Spartathlon 245K - Dimitrios finished!

Dimitrios has ran this event on several occasions and after last year's disappointment of retiring at 132 miles, Mitso completed the 155 miles or 245K this time in 35 hours 47 mins with 4 other participants. Another great achievement and maybe one for Anna to consider after her goal of 10 marathons in 10 days in 2010.

World Vegan Day Running & Events in London

Make it a UK-wide mass vegan run on 1 November!

Given that World Vegan Day is on a Sunday this year, there is a great opportunity to mark the day by either meeting up at an event or going for a training run in the VRUK kit. The London group have the opportunity to meet at the two events as took place in 2008, they are the Regent's Park 10K, starting at 9am, cost £8 members in advance or at Finsbury Park for the Rainforest Foundation 10K starting at 11am, cost £13 members in advance. Note that for the latter the price on the day is likely to be £20. There is the possibility of running them both but I would not advise it.

I shall be entering the Rainforest event as I am traveling from Milton Keynes with slow public transport on Sundays but will be aiming to arrive to see the start of the Regent's Park 10K and take some photos but leaving early to reach Finsbury Park in good time. I would encourage anyone who would prefer the Regent's Park event to enter, here we can get a team result but not at Finsbury Park which is obviously a charity event.

I would also encourage runners from Regent's Park, if you have the time and energy left to come to Finsbury Park to support your colleagues and boost our photo-call. Afterwards we could seek a cafe or even revisit last year's pub for a Thai meal! I think we will give the climbing wall cafe a miss that we visited last year. There is of course the Eco-Veggie Fayre at Croydon that day.

The links to enter the events:

Regent's Park click here , it is a series but you can enter individual events.

Finsbury Park (Rainforest event) click here

Please inform Laurence Klein when you have entered either event on LaurenceDKlein@aol.com and if you have been for a training run on World Vegan Day in the VRUK kit please send Maria Hamilton a message on maria8hamilton@googlemail.com .

Spartathlon - started - follow the race

Follow Mitsos (search for Kehaglioglou) here : http://www.spartathlon.gr/resultslive.php

Notts - More photos, courtesy Mrs. Morg

From NottSep09

James Millington, Keith & Sharon Hammond, Peter S, Andy Harpur, Morg

From NottSep09

Peter + Morg having a nice sit-down

Victory 5

We hear from "duathlon" Dave Arnold who has been having as sedate a time as ever...

Managed 31:46  (placed 121st o/all  and 17th Category) at Victory 5 miles in Portsmouth today. Quite surprising as I spent the night before sleeping in my car in a layby near Daventry!! Didn't get home till two hours before the race so not the best preparation. Strange ole game this running lark!! ...

VR website looks fantastic...not been there for a while (dodgy internet...but very impressed!!)

ps  have entered London Marathon 2010.

(on which note: anyone who's forgotten to send in their GFA entry forms - too late now!)

 

A few words from a member

Julian Cross-Williams says:

I've signed up for the Edinburgh Marathon for May 2010,was aiming to run
the Loch Ness in a few ,but need more training.Will pick some halfs and
10k runs next year,for now i'm building up my mileage.

very wise JCW, and if anyone else does Edo next year they'll keep an eye out for you!

Robin Hood Half & Full Marathon, 13 Sept

My training in August and leading up to the event was rather patchy so would have been content with a time around 1.37 that I achieved in 2007. On penultimate day before the event I did spend a lot of time walking rather than taking local buses and was feeling tired on arrival at my hotel in Nottingham, close to Trent Bridge cricket ground and 10 minutes from the venue near the river Trent.

On the eve before the races, many of us including VC&AC members, family and training colleagues met up at the small Alley Cafe, a well known vegan cafe-bar in the city centre. [Vanessa Hudson reminded us of her visit to the South American continent for the International Vegan Festival in Brazil and wearing her VRUK vest, attracted a lot of attention and was asked to give a brief introduction to VRUK at one of the meetings.]

Most of the veg*n runners managed to make it for a pre-race photo-call as can be seen. With a huge field of over 10,000 expected it took time to reach my lining up point and I noted that there was not much distance between the 1:30 & 1:40 markers. I was lucky to find again the two VC&AC members in the marathon so hopefully only running the half marathon I would stay ahead of them.

