Sri Chinmoy 10k in Battersea Park

I ran in the Sri Chinmoy 10k in Battersea Park last week (November 26th 2016).  The series of races organised there by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and associated Run and Become shop have a deserved good reputation for being friendly and well organised, and also for attracting some good club runners as well as those making their first steps at this distance. The Battersea Park course is fast and flat, and the conditions last week were perfect for speed - cold and dry, but not icy.

214 runners took part, and the first 24 were all under 35 minutes headed by Tony Payne of Wesley Harrierse in 31.47. Lisa Rooney of Collingwood AC was the first woman in 39.11 (full results here)

the start of the race - from Sri Chinmoy photo gallery

Sri Chinmoy on running

Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) was an Indian spiritual teacher and keen runner, who advocated running and physical exercise as part of spiritual practice: 

"Running offers us the message of transcendence. In our running, every day we are aiming at a new goal... every day we are running towards a goal, but when we reach that goal, we want to go still farther. Either we want to improve our timing or increase our distance. There is no end. Running means continual transcendence, and that is also the message of our inner life."

“These long distance races remind me of our Eternity’s race. Along Eternity’s Shore we are running, running, running. We are running and running with our birthless and deathless hopes. We are running and running with the ever-transcending Beyond"

“Run and become.

Become and run.

Run to succeed in the outer world.

Become to proceed in the inner world.”

(As mentioned here before, Carlos Santana was associated with Sri Chinmoy for a while, hence his Marathon album).

You don't have to worry about being preached at on these runs though - the message is there if you want it, but the organisers are focused on putting on a good race.

As for me, I'm not sure I quite transcended my self, but judging by this picture I was fairly flying at the finish line and did get a big PB - 41:06.

All over Battersea, some hope and some despair - Assembly League Race 3

The third of this season's Assembly League races was held in London's Battersea Park last Thursday (4th June 2015), hosted by Serpentine Running Club. 318 runners from 13 clubs took part on one of the hottest days of the year so far - with heat, pollen and London air quality there were plenty of dry throats and coughs by the end.

Johh Franklin (Serpentine) was first in 15:24, followed by Chris Greenwood (Kent AC - 15:29) and Richard Kowenicki (London Stock Exchange - 15:30). Amy Clements (Kent AC) was the women's winner in 17:07- making it three out of three for her this season - with Martha Lloyd second (Victoria Park Harriers, 17:47)  and Clare Elms (Dulwich Runners, 17:58) in third place. In the club placings, Serpentine came first in both  men's A-team and B-team, while Kent AC  cleaned up in women's A-team and B-team. A-team scores are based on positions of each club's first four finishers (so Serpentine runners finished in 1st, 4th, 6th and 10th place = 21 points) with the club with lowest points winning. B-team is the same, but for the next four finishers from each club. Final results are now available here  (see also the Assembly League facebook group).

With three races still to go - Greenwich peninsula, Victoria Park, Beckenham - Lewisham's Kent AC are still ahead in all team competitions but by no means secure. Plenty still to run for.

Runners gather at the bandstand last week

The 5k course started at the bandstand in the centre of the park, before heading on a circuit and half of the park. There aren't many parks in this country where a run takes you past a Buddhist peace pagoda, but of course Battersea has one, built by monks, nuns and followers of the Japanese Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order as part of the 1984 Greater London Council (GLC) Peace Year - shortly before the GLC was abolished and the park handed over to be run by Wandsworth Council. In fact I saw The Pogues play in the park in July 1985 in one of the great farewell free festivals organised in the last days of the GLC.

Battersea Park was opened next to the River Thames in 1858 and has a long sporting pedigree. The first football match played under Football Association rules took place there in January 1864. The park was regularly used by London Olympiades Athletics Club, one of the first women's athletics clubs in Britain (founded in 1921). In fact the first women's mile race in the UK was organised by Olympiades in Battersea Park in 1932 (source), in a period when many athletics officials thought women weren't capable of running such long distances!

Margery Bennett throws the discus in a London Olympiades meeting in Battersea Park, August 1939, with a barrage balloon in the background (Leeds Mercury 15 August 1939)

The women pictured below were taking part in a May 1931 trial in the park to select athletes to run in Florence later that year.

View image | gettyimages.com

Today the park hosts the Battersea Park Millennium Arena, with its eight lane running track, as well as other sporting facilities.

(the title of this post - 'All over Battersea, some hope and some despair' is a line from Morrissey's 1992 song, 'You're the One for Me Fatty', the video for which was filmed in the park).

Obligatory picture of some of the Kent AC runners in Battersea Park last week

See previously:

Assembly League in Victoria Park, May 2015
Staying Out for the Summer - Start of 2015 Assembly League in Beckenham, April 2015
The Assembly League 2014 finale in Beckenham (includes history of League)