bike was an undulating two-lapper, no big hills, just one longish pull each lap and the road condition was fairly good and fast. The 10k run in and around Emberton Park , the venue for the event, was three laps of the park consisting of grass, gravel paths and tarmac road and again was very flat.
With the weather man predicting rain for race day, Justin began to worry about baby (his bike) getting wet, I began to grizzle about what had happened to all the hot sunny weather and Wendy consoled herself by buying some new kit. Barnesy said she'd just stay in bed. As it turned out the rain held off until Wendy and myself had finished and had our bikes safely back in the cars.
What about poor baby I hear you cry, well, 300m into the swim someone told Justin that it was raining so he pulled out, covered baby with all the spare clothes he could find, including his wetsuit, and then stood naked in the transition area going blue with cold and whispering sweet nothings to baby and comforting her until he was allowed to remove her back to the car, what a star!
Wendy had a storming race, you have to remember this was her first Olympic distance race and first open water swim, which can be intimidating. Not only did she win her age group, she also finished 14th lady overall and had the second fastest (female) run of the day only being beaten by the overall female winner. She had a good swim and she can improve on this; a good time on the bike but the girl can do better and of course the run time says it all, I can't remember the last time I ran that in a 10k
I was pleased with my overall performance; if only I had a run like Jones I could win my age group.
Barnesy had a good performance also - three cups of coffee followed by three trips to the loo, one bacon butty - all downed in record time, and she also got roped into helping the marshalls .
It goes without saying that Wendy has great potential as an age grouper in triathlon, she knows as well as I that improvements are needed on the bike and swim, but this will come. Justin also has the potential to be good, again he knows he just has to get his head around the concept of his race and not worry about what the others are doing, I am sure he will achieve this, if not baby could be appearing on e-bay - Wendy's words not mine. As for myself, I'm just getting old.
While in Milton Keynes we did bump into former member Nigel Walsh and his new wife, who seemed a very pleasant lady (how did you manage that Nigel?). He's doing okay and still racing well and hopefully will send Wrighty his e-mail address because he said he keeps up with the club from the web site."
1 Richard Allen (18.01, 58.49, 32.10 + transition) 1.50.26
187 Bob Ferris (24.59, 68.43, 42.20) 2.18.16 - 3rd V50
208 Wendy Jones (27.54, 72.42, 36.53) 2.19.54 - 14th lady, 1st FV35
dnf Justin Nicholls (one wag at the club noted that of all the starters, including the elite, Justin was actually first out of the water!).
700 finished. Full and very detailed results can be found on www.big-cow.com
The next major triathlon is quite local:
11.09.2005 Cotswold Sprint open water www.triferris.co.uk
CRYSTAL PALACE
As part of the club's 20th anniversary celebrations Bob Ferris kindly organised a day (and most of a night) out to the big smoke. Here is his report on an epic day out:
"Meeting at the Beeches car park, 30 intrepid members of Cirencester A.C. set off on Friday 22nd July at 13.00 (except Pancho who being on Uruguayan time arrived at 13.05) for Crystal Palace to see the IAAF Norwich Union Grand Prix event. On boarding the coach I began to worry a little when the driver asked if we knew where we were going as he'd not been to Crystal Palace before. Things then went from bad to worse when Curry sat opposite us and volunteered his services as guide.
We started off okay - we found the M4 and went in the right direction - but it was when we came off it that the problems started. To cut a long story short (more than can be said about the coach trip), after four hours and seeing parts of London we'd not seen before, we arrived at the Palace, that man Curry being a true hero and also taking a fair bit of stick.
On taking our seats the first event of the evening was just under way, the men's 3000m, which consisted of a mainly British field. The eventual winner was wearing a vest very similar to that of that famous club Cirencester A.C. so we decided to claim the win for the club. Pancho was last seen chasing said winner around the track to see if he could do the Oxford League x-c.
