Weekly forecast

After a wet weekend (again) the forecast from Monday onwards is for a more settled period with rain only showing on Wednesday. Temperatures 12 to 14 and night lows of 2 to 4. Winds variable but only gentle to moderate.

Road race results

This week saw 2 championship road races. The first being the March Prom run on Thursday the 10th.

Cameron Slater was 1st WAC man home in 28.04 with Rob Mountford 2nd WAC man in 29.01 and Kevin Bale 3rd WAC man in 29.02. Keiron Summers was 2nd MV40 in 29.17 with Matt Wheeler 3rd MV50 in 29.33.

Alice Smith was fourth overall, second senior female and 1st WAC lady in 32.05 with Susan Duncan 2nd WAC finisher and third LV40 in 32.17 and Laura Fricker 3rd WAC lady in a new pb of 32.35 (chip time). Nia Davies was 1st LV50 in 33.06.

It is currently hard for us to pick up pb’s but congratulations to Bill Green in 33.45 and Harry Eades in 36.14 who look as though they have beaten their pb’s. Definite big congratulations to Shaleen Summers for her new pb of 41.02 (Chip time) and Lindsey Clifford for her new pb 56.49 (Chip time) If you managed a new prom pb please comment and share.

The second Championship race was the Humdinger half marathon taking place on Sunday 13/3. This is a tough countryside road course just outside Taunton with 1500ft of climb. After last week’s massive team going to Bideford only one club member took on the challenge of the Humdinger hills with Matt Wheeler finishing in fourth overall and first MV50 in 1.31

Also taking place Sunday 13th was the Chippenham 10-mile road race. Nia Davies continued her sparkling run of new pb’s finishing second lady overall in a race of over 350 finishers in a time of 1.06.53 (Chip time), Rob Robertson also ran an excellent race to get what we think is a new pb of 1.05.01

Off-Road race results 

No multi races that we are aware of this week but thanks to Guy Bradford for organising the second of his half marathons on the Mendips on Sunday, which is no doubt ideal hill training.

Marc Bostock, Marc Whiting, Josh Harris, Sarah Harris, Harvs Wsm, Phillippa Stephens, and Tim Atter joined Guy running the Cross Plain loops this morning.

There will be more opportunities for further events coming so keep your eyes open for more detail from Guy soon.

Information and help needed: 

MESSAGE FROM OUR CLUB CHAIRMAN posted on fb sites Friday 11/3 

Dear club members

I hope that you will be able to join me and your club committee for this year’s Weston AC annual general meeting on Tuesday 26 April 2022 at 7 pm at Priory Community School. It is great that this year we will be able to hold the meeting in person again after the events of the past two years. Please look out for an email invitation to the meeting in your inbox later this month.

I have taken the difficult decision to stand down as chairperson having served the club in this role since 2014 and we will be electing a new chairperson next month. It has been an honour and a privilege to lead the club over the past eight years and we have achieved a lot over that time. We are now a club that welcomes and develops runners of all abilities with a thriving membership. We have highly active and successful road, trail and triathlon sections and it is great to see the achievements at all levels from club records being broken and races won to people achieving their personal distance, discipline, or pace goals for the first time.

We would not be the club we are without the huge amount of time that our coaching team, run leaders, section leaders, committee members, support team and race directors give to us, and I am so grateful to you all.

The committee have discussed who would be best placed to replace me as chairperson, but this is a club decision, so if anyone would like to take on this role, nominations can be made, and club members can vote at the AGM.

Ness Andrews will also be standing down from the committee due to work pressures so we will be looking for another committee member to take her place. This is a terrific opportunity for someone who would like to be more involved in the club’s future activities.

Details of how to nominate a new chairperson and a new committee member will be included with your agenda and invite to the AGM.

Best wishes

Ian Carpenter

Club Chairman 

Membership Renewal 1/4/22 

Club and EA memberships are due 1/4/22. The club membership fees will be £20 (or £10 social) as before but the EA fee is increasing to £16 this year. The new EA fee does not apply to any new members until 1/4/22 so the changes have not yet been applied. Please wait until after the 1/4/22 to make your renewal when the new figure will be in place. A message from the club membership secretary will be sent explaining this and may be in your spam folder if you do not see it. 

WAC social members will have seen that WAC are supporting Health Trainers from North Somerset by starting a Couch to 5k for people who find it hard to make evening sessions. The first session takes place on Monday the 28th of March at 9.15am in Clarence Park.

Please pass the information on to anybody who may be interested and ask them to call Kira on 01934 627014 or 07882 474 692 to get more information or book a place

The 2022 championship races until April are now shown on the table attached to the Handicap result page of the website.

The Jan, Feb, March, April, and May Prom runs are included. The remaining road runs are the Taunton half (3/4). The remaining off-road races are the Cheddar Big Cheese (20/3) and the Shapwick Bubby Hop (18/4). Places were still available for entry to the Big Cheese on the 13/3

Points for your best time in any marathon in 2022 will be awarded this year within the Road category.

Monday night TWAC session (14/3) this week is the March 5k or 10k fell race. Please see TWAC FB for full details of session which will be the first of the monthly fell races – you choose whether to do the 5k or 10k version. Meet 6.50 at the Burrington Coombe car park (top car park) and the start will be nearby

This week’s Rep/interval session on Tuesday the 15th meet 6.50 for 7:00 on seafront at shelter between Tropicana and Revo. Sheryl, Nick, Jason, or Jim will take the sessions. Session suitable for all abilities.

One of the sessions will be 5 x 1k with 90 second recovery particularly for anybody interested in attending the 5k time trial session on Saturday – see below.

The Wednesday swim sessions at Burnham-on-Sea pool. These sessions need to be booked and paid for – please email Margaret and Charlotte at westonacmultisports@gmail.com

Thursday – Thursday 17th March meet 6.50 at Hutton Moor car park for Group runs – The route this week will be fartlek.

Saturday 19th March session will be a 5k time trial on the Wick Loop. This is an opportunity to run at your max pace and bag yourself a PB.

There is a sub-20-minute attempt by a group of club members, but it would be wonderful to celebrate PBs with as many members who want to come down and give it a go.

We will be meeting at the Ebdon Arms at 8am. All are welcome. It does not matter if you run a 20 minute or a 40-minute 5k. The more the merrier.

We now have the March code for the 10% discount and free postage on orders from Sportsshoes (min order value £30). This code is on the WAC members social fb page for WAC member use only. Please ask Jim or Julia if you do not access fb and wish to put in an order with them.

New members can pick up their kit after training on Tuesday night on the seafront, come along at about 7.45 and find Jim Wotton. If you cannot get to the seafront let Chris Loach or Jim Wotton know and we will see what we can do. Ladies kit comes in sizes 8, 10, 12 etc.

This week’s schedule:

Monday – TWAC session – See above for detail of session this week – see fb for more detail meet at Burrington Coombe (top car park) at 6.50.

Tuesday session – Meet from 6.50pm at shelter between Tropicana and Revo for rep/interval sessions. See above

Wednesday – Swimming session at Burnham pool

Thursday – Meet Hutton Moor car park 6.50 for group runs – Fartlek route

Saturday session – 8.00 – 5k pb attempt -see above for details