Alastair Falconer first strider at Richmond Half-Marathon

Striders of Croydon produced some good performances in Sunday’s Richmond Half-Marathon, which incorporated the Surrey Championships and was the first event in this year’s Surrey Road League. They were led by Alastair Falconer who ran very well to place 15th of the 517 finishers in a personal best 78 minutes 15 seconds. Club colleague Andrew Aitken also ran well to place 19th overall and fifth in the over-40 category (79:35), while Tom Lawson completed the scoring trio in 37th (83:18). Lyes Fridi was 127th (92:57) and Joseph Ibe 173rd (97:37). Striders’ women were led by Niamh Vincent who ran well to place 187th overall in a personal best 99 minutes 08. Nikki Javan was 245th (1.44:23) with Yasmin Anderson 418th (2.00:47), Lucy Kulp 423rd (2.01:18) and Hannah Luffman 441st (2.06:18).

On the previous day Striders had an impressive total of 76 finishers in the various weekly parkruns (28 at Lloyd Park and 48 at other venues). There were first places for Alastair Falconer at Riddlesdown (17:07) and Lee Flanagan at Lloyd Park (18:12), while Debra Bourne was the first woman to finish at Lloyd Park (23:28) and Andrea Jeffries was the first woman to finish at South Norwood (25:33).