HJ kit

The Horsham Joggers hoody is available for order. Sizes are as follows: S (38.5” chest), M (42.5”), L (46.5”) and XL (50.5”). Place your order via this link HJ hoody and we’ll send you an invoice. Please make your payment by 11th October if you wish to be included in our first order. The hoodies will be available within 3-4 weeks, so you’ll be marvellous in maroon in time for Christmas! Keep an eye on the facebook page for more details.

The new race t-shirts are on order, and we’re waiting for the delivery date to be confirmed. As soon as Up&Running get them in we’ll let you know.

We also have HJ running caps available, one size @ £12. Let Fiona Clifton now if you would like one of these – we have one in stock at the moment, and more can easily be ordered.

First Aid course

Marion Hemsworth (the Sussex Running Activator) is offering a basic first aid course to anyone interested for only £15 per person, including certification. This is primarily targeted at run leaders, and would also be useful for anyone who regularly marshals at running events. The course lasts three hours and is limited to 12 participants. Date and venue to be confirmed. If you are interested in attending, please contact info@horshamjoggers.co.uk or speak to Fiona Clifton.

The Winter Handicap / Awards Night / Marathon Draw – Tuesday 8th December

The handicap run starts and finishes at BBH leisure centre and is 2 laps of a circuit that includes Hills Farm Lane, Blackbridge Lane and the Guildford Road. Open to all level of runner the faster runners are given a time penalty so that the slower runners have a headstart. The idea is for the faster runners to catch up with the slower runners before they get to the finish. If the calculations are right everyone should be finishing more or less at the same time. If interested in taking part please email the HJ mailbox (info@horshamjoggers.co.uk) with an estimate of your 10k time so that the organisers can calculate the handicap. Alternatively just turn up on the night and enter but remember the first runner will be setting off at 7.30pm.

After the handicap we have an Awards Night in the BBH bar area. Awards given out will include the Time Trials winners, Challenge trophy winners (in each of the categories), SGP and WSFRL winners. There will be sandwiches available.

There will also be a draw for the London Marathon and Brighton Marathon club places. Each year the club is allocated places in these races. If you want your name to be included in this draw then please email the HJ mailbox (info@horshamjoggers.co.uk). Criteria for these places are:-

• Minimum of 1 year membership with the club
• 4 SGP or WSFR races run during 2015
• Help with 2 HJ events

BBH update

Last Thursday our chairman Phil Liberman attended the BBH Users group AGM, this is the main group involved in keeping the pressure on the council for an adequate replacement to the leisure centre (and track) when it is finally demolished. Our previous Chairman Tony Johnson is Deputy Chairman and continues to do a brilliant job on behalf of us all. The proposed plans are now on display in the centre and also through the link at the bottom of this post. If you feel you want to comment please email the council! This proposal affects not just the track users but could affect where we meet on a Tuesday in the future.

BBH Leisure Centre

Christmas Santa Dash – Tuesday 22nd December

A special Santa Running Route has been planned for club night on Tuesday before Christmas. The route will take you round all the houses with Christmas lights on them and to make the run festive we would like everyone to dress in red with reflective bits so that Rudolph doesn’t run you over. We have free Santa Hats to give out on the night and the best Santa look alike will win a prize.

Charity donations update

So far we have given £600 to Springboard, which was the £500 from the 10k/Valentine’s Run race profits plus £100 towards use of their minibus during the South Downs Way relay. We have also agreed to give £500 to First Responders and a cheque is due to be presented shortly.

Final Club Challenge of 2015 – WSFRL Steepdown Challenge, 18th October

The Club Challenge Trophy is a competition to see who is the fastest in the club within age categories over various distances. The last Club Challenge race of the year is the WSFRL Steepdown Challenge, a 5 mile course on the Downs at Lancing. Awards are given at the Club Awards Night in December to the fastest male and female overall as well as to age category winners. Depending on who else is running in your age category, it’s perfectly possible for wide range of runners to win these awards, so why not have a go?

WSFRL Update

Thanks to a combination of good turnouts and the attendance of some faster runners, we have clawed back our position in the WSFRL. Having fallen to the bottom half of the table over the summer, we are now up in 7th place (out of 18 clubs) – the highest position we’ve had in the year to date. Many thanks to the faster runners who responded to my appeal in the August newsletter – I hope you enjoyed the WSFRL atmosphere, and that you’ll come back for more!