Inspite of starting at a good pace, a significant number of runners overtook me. We tackled the first of several undulations or some would say hills as we approached the Castle near the City Centre. In the University grounds and Wollation Park, I seemed to recover quickly from the climbs and we also had a section of trail running. Knowing the last few miles were likely to be flat gave me the confidence to push on and see if I could lower my most recent time in Milton Keynes of 1.34. Although the wind was increasing from a northerly direction we seemed to be sheltered by the buildings and due to the general east-west course.

Climbing out of the university, a wheelchair athlete was struggling up the hill and over a ramp and received brief help from a thoughtful runner. Although we passed him with ease, not far ahead on the next downhill, he sped past all of us until the next climb. Approaching the city centre before turning right towards the Trent indicated to me that the bulk of the race was behind me. By now I was overtaking more runners than were passing me. I could not tell from the rear of runners if they were half or full marathon runners until we approached the Recreation Ground for the final finishing straight. The crowds began to build up and Vanessa was taking pictures with less than 300 metres to go. Entering the straight on grass I could see the 'gun time' clock at about 1.33.30 so pushed on to get just under 1.34 and 1.33.27 chip time.

With two stands overlooking the finishing straight it was an ideal place to recover whilst waiting for our marathon runners and seeing the remainder of the half marathon runners. Our other half marathon runner, Clare Coombs also a local club runner was expecting a good time and achieving 1.41 did not disappoint apart from not seeing Clare at the end, not surprising given the crowds. Mick Morgan's wife soon joined me, Mick had apparently passed halfway in not much more than 1.30 so his wife was confident that he was about to significantly lower his personal best. In the end it was about 2 minutes inspite of the windy conditions on the exposed stretches of the 2nd half. Keith Hammond as anticipated was the first veg*n home in 3.14. Anna Finn (4.08) was once again looking fresh and looked like it was just another day's work in the office! In his first marathon, after missing training due to illness, James Millington achieved a satisfactory 4.36.

After time for recovery, a few of us visited the oldest pub in Britain, if correct, near the City Centre.

Nottingham Full & Half Maras - first photos

Peter says, "Here is my batch with more on route taken by Vanessa Hudson and Mick Morgan’s wife.that may come later. Unfortunately Clare Coombs arrived after I had put my luggage away but Vanessa will I guess have one or two photos of Clare. I also missed Clare at the finish. The VC&AC couple are Keith & Sharon Hammond. Keith finished in 3.14 and Andy Harper from the VC&AC in 3.43. Sharon in the half 2.25 just ahead of the marathon winner."
Click on the photo to go to the full album

Kiel quarter marathon

You may have wondered where SDL had got to.
Well...
Ran the Kiel 1/4 marathon on Sunday Sept 13th, the main event was the 1/2 marathon, first 6 home were Kenyans.  Whole town centre comes to a standstill , many of the local shops and business firms put out teams, 20,000 spectators on route.

For me the ideal allowing for the extra 500 metres (10.5)K, was to run 4 minute kilometres and finish sub 43 mins however got a bit chesty at about 8k and lost some time. Big cobblestones in old parts of German town centres are not an ideal running surface,
 
Sidney DeLara
Kile Germany 1/4 marathon 43mins 17 secs 
overall 54th/2040
Male Vet 50 2nd 
Vest Vegan Runners.

Robin Hood Results & Early Photos

The official results for the half marathon do not appear to be available yet or there is some technical problem otherwise the results available include for the marathon:

Mick Morgan 3.30.27, 257th / 1325, a personal best
Anna Finn 4.08.00, 762nd
James Millington 4.36.47, 1038th, his first marathon

In the half marathon

Peter Simpson 1.33.37
Clare Coombs 1.41.42

To view photos from the official photographers as the runners approach the finish, click on each of our runners names below:

James Millington

Mick Morgan

Anna Finn

Peter Simpson

Clare Coombs

Next Targeted Event - Crystal Palace 10K, 4 Oct

For details of our next event located in south London please refer to our website by clicking
here.

Still very quiet...

Cedric David did the Cardiff parkrun 5k in just over 23 mins today.
And I suppose Good Luck to everyone in Nottingham tomorrow!

Running 153 miles for Sea Shepherd

E-mail from Helen Easton in Birmingham:

Just to let you know for the race diary that Mitso is running Spartathlon on 25th and 26th of September- 246km ( about 153 miles) in 36 hours. He is doing it again to raise money for Sea Shepherd and they have set him up with a 'Just Giving' page.