Without a boring in-depth account of each event, (which means I'm too lazy to write it), the main highlights of the evening were the first female 5 metre pole vault ever from Yelena Isinbayeva (that's how they spell it in AW); a cracking men's 5000m (my personal favourite) between Kenenisa Bekele and Craig Mottram, both running sub 13min (if Craig Mottram, who's Australian, can run this fast why can't the Brits do it?); a world class run by Tim Benjamin in the 400m, sub 45sec clocking, beating Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner, plus a promising 1500m from Michael East who's returning from injury with a time of 3.33.
In my opinion the biggest disappointment of the evening was the 100m. Yes, it was quick (not as quick as Curry can disappear when it's his round mind), but the showdown between Asafa Powell, world record holder and Justin (no not that one) Gatlin, Olympic champion, failed to materialize. Powell pulled up with an injury and has now withdrawn from the world championships.
I dare say I've missed out other people's favourite action but all in all it was a very good evening's athletics, it was a warm July evening, the company wasn't too bad and I had an excellent packed lunch - good old Barnesy (I'll be in trouble for the old bit).
Alas all good things come to an end and it was back to the coach to continue our tour of London . The driver - bless his cotton socks - had spent an hour walking the route back to the A205 so he knew the way home, only to be informed by the police on leaving the car park that he could not turn right and had to go left to which he let out the desperate cry of 'I don't know my way around London', but once again, cometh the hour, cometh the man, or in our case, Curry.
However, after giving us a tour near his old stamping ground of Sussex , he finally returned us to the M25 not far from Gatwick. Mr Ed and Chris Riches wanted to go clubbing but fell asleep before we had got out of the car park and we eventually arrived back at Beeches car park at 12.15am , only 15 minutes later than I expected, having spent seven hours in total on the coach - it only takes 8hrs to fly to Florida !
Performances of the day, however, must go to Wrighty and Graham Clarke who managed to negotiate the London transport system (possibly in a slightly intoxicated state) after watching a tiring day at the cricket and still arrived not long after we did. Could this be a club record, 7 hours at the Test match and 3 hours at the athletics! All claims to better this record to the editor. Could this be the only club record Wrighty now holds?"
AGM
This year's club AGM will be held on Tuesday 6 September at the leisure centre after the club run. We have had another excellent 12 months and input from all club members is vital to the continuing success of the club. Last year's AGM was the best attended for many years - whether every attendee receiving a free drink at the bar courtesy of the club had a bearing on this is not known! However as it was such a success it will be repeated in 2005 so anyone attending on 6 September will be the recipient of a glass of wine or a beer or a soft drink paid for by Colin O'Hare (in his role as club treasurer).
BILL BINKS
Bob Ferris writes: "I'm sure all club members will join me in sending our heartfelt sympathy to Yvonne who's husband Bill died peacefully on Monday morning (1st August) after a long and heroic battle against cancer. Our condolences go to Yvonne and her family."
MISCELLANY
. when Chris Riches told his mum he was going to the televised Grand Prix athletics at Crystal Palace she asked which event he was competing in!
. many members will remember Andy Couper - he was a stalwart of the first team until work commitments took him to the City of London via Milton Keynes . Andy was the first to respond to the club party invitation thus: " Thanks for the invitation, but unfortunately I will not be able to make it. I expect to be in Bermuda for the whole of August. Please pass on my regards to all (past and present) at Cirencester AC." Andy actually lives and works in Bermuda now but assures the editor that he is still running - his mum, who lives in Southampton , ran in the Roman Trail '10' in April.
. Bob Ferris amongst others heard an interesting interview with one of the many under-achieving British swimmers at the recent world championships in Montreal . Apparently the swimmer put her poor performance down to a recent diagnosis that she was suffering from "over training syndrome".
More information and news, including past newsletters, can be found on the club's website www.cirencester - ac.org.uk .
David Wright: wrights@tesco.net or 01285 641224
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