We’ve got 3 more events left until the end of the year so we need to clock up as many points as we can! Remember, you get an award at Club Awards Night in December for running 8 or more WSFRL events, so if you’ve run 5 races so far in 2015, you’ve can still make 8 if you run all three of the next races! Even if you’ve never done a WSFRL event before though, you will still earn us a point by taking part, so everyone is very welcome.

Next and final races of 2015 are:

Hickstead Gallop 8k, Hickstead, 11th October
• On grass, 2.5 loop course at the national show-jumping ground, undulating but nothing scary

Steepdown Challenge 5m, Lancing, 18th October
• up and down the Downs – also a Club Challenge race

Foxtrot 5m, Shoreham, 1st November
• flat course on gravel and grass along the Downslink and Adur river bank at Shoreham

SGP Update

2015 is proving to be a quiet year for Horsham Joggers in the Sussex Grand Prix. With two races remaining the men’s team are currently in 7th place, the ladies team are currently in 7th place, the vet men’s team are currently in 9th place and the vet ladies team are currently in 7th place. Remember, you get an award at Club Awards Night in December for running 8 or more SGP events.

Next and final races of 2015 are:

Bexhill 5K – Saturday 7th Nov 10:00am

Crowborough 10K – Sunday 29th Nov 10:00am

Update on Trip to Lage

As reported in a previous newsletter, we have been working with a local travel agent with a view to organising a package trip to Lage in Germany for the May running weekend at our twinned club, TG Lage. Unfortunately, we have been unable to pull together a package that represents good value for money for members, and so have regretfully decided not to proceed with the idea this year.

There were a variety of reasons contributing to keeping the cost high, including that air taxes alone are currently over £120 adding a significant amount to the price of a weekend away. We have looked at coach travel as an alternative, but the 8+ hour journey either way would take too much time out of the weekend to seem practicable. In addition, Lage itself has a very restricted choice of hotel accommodation, and prices in nearby towns for the weekend we wanted in May were high, with little appetite for negotiation.

It is of course still open for HJ members to travel to Lage independently for the weekend (7 & 8 May). There are lots of running options offered including a trail marathon, half, 10k, 6k and various walking options in the Teutoburg Forest. There are plenty of attractions in the surrounding area too, if you wanted to make more than a weekend of the trip. Victoria Saunders on the committee would be happy to pass on the information about hotels, air routes and attractions in the area that we got from the travel agent we were working with – contact Victoria through info@horshamjoggers.co.uk.

Dawn Piechoczek

We have received the very sad news that Dawn died on Saturday after a lengthy battle with cancer. Dawn, 54, was a keen runner and a stalwart of Mel’s Milers jogging club in Horsham as well as a committed administrator for the county.

Next Newsletter

If you have any articles you wish to be included in the next newsletter please send these to info@horshamjoggers.co.uk by the 30th October.

Final Time Trial – 8th Sept at 7pm

Meeting at Itchingfield Primary School you can pace yourself against an “undulating” 5k road route.

HJ Merchandise

New t-shirt: we’ve made a preliminary order of the new “race” t-shirt and it’s possible that they will arrive in time for the Barns Green half marathon. Listen for announcements about this at a Tuesday club night soon.

Event clips: we’ve had a few expressions of interest – please let Fiona know if you would like to order a set – remember, the price goes down the more we order.

Hoodies: will be available soon.

Black track tops: still available in sizes L, XL and XXL for a special price of £15.

We still have a few 25th anniversary cotton t-shirts available, size Small, price £2.

See Fiona or email info@horshamjoggers.co.uk for more information

Barns Green Half Marathon

Thanks to all those who have been taking part in the BG training sessions. I hope you have enjoyed them. The same pattern of activity will continue for the next four weeks, i.e. a gentle Tuesday run, some hills or interval training on Thursday and a long run at the weekend. The test run of the full BG route will be on Sunday 13th September, to give you a feel for what to expect on the day. After that we’ll be tapering to make sure you are fresh for race day.

I’ll be publishing some thoughts about race strategy on facebook during the week before 27th. In the meantime, if you have any feedback about this year’s training programme please get in touch.

Fiona

Race Clock hire

Did you know that Horsham Joggers look after the race clock for Sussex Athletics Network (SAN). The clock is on hire about 8 or 10 weekends of the year to various clubs in the network and can be hired by other clubs and organisations as well. Hire rates are £60 for clubs affiliated to SAN or £70 for unaffiliated clubs. Full details and booking forms are available from Paul Aylett or can be found here:
Race Clock Hire

Alf Shrub Memorial 5 – Sunday 4th Oct

This is an important event with strong local connections to an amazing athlete who lived in Slinfold. A locally based film/TV producer is planning to make a documentary on his life and extraordinary achievement including footage shot at this years event. There is an additional prize for the best Alf Shrubb look alike. In addition, all finishers will receive a replica medal won by Shrubb for breaking the World three mile record in 1902. With all of this taking place we need to get as many along to take part as we can.