Wolverhampton Half Marathon - 06/09/2009

We hear from Phil Griffiths, who has been having hilly "fun" in Wolverhampton with a dodgy knee...

 

The Wolverhampton Half Marathon was more of a challenge than I was expecting if I am totally honest about it, however I think this was mainly due to an injury I sustained about 4 weeks previous; while helping some people push their broken down car off the road in the pouring rain, doing this I slipped slamming my knee into the ground, this incident left me unable to train for over a week and then even then the sensible thing was to work back in slowly and comfortably. In the weeks prior to this I was doing 10 and 11 mile runs in under an hour and a half so I was eager to get back out as soon as possible.

 

The race itself was quite mentally challenging, but something I enjoyed, after reading reviews on Runners World about the course, someone had mentioned a hill toward the end of the course (at around 11 miles) that they found quite demoralizing, taking this on board I had myself prepared mentally, I remember looking at my Garmin it was reading 11.07 miles, ahead was a short but steep hill and I remember thinking "that cannot possibly be it!" I was correct, I powered up this hill and down the other side only to find what my fellow runner was talking about, it was a hill that stretched almost the whole way to the finish line, a relatively light grade but sustained. This was difficult but I found myself pushing on through the pain and finished in under 2 hours at: 01:59:34.  

 

When I injured my knee I was worried about whether I would be able to participate at all, but given that and challenge the run presented me with I am happy with this time and can't wait to see improvements across the next two half marathons in Birmingham and Coventry.

 

My only criticism of the race was that we seemed to be running with typical road traffic passing us an awful lot with no barriers between us, something I've not really encountered much before in a race.

 

Overall, a positive experience though.

A good showing with the knee, the hill and the traffic!

Wolverhampton Half Report - Kevin White

Kevin reports by e-mail:

Blisters slowed me down a bit in the Wolverhampton Half Marathon on Sunday but I finished in 2h 2m 15s. That was my `chip time`, but my `time` was registered as 2h 2m 50s. Do you know why there are 2 times for all finishers?

Anyway that was 14 mins faster than my first half marathon last year and I hope to improve again in the Brum race on 11 Oct.

Best Wishes
Kevin White

Kevin White - Wolverhampton & Birmingham Half Marathons

VRUK gets a brief mention in the article below.

Kevin White

http://www.redditchstandard.co.uk/news81850.html

Double run for Redditch campaigner

Redditch Standard 4/9/09

A REDDITCH vegan and environmental campaigner is training to take part in two half-marathons to raise cash for two causes.

Kevin White will be pounding the streets of Wolverhampton this Sunday (September 6) and Birmingham on October 11 to bring in money for the forthcoming West Midlands Vegan Festival in Wolverhampton and the Green Party's General Election campaign in Redditch.

The West Midlands Vegan Festival, an event co-ordinated by Midlands Vegan Campaigns, a group founded by Kevin, will take place on Saturday, October 24. The huge event, to be held at the Wulfrun Hall, will feature over 50 stalls offering a wide range of food, clothing, cosmetics, toiletries etc, all of it vegan and cruelty-free.

There will also be three further rooms, each with a programme of talks, cookery demos and entertainment throughout the day.

The event, now in its second year, is expected to be the biggest ever vegan festival to have been held in the Midlands region.

The second half of the money will help pay for the Green Party's General Election campaign in Redditch, where Kevin is hoping to be the candidate. After recent successes in borough and county council elections in Redditch, the local Green Party are looking forward to making further progress in the General Election. The democratic candidate selection process is currently in progress.

Kevin said: "Last year, I ran the Birmingham Half Marathon in 2 hours, 16 minutes. It was many miles further than I had ever run previously and was actually my first race since school over 20 years ago, so I was very pleased to even finish.

"This year I am training hard and hope to complete both races in under two hours. I'll be running in my Vegan Runners UK vest and hope to dispel the myths about vegans being unfit!

"I am passionate about promoting veganism and environmental sustainability. Over 1,200 people flocked to the Vegan Festival in Wolverhampton last year, but with extra publicity, we are convinced many more will join us to experience the benefits of veganism this year."

