claphamrunners

River Relay 2023

October 18, 2023claphamrunners

One highlight of the year for Clapham Runners is participating in competitions against other running clubs. We usually take part in two events each year, the weekend long Greenbelt Relay in May and the smaller River Relay in September, both of which are organised by the Stragglers Running Club.

The River Relay is a 26-mile-long race along the banks of the Thames. Starting near Windsor and ending at the Hawker Centre in Kingston, the event is divided into five stages, ranging from 4 to 6 miles in length, all of which are manageable and easy to navigate. Unlike the Greenbelt Relay the event makes use of a baton and so this creates a different tone to the event, as the field spreads out after the first leg and teams have the chance to overtake each other. This can also make it logistically interesting – at one stage one of our runners finished a leg before the next person had arrived to receive the baton!

We were pleased to enter three teams this year, one more than normal. Some members ran two legs (some ran more unofficially for marathon training or to try and hit a yearly distance target, but that is for another blog), and it was great to have a mix of long-standing and newer members taking part. The small nature of our club means that all members have the chance to participate in events and it is a fun and enjoyable way to get to know others better and test yourself against a wide field in a different environment to normal.

Eloise finishing the final leg, all other teams are supportive and cheer 🎉

Out of a field of 52 teams we came in 18th, 32nd and 36th. We were delighted with these results as we were competing against clubs with far greater membership numbers. A big thank you to all everyone who took part.

If you are interested in joining our club please came along to either Battersea Park at 8pm on a Tuesday or Clapham Common at 7pm on a Thursday. You are welcome to try out our sessions for free to see it is for you or not. We welcome all levels of experience and it is a great way to practice and improve at running, keep fit and meet new people.

#runningclub #claphamrunners #summerrunning #socialrunning

Eloise takes on Tromso marathon

July 6, 2023claphamrunners

On June 16, I ran the Midnight Sun Marathon in Tromso, Norway.

Located 350km north of the Arctic Circle, the sun does not set between 20 May to 22 July.

As the race starts, you are fooled into thinking it is much earlier in the day and you are left even more confused crossing the finish line at midnightin complete daylight.

A surreal experience for my first, but hopefully not last, marathon.

Katherine (& Dan’s) worldwide adventure 🌎

July 3, 2023July 6, 2023claphamrunners

After lots of stress and work during the pandemic, Katherine and her partner, Daniel, decided to get away from it all and have a much needed adventure!

We set off from London in October 2022, moving all of our possessions up to our family homes in Scotland to be stored for the next 8 months. We then flew to Thailand where we started a 2 1/2 month trip around South East Asia.

After Thailand we took a 2 day slow boat down the Mekong River into Laos, did a loop around the North of Vietnam, flew down to Bali and the nearby Nusa Islands, then made our way home via Singapore and Kuala Lumpur!

We spent about 2 weeks at home with our families over Christmas and New year before setting off again – this time taking a 16 hour flight to Santiago in Chile, South America!

Landing in Chile was an absolute culture shock – we didn’t speak a word of Spanish, Daniel’s wallet was stolen on the Santiago Metro on day 3, and it’s safe to say we had a lot to learn! After several weeks of Spanish lessons we were finding it much easier to get around and travelled for the next 3 months through Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Columbia.

One of our more adventurous, outdoorsy activities included climbing Huayna Potosi – a mountain in Bolivia over 6000m which required us to be roped together and use ice axes and crampons!

Some of the highlights: trekking over 4 days to the ‘Ciudad Perdida’/Lost City in Columbia, hiking to the base camp of Aconcagua (the highest mountain in South America) in Argentina, and visiting the incredible Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia.

After a couple of final weeks in Spain (we didn’t want to stop speaking Spanish yet!) Daniel had to go back to work, and Katherine continued the adventure by hiking the 772km Camino de Santiago. This trek began just inside France in the Pyrenees and crossed almost the entirety of northern Spain.

2 pairs of trail running shoes were completely destroyed in the process, an unhealthy amount of red wine and tortilla de patata was consumed, and a dream of a lifetime was completed!
After all the activity of the last 8 months, we are both excited to be back in London and catching up with friends and family! Katherine will be back at Clapham Runners (hopefully in a new pair of running shoes)!!

Green Belt Relay 2023

June 15, 2023June 15, 2023claphamrunners

13th and 14th of May saw one of the highlights of our Clapham Runners event calendar – the annual Greenbelt Relay organised by the Stragglers Running Club. For the uninitiated this is a 22 leg event held over 2 days, covering 220 miles in teams of 11. It is always a logistical challenge, with cars needing to be moved around the commuter belt – and not always by their original driver. Unfortunately ChatGPT AI isn’t yet able to come up with an automatic plan for it!