Equinox 24 – Sept 19th/20th

Jayk Valentine O’Connell is organising a team to do the 24 hr Equinox race. It’s a 24hr race held on September 19th/20th at … Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire. We had a team of 8 but unfortunately 3 of our team have had to pull out. We are looking for people to fill the places. If anyone feels up to it, Kirsty Anstee-Brown, Matthew Anstee-Brown and Caroline Banks are looking to transfer their places. Myself and Graham Clarke will be organising a run/drink to sort out the preparation soon so if you would like any additional info please get in touch. Email Jayk on jaykthunder@icloud.com

Handy hints – hydration

There are so many articles to choose from, but maybe we start with a link to simple tips to Hydration. Its short and snappy:

Hydration

Horsham Round: Bank Holiday Monday 31st August

The Horsham Round has been generating lots of interest this year, with several teams quick off the bat to enter. Teams entered so far include one comprising the graduates from our recent Learn to Run course, with several of them running each leg to make it a truly team effort to cover the 29 miles of the course.

With the Round only 3 weeks away, it’s time to firm up who you’ll be running with and get your entry forms sent in. Entry forms, and full details, including an FAQ to help with planning are available on the HJ website at: Horsham Round

If you’d like to take part but aren’t sure who to run with, you are more than welcome to e-mail info@horshamjoggers.co.uk and we’ll help you find team.

Remember, this year the Round starts and finishes in Horsham Park, and we’ll be having a Club social event and BYO picnic from 2.30pm onwards. Members, friends and family are welcome to come, whether or not you plan on running.

Equinox 24: 19 & 20 September

A number of Horsham Joggers have already registered to take part in the Equinox 24, a 24 hour relay event in the grounds of Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire on the weekend of 19th and 20th of September. This event recently won Runner-Up for the best Endurance Event in the 2015 Running Awards, and is well known for its laid-back family and festival atmosphere.

The run starts at midday on Saturday 19th, with relay teams running 10k laps on stunning scenic trails until midday on Sunday 20th. Teams can be as big or as small as you like, from one person running for 24 hours solid to big teams where you each run only once. It’s a laid-back event so you can run as many – or as few – laps as you want over the 24 hours.

More details can be found on the Equinox 24 website
on the Horsham Joggers’ Equinox 24 Facebook page
or talk to Graham Clarke.

South of England Relays 19th/20th September

For the 28th Year at Rushmore Arena, Aldershot the South of England relays will be held on Saturday 19th & Sunday 20th September 2015 (a week before the Barns Green so a perfect warm up!)

Ladies races are all on the Saturday and men’s races on the Sunday. There are further details on the seaa web page ( www.seaa.org.uk) or just follow the links from sussex races or see Pete O’Connell any time ( purpledrummer@sky.com). Please let Pete know by the end of August if you would like to be a member of one of the teams.

WSFRL update

Participation at WSFRL events is staying healthy, and we had a fantastic turnout for both the Roundhill Romp (Steyning) and the Highdown Hike (Worthing) this month. We have a growing band of regular WSFRL attendees now, who are seeing the benefits that hill training and cross-country bring to overall running fitness (or maybe the attraction lies more in the homemade cake stalls at many of these races?!).

Although attendance has been healthy, we have been a bit short of faster runners compared to last year. This means that although our team participation points have been good, our team performance points have been on the low side at some races. We have just slipped down into the bottom half of the overall club rankings now, in 10th place out of 18 clubs.

There are 6 races left for 2015, so we’ve got time to improve our position – remember everyone who runs scores one participation point for HJ, and our 6 best placed finishers also score performance points. Mal Thornton, Paul Adams and Lorraine Treadwell have man- and womanfully been scoring us perfect 10s in recent races, but I’m sure they’d be glad to see some of our other fleet-of-foot team colleagues joining them on the start line for the remaining races to even the team load.

Next events are:
16/8 Tilgate Forest 5m, K2 Leisure Centre, Crawley, 11am
23/8 Hove Hornets’ Stinger 9.5k, Waterhall Rugby Club, Brighton, 10.30am
6/9 Fittleworth 5m, Fittleworth Village Hall, 11.15am
All races £3 in advance; £5 on the day.

