Please find attached an updated flier for the first cross country league race of the season, in just over 2 weeks on October 12, at Pamber Forest near Tadley.  

The race organisation is going well, so far so good. We have today placed our orders for 350 local sausages from the Sherfield-on-Loddon butcher and local bread rolls from the Bramley Bakery, so if your members enjoy the food on the day, then these are the small businesses to thank.  We will also have a large assortment of homemade cakes from our club volunteers, and tea/coffee/squash etc. The price for everything will be £1.50 per person. 

I hope that you might encourage your members to return to the race HQ after the race and to enjoy these refreshments, while the results are being prepared and are then announced. 

This is the nineth of a regular ‘monthly’ newsletter published to club members providing summary key updates.  

HERC September 2014 Newsletter.

Richard Allen is the August member of the month. One of the most popular club members who not only was the first person to complete the Pentathlon, he was probably the only person to have completed it twice.  In addition, he has completed 4 marathon in 11 months, ran for the club in just about all of the SXCL, RR10 and HRRL races over the last few months.  Smashed his 5K and 10K PB's in one weekend and a small matter of doing all of the admin for the club memberships.  Well done Rich.

Find out the Benefits of Sports Massage and whether it might be of use for you.

The Hoburne 5 is on 28th September, 11am start and we welcome the lovely runners from your club to enter.

This race is in its 14th year but its first under Christchurch Runners management, who are happy to rescue this friendly event.

See www.hoburne5.com

The entry fees are set at £8 (£10 for non-EA), including on-line entries.  Entry form is attached.

Please pass this on to your club members - the race is particularly suitable for those new to the sport but all abilities are equally welcome.

For those wishing a longer run, look out for the Solent Marathon which is a few weeks earlier this year.

To help get HERC Triathlon moving a working group of Chair Mike Jarvie, Club Captain Tiernan Simmons, HERC committee liaison Kelly Wickens, Membership Richard Allen and committee members Kieth Diaper, Glenn Fenwick and Kevin Martin has been setup, along with a separate facebook group. If you would like to get involved with the working group, drop a note to any of us.

All HERC members are welcome to join the facebook group HERC Triathlon, you won’t have to become a Triathlon member to have access to the group. It will be a good way of keeping in touch with upcoming group rides and other non running events

A questionnaire will be coming out shortly to help us in the development of HERC Triathlon. If interested in joining please take a little time to complete this

You will shortly be able to join HERC Triathlon, membership will run like HERC from 1st Apr each year. To bridge the gap till Apr 2015 an introductory price of £10 will be offered.

We are also aiming to become affiliated to BTF by 1st Jan 2015

We are looking to hold our first coached swimming session in early Nov, this will be a ticketed session, with places available to Triathlon members first at a discounted price of £5, before being offered to all HERC members at £6.

 We will also be starting regular group rides in the near future which all also be open to all HERC members. Like Club runs the rides will be split into groups with differing ride times. If you would like be on the list of ride leaders, again drop us a note.

Announcement

Signing up for a triathlon usually happens after several drinks of the “alcoholic” nature, so it seemed there be no better place than the pub, for the formation of the committee of HERC Triathlon.

Yes that’s right, we are delighted to announce the formation of HERC Triathlon.

Our fantastic running club has bought together a great bunch of people and as we have got to know one another, we have discovered many common interests away from running.

We have our wine lovers, our Costa coffee addicts, our fabulous cake creators, and then we also have our swimmers, cyclists and triathletes.

Triathlon is Britain’s fastest growing sport. It used to be only for endurance junkies, we still have the Iron distance events but these are now dwarfed by the number of shorter races, all providing the same level of satisfaction and enjoyment.

Along with the success of our British Triathletes (The Brownlee Brothers 2009, 2011 & 2012 World Champions), Helen Jenkins (2008 & 2011 World Champion) more and more people have taken up the single race incorporating swim bike run.

We have established HERC Triathlon, to “run” along side Hedge End Running Club to provide the same “Hedgie” support and spirit for, Swimming, Cycling and Triathlon

The objective of HERC Triathlon is to provide support, structure and encouragement for all levels of athlete, from beginners, to age group winners and elites  Even if triathlon doesn’t appeal to you, but your interested in adding swimming and/or cycling into your training, you are more than welcome to come join in the swim and bike sessions.

We will be affiliated with British Triathlon Federation (BTF) in January 2015 which will provide a variety of benefits to the Triathlon club members including discounted individual BTF membership.

HERC Triathlon will host coached club swim sessions at Wildern and run group rides for different abilities/distances and speeds. Each rude will have a Ride Leader, here to help you, how you see fit. 

Initially these sessions will be once a month, commencing in November (Dates TBC) and increasing frequency as demand dictates.

