Easter weekend racing

Andrew Aitken, from Striders of Croydon, ran very well to place 13th out of 765 finishers, and second in the M40 age-group, in the Maidenhead 10-mile road race on Good Friday. His time of 56 minutes 26 seconds was his fastest for this distance since 2008 (before he joined Striders) and lifts him to ninth place in Striders’ all-time club rankings.

Later that day, James Rhodes ran very well to set a new personal best of 16 minutes 21.09 seconds in his heat of the Comeback 5000 metre races at Battersea Park. This was almost 15 seconds faster than his previous best, set at Bromley last May. He placed 12th in the race.

Striders had six finishers in last week’s Brighton Marathon. They were led by Alastair Falconer who ran a personal best of 2 hours 49 minutes 11, which lifts him to 15th place in Striders’ all-time club rankings. He was followed by Graeme Drysdale (3:01:15), Michael Sawh (3:24:05), James Gooding (3:57:07), Ellyw Evans (4:00:26) and Matthew Byrne (4:14:04).

On Saturday, Kerim Suruliz placed second in the Perrigo parkrun in Redmond, Washington, USA (which is best known as the home of Microsoft). He recorded 19 minutes 56. Consuelo Kennefick was the second woman to finish the Riddlesdown parkrun, placing 15th overall (21:28). Niamh Vincent was the third woman to finish the Ardgillan parkrun, placing 18th overall (23:23). Striders’ fastest time of the day was recorded by Justin Macenhill who ran 18 minutes 41 in the Dulwich parkrun, placing 23rd out of 320 finishers. Striders had a total of 105 finishers in the various weekly parkruns.