Solent Half Marathon and a Shane Benzie coaching and movement workshop

HRRL Solent Half Marathon

Eight Farnham Runners ran the second event of the Hampshire Road Race League, the Solent half marathon. Conditions were good as the temperature was ideal and there was no rain.

The ladies put in an impressive performance to place second of ten clubs in the top table of the league. At the first race, the Overton 5, the A team lay 5th but this has pulled them up to an excellent second on aggregate.

The four men came a very worthwhile sixth, pulling up the team overall from eighth to sixth, a promising result in the very competitive men’s A1 division.

Leading the Farnham ladies was Emma Dawson in a fine time of 1:40:13, 19th lady. She was delighted to record a new personal best by 3 minutes and to be presented with the first F50 prize, a voucher which she was able to spend on the day.

Next Farnham lady was Linda Tyler, racing with little sleep after returning from holiday late the night before. She clocked 1:41:02 for second F60 lady, just one second behind the first F60 (chip time). Returning to running after concentrating on strength training, Louise Granell recorded 1:48:36, followed by Candy Waller in 1:49:16.

Chris Raby, second M65 in 1:33:05 headed the men’s team, followed by Ivan Chunnett in 1:34:21, Justin Clarke, fourth M60 in 1:36:01 and James Goodwin in 1:49:16.

Shane Benzie coaching and movement workshop

By Linda Tyler.

Recently, a group of Farnham Runners were given the opportunity to work with running technique coach and movement expert, Shane Benzie, at a workshop at the Bourne Green Sports Club on the Bourne Green.

Author of the best-selling, “The Lost Art of Running”, Shane has travelled the world to work with, live with and study a wide range of athletes and indigenous people in different – sometime extreme – environments as well as British athletes such as Tom Daly and the Team GB 24-hour running squad.

Shane demonstrated how to incorporate natural movement techniques into running with the help of video analysis, giving advice for improvement, with emphasis on the importance of understanding how it looks and feels to move the body correctly to achieve an efficient running style.

By the end of the morning, everyone’s running style had improved and our runners are now looking forward to putting their new skills into practice during the upcoming league season.