Martin bringing us home on leg 1 (having flown in from NYC for the weekend)

Legs cover a range of distances from 10K to half-marathon and a range of difficulties from 1 to 10 with 10 being “bloody hard”. Being a smaller club we always field a single team and often have more than 11 runners across both days, which is a great chance for more of our members (and their friends) to participate. We are proud to punch above our weight and compete with bigger clubs, who are able to field 2 or 3 teams. We were thrilled that first timer Shak secured our highest ever place with two fifth place finishes on both of his legs. Everyone in the team ran brilliantly, putting in fantastic performances throughout the weekend.

Relay is something of a misnomer for this event, with no baton exchanging hands and each leg starting and finishing as a distinct, separate event. This is good as it means every runner in every stage starts together and people are not left behind. It would of course be chaos if the event were run as an actual relay – although it might be interesting to watch unfold.

The Greenbelt Relay is made more of a challenge for runners through the need to self-navigate each leg. There are some marshal stations on each leg and some sawdust scattered on the route to aid direction – but on stretches of each leg – and more so for longer ones – most of the time you are on your own. This is when you really see a benefit from being in the middle of the pack and not trying to win – as you are often able to run with competitors from other clubs, which creates a wonderful opportunity to navigate together and enjoy the day with others who share a passion to yourself. If the starting challenge seems intimidating then this can really lighten the load. Being in the middle of the pack can also come in handy for what you might call “piggyback” navigation where you bypass the challenge of navigating the course by simply following those in front of you (although this isn’t a fool proof tactic!).

End of day 1, with one of our Pioneer faves 💙🧡

As well as participating we also support the organisers by marshalling a number of the legs. This is a lot of fun, and arguably as much or more fun as actually running a leg. Cheering on the runners, handing out water, sharing directions and making sure runners cross roads safely. It is a great chance to have fun and socialise both with other members of the club but also with runners from other clubs.

Eventually we came in in 35th place – a solid and respectable mid table finish. We were 9 hours behind the overall winners Ranelagh Rapids – but as club captain Ken said – “did they have as much fun as we did – we had almost 9 hours more fun”.

Last members standing at the end of day 2

Our other main competition is the mini river relay event, involving 26 miles along the river Thames, the first Sunday in September in teams of five. We are greatly looking forward to this and hope to field 3 teams.

If this blog has intrigued you please do come along and try out one of our sessions. We run a Battersea Park millennium arena on a Tuesday at 8 and Clapham Common on a Thursday 7pm. It is a great chance to socialise, meet new friends and improve your running in a small and supportive environment.

We are back!

August 26, 2021claphamrunners

I think it might be time to say we are back, consistently back!

We’ve loved seeing those familiar faces back after our lockdown hiatus and welcoming new smiling faces to our team.

We’ve been hardy through the rain and been making the most of the sunshine, running together again and ultimately enjoying each other’s company.

If you are looking for some friendly faces to keep your motivation ticking over, be with a group as the evenings draw in, build some speed or strength, or just enjoy some friendly company then pop along to one of our sessions and see if you like it.

Look forward to meeting you soon 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Winter running

November 18, 2020November 18, 2020claphamrunners

It’s always harder to be motivated in winter. Less daylight creating shorter days. Harsher weather. Choice on TV. All the seasonal snacks appearing on shelves.

All these things and more can create obstacles for getting outdoors, whether that be to run or just to enjoy our surroundings in the daylight. So find some tips below for what we enjoy of winter running.

Sunrise autumnal mornings make for real variation of what can be well trodden paths. With sunrise being a bit later means you don’t have to set an early alarm to capture the beauty

New paths with lockdown meaning plans are on pause, take that time to explore your local area, what new delights can you find? Exploring trails in parks whilst it’s still light. Or sticking with urban streets by street lamp light.

Going further if you’ve dropped your commute with working from home or have some extra time at weekends can you explore further afield? Where have you always wanted to explore? Where have you not yet gotten to, yet intended to? Maybe switch up your legs for wheels to take you on new adventures 🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️

Alternate views are you missing getting away? Mix it up, take a break from your usual route and explore something new. Maybe you frequent your local common or park… switch it up, run or cycle to a river, find a local feature and discover it.

Interval sessions mix up your run with intervals, we share a session weekly on our instagram stories try it out for something different, see if you like it, no obligation to join, but we’ll be welcoming when restrictions lift!

What are your tips for staying motivated through the winter months or for our Clapham Runners in the Southern Hemisphere how do you get out in the heat?? Share your tips with us in the comments or tag us in your training on Twitter and Instagram

Happy running. Stay safe

Franks soggy, eccentric marathon – Run for the Lifeboats

October 6, 2020October 6, 2020claphamrunners

The 40th London Marathon was certainly different, an unsupported solo event thanks to Covid and my slowest, soggiest, most socially isolated so far. I had 24 hours to complete it so what’s an hour or two? The official app shows 14:47:40 and an active time of 5:31. I can’t argue with either even if my tracker doesn’t agree.