To sponsor Kevin online or download a sponsor form, visit www.midlandsveganfestival.org.uk. Alternatively, call him on 01527 458395.

The West Midlands Vegan Festival 2009 will take place on Sat 24th October in Wolverhampton. Featuring 50+ stalls, food, talks, cookery demos, entertainment and so much more...!!
See full details on our website www.midlandsveganfestival.org.uk

Please sponsor MVC founder Kevin White to run 2 half marathons - more details on our website www.veganmidlands.org.uk/festival/halfmarathons.html

Chris Dhondee at Sheffield & London Festival (6 Sep)

Chris meet us at the London Vegan Festival later in the afternoon after running in the Great Yorkshire 10K in Sheffield that morning. Chris can be seen in the race website photos by clicking here. Following his successful day, Chris decided it was time to join VRUK alongside four other runners and hopefully more to follow in the post soon.

Jane Gant at the South Coast Half Marathon - 16 Aug

Jane reports in an e-mail:

Seaford was great. Really flat route and overcast for most of it, so not too hot. I do have some photos. ..... Also, I really should start blogging as I race quite often.

I am now officially a Vegan runner as EA have now swapped me from running sisters.

I ran the Arundel 10k on Sunday (30 Aug, 55.17) and may have recruited another vegan runner.

Welwyn Garden City 10 miles, 6 Sept

Matt Woodman met up with me at the London Vegan Festival following his event and reported that he finished slightly disappointed in 13th place in a time of 60 mins 19 secs. Matt was hoping for 57 minutes but was not at his best on the day!

Robin Hood arrangements (12/13 Sept)

The build-up has been rather quiet after the initial interest from several members. I know that James Millington has missed some training in August due to illness otherwise he feels fairly confident for the marathon. I am only running the half so should be straightforward but could have trained more consistently and missed the Burnham Beeches half marathon on 23 Aug due to transport problems.

On the day we could try to meet-up near the baggage marquee(s) for a photo-call at 9.30am although with such a big event and other factors, not everyone is likely to make it in time. Of course it will be easier to take photos at the finish. We (half marathon runners) can meet up again near the stands overlooking the finishing straight. For the marathon runners we will aim to save you the walk to the stands as we did for Stewart Boulton at the 2007 event, his first marathon when he all but collapsed.

On the eve of the event I previously suggested the Alley Cafe Bar around 6.30pm in the centre of Nottingham at Cannon Court, off Longrow West, near Market Square (north-west corner). Is anyone interested in meeting up here? The few VC&AC members entered are also interested. We met there prior to the 2007 event, see website photos. For more details of the Alley Cafe click here.

Was Ridgeway really only a week ago?

Anna is... tired?!! ... wonders will never cease! She says...

Just in case you were wondering how my recovery from the Ridgeway is going, I'm pleased to report that I seem to be doing ok so far. The blisters are now almost invisible, my feet still a little sore, but I completed the Kent Coastal Marathon today in 4 hours 17 minutes. That'll do nicely. 

Er, I am a bit too pooped to write any more than that now though!

See. She said. She's tired. First time we've heard that, eh people?

Matt Woodman's burst of top 10 finishes

Matt Woodman has been on our mailing list since VRUK was formed in 2004 but prefers to remain unattached although wears our vest so, the club does get some publicity. Great to see Matt continue to compete with the best!

Date Location / Event Runner Time Overall Position Age Category Category Position Comment

2008-05-10 Regent's Park 10K, Matt Woodman 0:36:26, 9/317, MS
2008-06-27 Trent Park Triffic Trail 10K, Matt Woodman 0:38:08, 9/427, MS
2009-06-21 Stone St Michael's 10K, Matt Woodman 0:34:42, 8/426, MS PB
2009-06-28 Trent Park Triffic Trail 10K, Matt Woodman 0:37.27, 6/431, MS
2009-07-04 Orion Harriers Forest 5 miles, Matt Woodman 0:30:09, 4/154, MS
2009-07-08 Newman Hilly 5 miles (Ilford), Matt Woodman 0:29:35, 6/206, MS
2009-07-14 Havering Joggers 5 miles, Matt Woodman 0:28:48, 4/167, MS
2009-07-15 Trent Park League 9K, Matt Woodman 0:32:54, 10/207, MS
2009-07-19 Trentham 10 miles Matt, Woodman 0:59:08, 5/256, MS