www.DatchetDashers.com

Home Park is closed next week owing to the Windsor Horse Show, and so the training sessions are rescheduled as follows:

Tuesday 10th May
The planned session will now take place at the White Gates on The Long Walk. This means anybody who usually drives to the club will be able to park in the Stag Meadow football ground off St Leonards Road or in the car park just inside the park on the Bracknell road, then run along the footpath to the White Gates. Usual run start time of 7:15.

Thursday 12th May
We will be going up to Dorney Lake for a 10k run with a difference - The Blind Dash.
We are going to ask you all to predict your 10k finish time in advance, and then you have to run the course without any watches, GPS devices, iPhones, HR monitors etc in a time as close as possible to your predicted time. There will be a prizes for those who run closest to their predicted times, and for the person who runs the two laps in the most consistent times, but beware - if you beat your predicted time, even by 1 second, then you’re out! It’s not a race - it’s all about pace judgement, but do you predict a fast time to reduce your risk of accidentally beating it, do you predict a slow time and hope that your easy pace judgement is consistent, or do you try to find somewhere in between? Just make sure you keep your prediction secret though as it’s a mass start and you don’t want others using you for tactical pacing.

If you want to send me your predicted time in advance then that’s fine, otherwise we’ll have prediction slips available on the day. Please make sure that you arrive in plenty of time as we want to start promptly at 7:15 to make best use of the available light. If you arrive after the run has started then you can still enter, except that your time started at the same time as everybody else, and you won’t know when that was!

Dear All
This Thursday May 6th the club house will be closed. Instead we will be meeting at 7pm at Dorney Lake for a run around The Dash course so that people can familiarise themselves with the layout, practice their pacing speed etc. For those who haven’t been to Dorney Lake before, you need to drive right to the far end of the lake and park near the boathouse. The course is obviously 10k, but there are options to shorten the 2nd half if required.

The following week Home Park is closed because of the Windsor Horse Show, so the club house will be closed on Tuesday and Thursday.

On Tuesday 11th we will meet at the White Gates on the Long Walk in time for a 7:15 start, with the session taking place between the White Gates and the Copper Horse. I would suggest that those who need to drive should use the car park at the football ground in St Leonards Road (where we meet for Sunday runs), then run across to The Long Walk. Those who live in town can use the run to the White Gates as a warm up.

On Thursday 13th we will be meeting at Bishopsgate for a run in the Great Park, followed by drinkies at the Fox & Hounds. This will be a shortish run of about 5.4 miles, but with plenty of options to shorten to allow for maximum time in the pub afterwards.

Proposed route: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=51.441169,-0.613604&spn=0.036594,0.077162&z=14&msid=102491577458726110234.000485da2e72e643b0ac1

The club house will also be closed on Tuesday 18th May as this is the date of the first of the summer 5k series at Wargrave. Details will be sent out closer to the day. Please see Colin Adams to get your number for the very reasonable price of £6 for the whole series - I’m sure I eat more than £6 worth of mini rolls across the races!

The next club night at the club will therefore be Thursday 20th May

The last club night before Christmas will be Tuesday 22nd December, then the club will be closed over Christmas & New Year, reopening for a turkey-busting session on Tuesday January 5th.

Training tonight is 6 X 800s on the Home Park.

It is going to be very hot, remember to hydrate well before coming to club tonight and bring some water to drink during the session and some to rehydrate with afterwards.

The Clubhouse will be closed next Tuesday 7th July as most of us will be at Handy cross for their 5k which is also a Club Championship Event (Colin will be sending details of how to get there etc later), don’t forget to wear your Club Vests so you can get your points.

For those who know and go, there’s no Pilates/functional core strength class today (Monday 15 June) as Barbara is away.

For those who don’t know or don’t go, this is a Dashers-and-friends class held at Windsor Leisure Centre every Monday evening at 8:30pm. The class is designed to facilitate functional core strength; it uses core exercises from a variety of disciplines (mainly Pilates) to produce real, useful core strength and conditioning improvements, that should help keep you injury-free, and allow you to run or bike faster.

More details on Barbara’s website - http://www.beetoned.co.uk/

The clubhouse will be closed for the week commencing 11th May due to the Windsor Horse Show.

On the Tuesday (12th) the first race in the 5k series will be taking place - don’t forget to get your numbers from Colin (fixtures.secretary at datchetdashers.com) over the next few weeks.

On the Thursday (14th) we will be meeting at the usual time at Dorney Lake to run our Dorney Dash route.

The clubhouse will reopen on Tuesday 19th May when we will be holding the Divided Dash, for those that are new to the club this is a 10k relay race from outside the clubhouse around the Home Park, it is run in teams of four (2.5k each) with each runner having a handicap time, so it is not always the first team to finish that wins.

Most importantly there is free pizzas after the event in the Cricket Club bar.

Chris Bradfield has opened an on-line entry system as well as a list being put in the clubhouse (online entry preferred please). If you wish to take part in this event please ensure that you enter by one of the systems as it save a lot of confusion on the night.

Chris will also be doing the handicapping (apparently he is open to bribes).

If you don’t want to run but just want to come down and help (eat pizzas) or support please email Dave.G (chairman at datchetdashers.com) as this will help with the catering.

The club will be closed for the evening of Thursday 9th April 2009 due to most of us running at the Maidenhead 10 the next day.

We will be reopening as usual next Tuesday 14th April.

The club will be closed tonight due to the weather conditions.

Whilst the roads are virtually clear of snow and ice the pavements are still very treacherous and not safe for group running.

Keep your eyes on the Wokingham Half website for updates for their event after the inspection tomorrow, having just seen the weather forecast things are not looking very hopeful.

The club will be open tonight when it is intended to bring forward next week’s hill session to this week instead of the advertised 400 team relays (Alexandra Gardens unsafe as paths still covered with snow).

We will be doing the session in Peascod Street which is clear from snow and ice.

Care will need to be taken getting to the start as there is still some snow and ice on the road to the clubhouse and the paths leading to Peascod Street.

Yes folks it’s the last Thursday in January already and that means 5k timetrial time.

For those that have not done this before it will give you a benchmark time to try and improve on each month.

We meet at the clubhouse at the usual time.

If there is anyone who doesn’t want to run but is happy to do the timekeeping please email Dave (chairman at datchetdashers.com).

For those of you training for the London Marathon the date for the club 20 miler has been set for Sunday 22nd March 2008 starting from the club house at 9 am. This is one week before Reading Half and five weeks before the Marathon itself. Around 50 people of all abilities generally attend, not only our own members.

If you’re not running, please consider helping with the marshalling or the drinks stations.  Dave will be asking for helpers nearer the date, but please feel free to volunteer! Email (chairman at datchetdashers.com).

Tonight we shall be doing a Fartlek session. Most of you will have done this before, but, as with all good training programmes, it is progressive and tonight we shall do 5 fast sections of 6 minutes with two minutes easy jog between. The total running time is 48 minutes with a 5 minute warm up and cool down. 

Leaving the club at 7:15pm means we should finish by 8:15pm at latest.