HERC Triathlon is to be for everyone, of all abilities, just like HERC, and we really want to stress this point.

If you’re a beginner triathlete wanting to “dip your toe” into the sport, come along.  If you’re a competent triathlete but want to improve your swim technique, come along,  if you want to enjoy a social bike ride on Sunday mornings, come along, if you simply want to wear one piece lycra in the HERC colours, come along. This is the Triathlon club for you!

To put it simply, it’s the same HERC people, doing the same sport, but with a couple of other sports thrown in the mix too!

Some more details will be announced shortly, in the meantime …. Welcome to HERC Triathlon !

Tiernan
Club Captain

Time for everyone to charge up your head torches and jump aboard the Stubbington Night Time Special which is due to depart from the Old Wickham Halt on Friday 10th October.  It will run 5K up the railway line and 5K back leaving at 7pm. It’s a straight out and back route so nobody should get lost in the dark and dogs are all welcome. The course starts on the north side of Wickham, off Mill Lane and there is ample parking in the cul-de-sac by the start.  We will once again ask Hedge End if they would like to join us.  Rehydration will take place this year at the Titchfield Mill just off the A27.  

Please mark the date in your diary and be sure to book a place on this popular train.  Look forward to seeing you all.

Having decided to focus on HRRL races this season (partly to curb some of my spending on race entries!), when the Test Way relay was first mentioned and I realised that it was the day before the Victory 5, I decided to sit this one out. 


However, fast forward to a week and a bit before the event and there were appeals being put out on the club Facebook page saying that we may have to pull out one of the HERC teams unless they found some more ladies to run. I reluctantly said that I would do it if no-one could be found and a little bit of arm-twisting from Giuseppe later, I found myself signed up for leg 5 as part of team 2. 


By this point, many appeals had been made within the club for male chaperones, so I decided to try to find my own chaperone out of my non-HERC friends who run. Gareth kindly offered to accompany me and we arranged to recce the course on the Thursday before the event. Kelly then mentioned that she was also looking for a chaperone, so back I went to our non-HERC friends and Simon offered to help out too, although he was worried that Kelly might go too quick for him. When Kelly said she was aiming for 7:30min/mile pace, we agreed to swap chaperones – Gareth would run with Kelly and Simon would run with me.

Gareth, Simon and I all met up on the Thursday to recce the route. It was a lovely evening for a run and really peaceful (other than Si squealing at the nettles!). The cows left us alone, and apart from having to double back a few times to check our route, it was an uneventful and really enjoyable run. It was lovely to run with people that I don't normally run with and have a good old natter through some beautiful countryside.

Saturday morning started with me marshalling at parkrun. Throughout the morning, my phone was beeping madly with messages from Team 2, making last minute arrangements and updating on who was where, and also with messages from Simon, Gareth and Kelly, arranging who was leaving when, and where we were all going to meet. Suzanne (who was running leg 4 for our team) was also having childcare issues, so we arranged for her to drop her daughter at our house before heading off for her run and we would then take her daughter to the end point of her leg (and start point of mine). Shortly before 1pm, Simon, Suzanne's daughter and I arrived at Wherwell and met up with Kate and Mark (Kate ran leg 5 for Team 1). Standing around, trying to spot which team's runners were approaching, whilst having no idea where your team member is was a really bizarre experience! We spotted a red, white and blue vest approaching and realised it was Michael (Dally). Kate got herself to the changeover point, touched hands with Michael and was off. 

A bit later, another two Hedgie vests were approaching – Suzanne and her chaperone Jason. Simon moved up to where the narrow path started on our route and I got to the changeover point. I touched hands with Suzanne, reminded her to text Emma and shot off – the adrenalin of a team relay changeover does something strange to your legs! Simon slotted in behind me and we settled to a slightly steadier pace. We only saw about five other runners during the course of our nearly 5 miles so it was not like running in any other race, but again it was lovely to run with Si. Chatting was out of the question this time though as my plan to take it easy and enjoy the run went out of the window! The route seemed a lot longer than it had on Thursday, but we did it in just under 45 minutes – just over 5 mins less than our predicted time and more than 4 minutes quicker than we had done it in on Thursday. The relief on coming in to the final stretch and seeing Emma waiting for me, along with Gary and Lisa timekeeping, was huge! I touched Emma's hand, wished her luck and she was off.

Simon kindly dropped me to Romsey, so I was able to cheer in Kelly and Gareth as they finished leg 7, and then we went on to Totton to cheer in Keith (we got there just after Michele had finished her leg). There were quite a few Hedgies at the pub at the finish point and it was lovely to catch up with how everyone had done and enjoy a drink together.

The Test Way relay is a logistical nightmare, but it was really good fun. As we all know, Hedgie team spirit is second to none and has impressed Simon and Gareth so much that they are both now considering joining the club :-)