Upcoming races/runsat

Bradford City Runs is a festival of running with a unique format: one 5K loop to create 3 race distances. The 5K loop of Bradford city centre takes in City Park, Bradford University, the Broadway and Little Germany. One lap gets you 5K, two gets you 10K, and 4 (and a bit) gets you a half marathon. Choose your distance.

Upcoming races and details of how the championship works are on the website.: New members are automatically added to the second division.

Next up is the Abbey Dash on 24th Oct. followed by the Apperley Bridge Canter on 30th and Bradford city runs on 31st.

The Club AGM will be held  at Caroline Street Social Club on Thursday 11th Nov.  Club training that night will be out and back runs from Caroline Street,

The day to day running of the club is done by a Management Committee of eleven members which meets every month or so. There are also four other officers with specific jobs who are not part of the committee, but attend when needed. All officers are elected for three years at the AGM although they can, and sometimes do, retire before the end of a term in which case the post is filled by cooption if needed until the next AGM. Because of this different officers are elected at each AGM, depending on when they were first elected and if the sequence has been altered by early retirements.

Officers can be re-elected once, at the end of their first term, but cannot be elected for the same post a third time, so have to stand down after a maximum of six years. This helps make sure there is a healthy turnover and gives opportunities for new members to get involved (although there is nothing to stop any member from putting themselves forward for any post, even if the current post holder is standing again). It also prevents an officer from feeling obliged to continue doing a job for longer than they would really want to.

This year the following posts are coming up for election: Treasurer, Ladies Captain, Membership Officer, Communications Officer (Management Committee posts) and Male Vets Captain and John Carr chair (not Management Committee posts).

The current Treasurer (Richard Stone), Communications Officer (Jack Verity) and Male Vets Captain (Martin Love) are not eligible to stand again so we must find a new member for these positions.  Also, the Ladies captain (Helen Brant), has indicated that she will not be standing for re-election so the ladies will need to come up with a new captain.

Rachel Parker has also stood down as chairperson so again another position needing to be filled.

Getting involved with the running of the club is a rewarding experience. If you think you might like to be involved, and want to know more details of what is involved in a particular role please talk to the current post holders, or any committee member - with no obligation!

The Calderdale Way is a 6 stage relay run in pairs around Halifax. The legs vary from 5 to over 10 miles but all have ‘significant’ elevations to ascend/descend. Historically it was run in the winter and so hence the regulations have included carrying full weather gear etc. Normally it is run in May but due to last year’s event being cancelled it was held in September this year. Having never run it before I was unaware for what it was like but assumed it would be similar to the BMWR but with a bit more climbing.

We had already entered two teams for the 2020 race and so these were carried over but unfortunately we were not able to fill the mixed team so just had an open team. We had a few last minute problems with a couple of dropouts but a few pleading messages did the job and, despite some reservations about carrying full waterproofs etc. we had a full team.

Thanks to everyone who competed and managed to do their recces (apart from me) and managed to get round in a very respectable 9^th in the Open category and 11^th place overall. It is worth noting that we only had 3 non Vets and, had we been in the Vets category (V40+) we would have been in second place and only about 13 mins off the lead place.

This was my first CWR and I must say that it was a well organised race and I would definitely do it again and I hope we can get two teams (at least) next year when I believe it will return to its usual mid-May slot.

After the drama of the club vote to see whether the club wanted to maintain its affiliation to NA came the job of getting some teams together to compete in the 6 stage relays which were held on the seafront near Redcar on 18^th September. There was some interest but, with the congested race calendar/injuries etc. it was difficult to get the usual Striders dream team together. In the end we managed to get two men’s teams together and despite the former Club captains last minute withdrawal he managed to secure an 11^th hour signing of Marcin Soszka who was just one week away from Berlin Marathon. A condition of his contract was that he needed to be on leg one so he could return home early, this was OK as the B team lead out man Loris also needed to return for work. Thanks to John Singh for his Taxi and Gazebo carrying efforts…

The conditions were near perfect with light winds and a nice temperature, we arrived a little later than planned but Alun had managed to get the race numbers sorted out while the rest of the team set the Gazebo up. Anthea did a great job of distributing the race numbers as well as being the official photographer/cheerleader. The legs were a straightforward, flat out and back 6km on the coastal road with a turnaround just before Marske. There was a slight tailwind on the return which made a negative split a possibility.

It was fairly obvious that we would not qualify for the finals as only the top 25 places would be eligible and the pace was very fast as our fastest runner (Marcin) only managed 37^th place but we came a respectable 53^rd out of 72 complete teams and the B team managed to not finish in last place…

53rd Team 70 Saltaire Striders A 2:11:28

Andy Brown was responsible for local knowledge and found a suitable venue for the post-race celebration meal of a Fish and Chip tea and ice creams on the seafront at Redcar. Thanks to everyone who did their bit for the team and hopefully we can get a team or two in for the 12 stage relays next year.