Orage Alex forced a rethink on my ‘Here to Shere’ route which would have ended with a pub lunch with friends. Instead I opted, starting at midnight, for London streets under ‘lockdown’ with foxes, the homeless and the occasional addled group up to something nefarious. One ghostly trainer footprint on a dry stretch of pavement but not a single other runner – after all who else would be crazy enough to run a marathon distance in the dark and rain?

Out into the night
True to the forecast it rained throughout the 24 hours. Dodging standing water added hazard, time and distance, especially facing the torrents and pooled water on stairs in the dark to cross the bridges between Battersea and Tower and back (17 times in all). Ankle deep puddles almost had me sending for the Lifeboats.

Prune-like at 4:30am and 33km later I needed a hot shower. With my clothes set to drain I was ready for bed but my legs didn’t let me sleep. To leave something on the plate was the plan as it hadn’t been my intention to complete the distance in one go – I lacked the strength of will anyway That might have been a better plan for my legs though.
Still raining at 2:00pm Geoffrey came out to support me for stage 2 and we ran the remaining distance ‘doodling’ or dawdling round Clapham Common. There were plenty more virtual marathon runners around in daylight.

*Fund raising for charities is an essential part of the London Marathon as it is the largest single money raising event/day worldwide. This year’s cancellation meant that charities rely on this virtual event. Please think about giving generously to the RNLI or to your preferred charity to boost their activities. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Frank-Elston1

Green Belt Relay Challenge 2020

May 21, 2020claphamrunners

On the weekend that would have been our Green Belt Relay organised by @stragglers_running_club we set out on our own 220 mile challenge.

25 runners, 5 countries and 250 miles later looks what we’ve created.

Fi even managed to fit in most of the glory leg on the official Green Belt Relay Route! And Lizzy visited another stage close to home.

We might have missed getting together and the challenges of coordinating and navigating around the Green Belt but at very short notice letter routes were planned and executed – see our results below!

A great example of how our team can come together and deliver a great team event.

Excellent running by all and great to bring everyone together (virtually) with amazing cheer leading from those who couldn’t run.

Thanks team – for getting organised and joining in. That was fun what’s next?

To the official Green Belt route – we’ll see you in 2021

April 2020

May 5, 2020claphamrunners

Whilst our group sessions have been postponed we are still in touch with John to keep our solo efforts going. This can certainly be testing on motivation however our team are still getting out there all be it alone to keep the training up ready for when we can come back together again.

Working from home gifts us the flexibility to run as we feel which means we have been treated so some beautiful spring sunrises & sunsets, blossoms and also wonderful clear views with the sunniest April

26th April 2020 was set to be Charli’s first Marathon attempt taking part in the VLM, sadly this is currently postponed however still motivated as ever Charli got on out there and hit a PB 13.1 miles!

Charli’s PB inspiring more running with David heading out in the rain to secure his 10km PB

At the start of lock down Frank started his own little alphabet project and sent us this motivating message to keep us going to the end of the month…. STAY ACTIVE – created from his local alphabet street work!

Clearly inspired Ken has started his own challenge…. still waiting on B!

And if you are running around Tooting Common keep a little eye out for these messages to brighten up your walk / run… I believe there are 125 in total!

March 2020

April 15, 2020November 18, 2020claphamrunners

Over in New Zealand George kicked off our month by completing his first ironman 70.3, what a great achievement and example of if you go for it you’ll absolutely achieve what you want to.

Andrew placed 35th in the Riverside 20 trail run 15th March organised by the Clapham Chasers – completing his 20 miles in 20hr 20mins!

“Awesome 20 mile out and back race along the Thames. Stuck with the 7min/mile pacer group, dropped off at 17 miles but caught them with 100m to go”

Well done Andrew!

Social distancing became the norm in March and as a club we quite quickly made the decision to no longer meet on Tuesdays or Thursdays (or any other day) to run together – we continue to share our sessions each week as its important to stay connected even when training moves into a solo activity.

With solo sessions becoming a little more normal its allowed us to run at different times of day and appreciate some wonderful sunrises and sunsets outside of our working hours, for those who are out of London some of the views are a wonderful change from our usual paths.

With the London Marathon off Rob didn’t let that deter him from achieving Spring Marathon goals, by completing a solo 26.2 in Battersea Park! And without support from cheering crowds and no matched pace from other runners he also got a PB!!!

What an incredible time for starters but also running those same laps that many times, with no enthusiastic crowd to carry you, we applaud you!

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