HJ KIT

We have the following items currently in stock:
– 25th anniversary t-shirts (cotton) @ £2: 8 in size Small
– HJ running caps (technical) @ £12: 2 (one size)
– black track jackets in the following sizes: 1 Large, 8 XL and 10 XXL. These have been hanging around for a while, and are taking up space in my garage, so please can I encourage any XL or XXL runners who might be interested in one to take them off my hands. To this end, those sizes will be offered at £15 rather than the normal £25
– ladies’ black 30th anniversary t-shirts @ £5: 1 Large, 2 XL

Coming soon: we are commissioning a new t-shirt which will have the same design as the race vest, and will count as official club kit for league events. Once this is available, the white “learn to run” t-shirts will be discontinued.

Coming soon (2): the HJ hoody. We have a design and are waiting for a firm price. Watch this space…

And finally… HJ Event clips.

These are like little poppers that you use to attach a race number to your race vest. They come in packs of 4, are reusable, and avoid the problem of safety pins making holes in your clothing. See the photo attached for an idea of what they look like. The price will be £2-£3 and will depend on how many we order. If you are interested on this or anything else from the list above – please email info@horshamjoggers.co.uk or see Fiona at a club night.

Entering Races: Reminders

Remember to write ‘Horsham Joggers’ on your entry form!
We have had an increasing number of cases in the past few months of Joggers forgetting to put their club name on race entry forms. If you don’t write down your club name, you won’t appear in the results when anyone searches them by club, and so we will miss you out when we post results on Facebook. Also, if it’s a points scoring race like WSFRL or SGP, the Club will miss out on the points you score – and we need every point we can get!

Invest in a Vest!

As you’ll have read above, we are commissioning a new short-sleeved T-shirt to match our current race vest, with maroon and silver side panels. The race vests, along with the new ‘race’ T-shirts, are the only tops that count as official Club kit for WSFRL and SGP races, for county competitions and for most UKA licenced races.

Although as a Club we have a number of other HJ T-shirts that have been issued in the past – the white ‘Learn to Run’ T-shirt, the black 30th anniversary T-shirt, and the grey cotton T-shirts – none of these are ‘official’ Club colours. We have to register our competition colours with UK Athletics, and the design with the maroon and silver panels is the only one registered as ‘official’ Horsham Joggers strip.

In theory, there are a range of penalties for not wearing ‘official’ Club colours, including disqualification. In practice, disqualification is very unlikely, but it is not unknown for race organisers to deduct points from athletes not in official strip.

HJ race vests cost £20 and are available from Up and Running in Queen Street – payable in cash only. The new race T-shirts will be coming soon – details in a future newsletter. If you only race occasionally, or are new to competition and aren’t sure you are ready to invest in a vest yet, it’s usually easy to borrow a vest from someone else – just ask around, or post a request on Facebook.

Hold the Date: HJ trip to Lage – weekend of 7 & 8 May 2016

Horsham is twinned with the town of Lage, in Germany, and Horsham Joggers has a long-standing association with Lage’s running club, TG Lage. For many years, there were regular exchange trips between our clubs, but in recent times this has dropped off, although you may remember we had several guests from TG Lage at the HJ 30th anniversary celebrations last year.

The HJ committee thought it might be a good time to reinvigorate the links, and so we are looking to organise a club excursion in 2016, to participate in TG Lage’s running event over the weekend on 7 & 8 May. This event offers trail races through the local forest at marathon, half marathon, 10k and 6k distances, plus children’s races and walking routes at half marathon and 10k distances.

We are working with a local travel agent to organise a package trip, to include flights, transfers, hotel accommodation and race entries. Since Lage itself is a very small town, we will be staying in a nearby town called Bad Salzuflen. This is a very pretty Victorian spa town (a German version of Harrogate?!) where it’s possible to bath in the hot springs, as well as enjoying the town’s large country park, shopping and restaurants. There’s also a train station, if you fancy exploring further afield, as beautiful medieval towns like Hanover and Hamlin (of Pied Piper fame) are within easy reach.

Please hold the date in your diary and we’ll be publicising full details including timings and prices in the autumn.

X-country dates

Several members have enquired about the dates for the Sussex County AA – Winter fixture list. Attached is the latest list but many events have yet to be confirmed so please assume all events are provisional unless there is a “Yes” by the event.

Provisional winter fixture list 2015 – 2016

You will see that the three major cross country fixtures in the New Year (South of England, National and Inter-Counties) all fall a week later than this year.

Next Newsletter
If you have any articles or information you would like posted in the next newsletter please send them to info@horshamjoggers.co.uk by 30th August.