Sign up is now open for the British Masters Road Relays at Mallory Park, Leicester –
the biggest Masters road event in the UK on Saturday the 25th May 2024.

The Relays are billed as ‘the biggest masters road event’ so therefore we’d like to enter men’s and women’s teams in as many vets categories as possible (35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74 and 75+) and we’d like to aim for as many medals as possible too!  

The course is a traffic free 3 mile loop around a lake for each leg on tarmac, with licensed café on site and camping available. It is possible to get there on time via public or private transport on the day, and the club will contribute to transport costs, so please embrace the opportunity of travelling to and running at Mallory Park.

Further details are here and the all important sign up sheet is here.

If you have any questions, then contact Jules, Nicky or Lin.

With the cross country season now over and spring just around the corner, that means relay season is here. This year’s dates are:

Sunday 24 March– Southern Road Relays (Milton Keynes) 
Saturday 6 April – National Road Relays (Sutton Coldfield) 

For the women, teams are of 6 and there are 4 legs of c.5km and 2 legs of 7-8km. For the men, it’s 12 legs; 6 long of around 8k and 6 short which around 5k. For those of you who haven’t been before, the course at the Nationals in particular is so lovely. 

We will enter as many teams as the club can fill. As has been the case throughout the XC season, we have been fantastic at turning out large numbers and we would love this to be the case at the relays.

The sign-up sheet is ready so do please put your name down. Note that the Southerns has a strict entry deadline of 12 March. That’s a Tuesday and bearing in mind the entry form is not exactly user friendly, you should assume team managers need names for submission by 10 March. If you’re a maybe, then please say so on the sheet.

Chris Busaileh will be managing the men’s teams and Alexa Parker the women’s so please get in touch with either if you have questions.

Chris Busaileh writes:

Last chance to register your interest for Welsh Castles Relay on 8/9 June 2024. Entries close on 10 March and we’re close to having enough for a full team but are not quite there yet. It’s a significant amount of money to enter (which the club has kindly agreed to fund) so we need to be confident of filling a team. 

Sign up here

James Boustead writes:

Now then everyone, unfortunately, a rather anticlimactic finish to what’s been a blast of a 2023/24 XC season! A Huge thanks to everyone for getting stuck in, we’ll look to send out a few of the seasons highlights over the next week or so. Just a quick one before we go full steam ahead into road relays prep… if you’ve raced XC at all this season, we’d really appreciate you taking a minute to jot down your feedback on any parts you particularly enjoyed and any parts you feel like there’s scope to improve (all completely anonymous). There’s also a poll to gauge interest for the deferred national XC in September.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScvqohiB1td8hLW-hTx3pez-3oMpH1tIPn5DtRAmNAtoggtlA/viewform?usp=sf_link
 

After the huge success of last year’s Coronation Games, we’re thrilled to announce our first open track meet of the year including the return of the Gunpowder Mile.

Save the date for now, information on entries and more to follow.

Our co-President Len Reilly has floated an idea for a couple of challenges for the summer, if we can get enough participants.

Welsh 3000’ peaks in a day.

This is a tough day out taking in all 15 summits over 3000’ in Snowdonia (Eryri as it is now).  Its 24 miles summit-to-summit and maybe 30 road to road, with about 4000m of up and down, some of it over rough rocky steep loose terrain, and no guarantee of good weather. 

I’m already committed to this on weekend 29/30 June.

I have inexpensive characterful basic bunkhouse accommodation for up 13 people and perfectly located for this.  It’ll need cars to get there and a couple of supporters to take people to the start and to minister supplies at the road crossings. 

More here: https://www.welsh3000s.co.uk/

London Loop in 24 hours

The London Loop is a 150 mile (poorly) signposted walk starting (or finishing) in Erith and finishing (or starting) in Purfleet and following paths roughly inside the M25.  It breaks down into anything between 16 and 24 sections, their ends reachable by public transport, mostly trains.  The challenge would be to do it as a relay in a single 24 hour push.  A quick calculation gives an average moving speed of 10 min miles and my experience of doing bits of it shows that’s not easy, and that’s in daylight and for some of the time knowing where I am.  It’ll need good planning, good navigation, extensive use of Oyster cards, a short night and occasional use of headtorches.  And maybe some route reccing before.

We would need to start in the middle of the day to take advantage of the 24 hour trains that serve west London and the easy night time navigation along the canals.

Weekends of 22/23 June or13/14 or 27/28 July are possibilities, or even midweek.

If there were lots of interest we could have one squad going clockwise and the other the other way.

More here:

https://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/ideasforwalks/loop-guides.html

A summary of dates for your diary

March
24 – Southern Relays – Milton Keynes

April
6 – National Road Relays – Sutton Coldfield
21 – London Marathon
25 – Kent AC Spring Open

May
5 – KYAL Norman Park
18 – Southern Athletics League – Dartford

June
15 – Southern Athletics League – Thurrock
19 – Dulwich Relays
22  – KYAL – Medway

July
14 – Southern Athletics League – St Albans
28 – KYAL – Norman Park

August
3- 10k Sri Chimnoy Battersea Park (club champs)
10 – KYAL – Dartford
17 – Southern Athletics League – Ware

September
1 – Big Half (club champs)

Athletics needs more officials, and volunteering in this way is a wonderful way to give back to the club.
This is a great opportunity to help get club events’ results on Power of 10. And it’s fun.

Our SAL performances not only need athletes, but also qualified officials – so you can directly contribute to our success! Every qualification counts! 

It’s a straightforward process that the club will pay for, with more detail on available courses here.

There will be in person training for officials at Medway Park on March 24, to take people from beginner to level 1. Several Kent members are likely to travel to this. Phil Marsden and Ellie Brown have said they can take passengers. Signups and timings for the courses are below:

Track: 1000-1230 – https://www.athleticshub.co.uk/login?s_id=9cf4365557a3d3a9f4e7e5748f6e5052

Field: 1000-1500 – https://www.athleticshub.co.uk/login?s_id=c69db2ab2d1e3cc370ceddce089a0407

Starter: 1000-1230 – https://www.athleticshub.co.uk/login?s_id=12fb6613d40a50cea8c2e898b6f93379

 Please contact Jacqueline Francis for more info.

It would be great to see a few more people put their names down to help out!