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Friday, August 12, 2011

London City Orienteering 2011

If you fancy a bit of brain use and variety to your running..... direct your attention to www.cityrace.org for this years City of London Orienteering Race on Saturday 10th September. This is navigation while running through the streets, alleys and estates of central London.

At your alloted start time you collect your detailed map (1cm represents 50m) and navigate to each of the 20 or so checkpoints shown as fast as possible and back to the finish - taking whichever route you think will be fastest/easiest. A range of courses are on offer for different abilities, including Mens Open approx 8.7km, Womens Open 7km, Newcomers 4km - although dependant on your navigation skills that could be significantly more!

The mapper has written about the race area on his blog at http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/05/12/city-of-london-race-2011-preview/

If you're interested give me a shout on Tuesday or Thursday and I'll give you a few pointers!

Martin

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Injury and training research request

Dear Runners 

I am currently studying for a MSc in Advanced Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, from Teesside University. To fulfill part of my course I am conducting research into “The Relationship Mental Toughness has with Coping with Injury and Rehabilitation Adherence in Runners” the study aims to look at any gender, age group and participation level differences. 

I am looking for runners over 18 years old and any experience level, distance/terrain etc. the runner needs to have sustained an injury, which led them to miss training or competition for at least 3 days. I would be extremely grateful if you could forward this on to any of your members, also if you were able to post the link on your website/any social networking pages (i.e. Facebook). https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MScDissertationPA 

The survey will take approx. 10-15mins to complete, if you have any further questions about this research or would like to see the results when it is completed, please do not hesitate to contact me on d4071185@tees.ac.uk Thanks in advance for your time, I am extremely grateful for any help you can give me. Pamela Andrews

Monday, August 1, 2011

10k Clapham Common Race for Life

So, this isn't going to be as awe-inspiring as some of the previous marathon posts, but worthy of a post all the same!

The race was fun to be a part of, and had a really great atmosphere; all of the women were in high spirits. A breast cancer sufferer spoke on the stage about her battle, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. So, after a very lews and energetic warm-up (which I declined to take part in as I was on my own and quite embarassed...) we started queuing up walkers/joggers/runners. On Lizzie's and Rachel's advice (thanks girls!) I made sure I was up front because they don't have timing/race chips. We started off and I was in second place, all I could think was 'I hope no one from Clapham Runners sees me, or those competitive jibes are going to stick'! So I watched my pace and throughout the whole run around 10-15 women overtook me.

The course was just two laps of the common, down the Westside, a few up and down laps of the field, left towards the road and up the dirt track, left around the small pond, and then around the pop-up swimming pool, past the bandstand... if that makes sense to anyone! Quite a nice flat route I might try out again sometime.

So, all in all quite uneventful, but it was strange to run on the grass for the first time, and trying to dodge past the walkers on the second lap was a bit of a challenge!

Still, I managed to smash my last 10k personal best of 47.57 and came in at 42.29... I couldn't believe it!!

Sam