YKH Club Newsletter – 12th April.

Happy Easter, Harriers
Hi Harriers. We hope you are keeping safe and well at this unusual time, and managing to enjoy the Easter weekend in some way.

Committee update: Supporting local charities
The Committee met (virtually!) on Wednesday 8 April. The focus was on how the club could financially support the local community at this time, with a focus on local charities. We are finalising details now and will share these with you later in April before we proceed.

Virtual National Road Relay Championships
As we mentioned in last week’s newsletter, the road relay champs moved online this year, and these were held between 4th and 8th April. There was an excellent turn out from YKH, with 19 women and 26 men taking to the roads and running 5K.

The ladies did brilliantly, placing 10th out of 33 complete teams of 12, demonstrating that we are a truly national squad.
The organisers also produced a set of Vets results, and our ladies team placed an incredible 6th out of 53 teams. This team was made up of Lucy Pinder, Sarah Attwood, Clare Rowntree, Aoife Burke, Natalie Greaves and Becky Penty.

On the men’s side, we fielded one of our strongest squads yet, with the mens team placing an excellent 55th out of 119 complete teams of 12. When you consider the top 5 clubs averaged sub 15 mins for all 12 men you know you’re in deep!
Our mens Vets team also did fantastically, placing 7th out of 83 teams. This team was made up of Dave Smithers, Paul Whitaker, Phil Elliot, Jon Pinder, Tim Buckley and Rob Ward.

Emily and Rob have written a full report on the results which can be found here

Advice from Coach Pete
Our routine training sessions are paused, but Coach Pete is still coaching!

“Hi Harriers,

With racing looking unlikely to be resuming for sometime, now is the time to take a longer term view of your training by returning to the conditioning phase of training. You can do this by progressively increasing mileage and improving your aerobic base. Keep one speed session a week to maintain Vo2 Max. I have already posted these sessions on this site. After an easy run you could do 6 fast 30 second strides which will help maintain a faster cadence. Just before racing does resume you should introduce threshold sessions and shorter speed sessions with longer recovery’s which will help you peak for forthcoming races. Also in this conditioning phase if you could do some strength and conditioning work this will help with your overall fitness.

Always follow Government guide lines.

Peter Schofield, club coach.”

Teddy’s virtual “hot cross bun/bacon butty run”
Huge thanks to Teddy Wilcox for organising a virtual “hot cross bun/bacon butty run” on Good Friday. This is a long-standing annual YKH tradition, with a group run followed by hot cross buns and bacon butties at someone’s house. Teddy didn’t want to let social distancing stop us this year, so she organised a virtual run, with many members completing their own run many in their YKH vests. These were then followed with many treating themselves to buns and butties! Great running everyone, and thanks for making it happen, Teddy! (Photo of some fun runners, below)

Virtual circuits, from Mark Sullivan
During normal times, club member, and former Chairman, Mark Sullivan hosts a very popular circuit class at the York Railway Institute on a Monday and Thursday evening. These classes are currently on hold, but Mark is keeping his circuits turning with regular “virtual circuits” on his Facebook page.
Mark’s latest circuit is below. Thanks Mark!

“Pyramid session:
a. Jacks
b. Half Squats (hands to mid thigh)
c. Dorsal Raise
d. Half sit ups (hands on thighs and no further than knees)
e. High Knees
f.  Full squats (hands to ankles)
g. Press ups
h. Russian twist
i. Spottie dogs

1 minute on each exercise (take them steady).  Get to spotty dogs and then do them in reverse order so you do 18 minutes non-stop.  Do remember to do a warm up and cool down and stretch.  Have a superb weekend and enjoy the chocolate!”

Want to volunteer in the local community?
If you are keen and able to volunteer in the local community, City of York Council have created a simple website to add your name to the list of more than 2,000 local volunteers. See here.

Can we help?
YKH is a great club, with a family of nearly 500 members. If any members could benefit from voluntary help from the club – perhaps collecting food or prescriptions – please let us know and we’ll do our best to help. Just email ykhchairman@yahoo.com.

Local 10k routes
If you are looking for some new local running routes, below we share details of a number of the 10k routes that our club follows on our Monday and Thursday night social runs. In the spirit of official guidelines, please avoid driving to these routes, and don’t congregate with other members. We hope these are of use. (Thanks to Rachel for suggesting we share these, and to Alan for creating the routes on Strava.)

Acaster Lane: strava.com/routes/21783306
Acaster Malbis: strava.com/routes/21783347
Bishopthorpe & Skeldergate: strava.com/routes/21783369
Blue Bridge: strava.com/routes/22773501
Clifton: strava.com/routes/21783455
Clifton Ings: strava.com/routes/21783520
Coney Street: strava.com/routes/2319133
Copmanthorpe & Askham Bryan: strava.com/routes/21786177
Energise: strava.com/routes/21786208
Front Street: strava.com/routes/21786229
Germany Beck: strava.com/routes/21786254
Heslington: strava.com/routes/21786346
Hills (Acomb): strava.com/routes/21787082
Hills (town): strava.com/routes/21787114
Hob Moor: strava.com/routes/21787134
Holgate Windmill: strava.com/routes/21787182
Poppleton: strava.com/routes/21787220
River run: strava.com/routes/21787285
Rowntree Park & Hob Moor: strava.com/routes/21787343
Scarcroft Road: strava.com/routes/21787494
Two Askhams: strava.com/routes/21787522
Two Bridges: strava.com/routes/21787540
Walmgate Stray: strava.com/routes/21787560
Yearsley: strava.com/routes/21787710

No need to pay fees
There is no need for members to pay their annual fees at this time. We will remind you of the need to pay when events open up again. Please note, if you pause your fee payment, your membership of England Athletics will also pause. This may prohibit you from entering future races during this pause as a Harrier. And also please note, you may receive automated reminders to pay your fees from our online membermojo system. We can’t switch these off, so just ignore them! (Big thanks to the 100+ members who have already renewed your subs)

YKH Investment Fund
A reminder that our investment fund is open to new ideas on how to allocate the club’s funds. This attachment has full details.
If you have any feedback that you would like to share with us, please reply to this email or send a message to clubsecretary@yorkknavesmireharriers.co.uk. We would love to hear of anything that you would like us to include in future newsletters.

Club Ethos: The Club is based upon the values of equality, personal responsibility, democratic cooperation, self and mutual help, respect for others and friendship.