Chairman’s Update (September 2016)

Hi all,

I managed to post my last update while on holiday and the magic of technology removed all formatting, so if you managed to read through the solitary gigantic paragraph of text, well done! I’ve gone back and formatted it again with headings, so please have a read through if you haven’t already, as there are some important information that you should be aware of.

Since my last update Tracy has penned numerous news articles; the well received charity race the Wilkins Way organised by members of the club, an overview of the club’s newly appointed Mental Health Ambassadors following a scheme from England Athletics, a shout out to the unsung heroes within our club, a race report from the local ultra-running race, Joust 24hr, with many of our runners covering 75 to 95 miles in 24 hours! Finally, another article announcing a Run and Talk event hosted by our club’s Mental Health Ambassadors for World Mental Health Day on Monday 10th October. Superb job Tracy.

Hope you’ve had great summer holidays, whether you’ve been away or not. During our (self-financed) trip to Italy, I ran one of only three parkruns over there. My highest place finish, I came 2nd! There were only 12 runners, 9 of which were English, but I’ll take that! Here’s my ‘on tour’ photo (my wife Jo is notably absent from the photo as she impressively set off to do her 20 mile marathon training run at 6:15am!):

Thursday Runs

Now that the light is starting to fade, this week’s mug run will take place at the earlier time of 6:45pm. After the run it will be decided whether to carry on any more, until we move back to Perdiswell for Thursday runs. Keep an eye on the Facebook group for any other announcements regarding times. The efforts group will be meeting slightly earlier at 6:30pm.

Worcester 10K

This Sunday is the huge Worcester 10K organised by Steve Cram and his team. Last year saw record numbers of BPJs running the event (as well as many volunteering). Phil is kindly marking out a 9.6 mile route for those that want to get a longer run in as well (see Facebook for more details). Good luck to all those taking part. Please try and get there early so we can get a group photo with everyone in their club colours (meet on the grass near the cafe by the river). My favourite photo from last year’s race has to be Neil Laurenson taking on the lead pack (for a short while at least!):

Cross Country

If there’s one thing to look forward to this winter, it’s running in the cross country league! The Gloucestershire league kicks off in a month’s time on October 15th, with the Birmingham (men’s) and Midland (women’s) leagues starting on November 12th.

The cross country races are open to runners of all abilities and we highly recommend giving them a go for the great team spirit, racing in club colours and challenging yourself in a tough (sometimes very muddy!) race. Head on over to the cross country page for details, dates and links to the league websites for further details.

As a club, we’ll be hosting the February Gloucestershire league race (11th February 2016), so we’d appreciate volunteers to help out on the day if you’re not running, so we can host the event smoothly. Team captain Chris ‘Bomber’ Harris is taking the lead in organising this with help from Chris Attwood and are currently sorting out the venue, so we’ll feed back when there’s more information, but please try and keep the date free to help out.

Free Birmingham Half Marathon Place

We have a free entry to this year’s Birmingham Half Marathon (on 16th October) up for grabs. To win it, simply answer “The best thing about being a BPJ is…” on our short questionnaire and the best answer (judged by me), will be announced next Monday (19th September). Bonus points for submissions that are funny or say nice things about the committee!

Next Committee Meeting

We’ve pencilled in a date for the next committee meeting as 3rd October. If you have any issues you’d like to raise with the committee, let me know in good time so I can add it to the agenda for us to discuss during the meeting.

Dates for the Diary

Don’t miss out on important events. Here’s a summary of what’s coming up:

Sunday 18th September: Worcester City 10K (the big race organised by Steve Cram)
Thursday 29th September: Charity social curry night (visit their event page for more information)
Monday 3rd October: Entries for the Croome race will open at 9pm (last year sold out in under an hour, so set a reminder!)
Monday 10th October: Run and Talk event at Perdiswell for World Mental Health Day
Monday 14th November: AGM (a chance for you to have your say on important club matters)
Sunday 27th November: Croome Capability Canter (our sell-out annual club race, please help marshal if you’re free)
Saturday 3rd December: BPJ Christmas Party (the last few years have been a blast, keep the date free)

And finally…

To leave you with something to chuckle at that I found the other day, Adidas did an advertising campaign back in 1999/2000 with a series of posters that as you go through, you can call yourself a runner if you can appreciate them or say to yourself, “yeah – I’ve done that!”. Here’s one of them, click it to see the rest: