Maidenhead Athletic Club's John Paul Murphy takes on The Bacchus Half Marathon

Maidenhead Athletic Club members have been taking part in various events the length and breadth the country these past few weeks.

Here is the club's latest newsletter featuring reports on an upcoming Coffee Morning for MacMillan, the Cardiff Pentathrun, the Bedford 20-mile race, the Surrey Half Marathon and the Bacchus Half Marathon

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The Bacchus Half Marathon - John Paul Murphy

Loosely based on and held on the same weekend as the famous Medoc Marathon in France, the Bacchus Wine Half Marathon and 10k takes place on the Denbies Wine estate in Dorking, Surrey.

More of a fun run than a race, teams of participants turn up in themed outfits (our theme being the Pamplona 'Running of the bulls').

The first half of the run takes you on a twisting and turning route around the beautiful vineyard, with the first tasting station offering a white wine and cheese pairing. Runners are then directed up and out of the estate into the Surrey hills to tackle some nice steep climbs and the opportunity to take in some stunning views.

After 3 more wine stops that have some form of live music (bagpipers, jazz bands etc) a warm, fuzzy feeling comes over you for the gentle descent through woodland, stomping through big muddy puddles and indulging in some tomfoolery back down to the vineyard, putting everyone in the perfect mood for the last few kilometres and the final two wine stops.

Once you cross the finish line the festivities continue with a hog roast, DJ and of course more drink!

Bacchus has to be one of the least competitive, but most fun running events I've entered. The atmosphere from start to finish is buzzing, fuelled by the fact that team running is encouraged, fancy dress is obligatory, and fun time boozing is celebrated.

Definitely not a half marathon to get PB, but certainly one I would go back to!

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MacMillan Coffee Morning - Friday September 20th

MAC and Maidenhead United are once again co-hosting a MacMillan Coffee Morning at Braywick on Friday September 20th between 10-3. Lots of activities on the go including a 14-team, highly competitive walking football tournament and the opportunity to earn lashings of cake in return for doing some lunchtime laps with Leila. There's always loads of cake, and MAC member cake donations are more than welcome. Any leftovers can be enjoyed by MAC Juniors and Seniors over the weekend. Bring your friends and neighbours along on the day too!

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Cardiff Pentathrun (CPR) - report from Chris Ellis

Over the bank holiday weekend, I took part in the Cardiff Pentathrun, a small event put on by the local Les Croupiers running club. The basic concept is to run a Marathon over two days and five separate races with the final result coming from the total time. The event starts with the Cardiff parkrun at 9.00 on Saturday. This is followed by a 10K at 12.30, then a 4K cross country at 4.30. After an evening to recover there’s a half marathon at 9.00 on Sunday morning and then a final one-mile time trial at 2.00 in the afternoon. All of the races are in and around the pretty Bute Park near the city centre, on paths and trails.

Getting a number and racing the parkrun made this seem quite exciting and the challenge was to keep the pace down so as not to burn out early on day one. I was aiming to do all the races at around my target HM pace. The big parkrun crowd dragged us all around and I felt good as I waited for the 10K. I managed to maintain the same pace in the 10K. Unfortunately, after this the leaderboard was published and it became hard not to race against rivals. I was in 4th place in my age group with two runners very close and in the XC I forgot about pacing and tried to beat them, unfortunately failing but exhausting myself in the process. I was very glad to have the night to recover.

The half marathon was two out-and-back loops meaning there was plenty of opportunity to spot other runners. I was happy to see a small but widening gap with my archrival on each turn and finished a few minutes ahead of him. The one-mile time trial started everyone in reverse order (slowest first) every 10 seconds and the aim was to at least maintain position. This was a pretty awful if short experience, 800m as fast as possible then 800m of pain to the finish with nothing in the tank.

Overall, I’d highly recommend this event, it’s different, friendly and fun and very good value - just £30 for all five races. The standard was wide, and everyone welcomed (the winner did the parkrun in 16:01! but there were others taking over 30 mins) and I was very pleased to come in 3rd and my age group and to beat my recent HM pace with a total time of 3:28:48 for the 26.2 miles.

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Bedford 20-mile race - Anthony Hornby

Sunday morning found me and Mum at Russell Park in Bedford for a 20-mile race which was billed as an ideal race if you’re training for an autumn marathon, which I am.

The first few miles in I was feeling confident, especially because we were running in a thunderstorm, and I like running in the rain! About halfway through we went into some woodland which we ran around twice. On my way back when I got to the half marathon mark, we had to go around the course again. At this point the sun came out which meant it started to heat up at which point I was at around 16 miles and started to feel that heat. Towards the finish line, I saw Mum who cheered me on and that helped me over the finish line. My time was 2 hours at 55 minutes. It’s a lovely course and they also do a half marathon at the same time on the Sunday. As it’s a running festival weekend, on the Saturday they hold a 10k, 5k and some kids’ races. It’s an ideal training race if you’re doing a marathon around October-time.

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Surrey Half Marathon - Dawn Godwin

I was the only one representing Maidenhead AC on Sunday at The Surrey Half Marathon starting at Woking Leisure centre, a well organised event with 2803 runners. It’s usually run in March but got postponed until September this year.

A gentle undulating course around country lanes with 3 miles of it being an out and back, which I like as you can see who's in front and behind. There's a lot of support around the 13-mile course to, would definitely recommend this race.

Dawn Godwin 1.28.19 chip time