Paddock Wood Half Marathon

Striders produced some very good performances in the Paddock Wood Half-Marathon on Sunday. They were led by Andrew Aitken who ran well to place 78th out of 1697 finishers, recording 77 minutes 06. Martin Filer also ran well to place 102nd in a new club over-45 record of 78 minutes 38. Conor O’Hara-Barrett was 137th (80:46) and Graeme Drysdale 152nd (81:58). Steve Corfield ran very well to place 230th in a new club over-60 record of 86 minutes 13. Liam Redmond was 249th (87:22).

Striders’ first female finisher was Niamh Vincent, who ran well to record a personal best of 90 minutes 38, placing 333rd overall. She was followed by Steve Massey (90:50), Peter Johnson (91:17), Ally Whitlock (95:36), Darren Woods (99:50), Michael Joseph (1:54:09), Selena Wong (1:56:45) and Louise Grech (2:00:30).

On the previous day, Niamh Vincent had run well to be the first woman to finish the South Norwood parkrun. She finished fourth overall out of 136 runners, completing the muddy five-kilometre course in 21 minutes 05, only one second behind her husband Tom Vincent. Lee Flanagan was second in the Lloyd parkrun (19:45) with Simon Ambrosi fourth (20:33). Consuelo Kennefick was the second woman to finish, placing 32nd overall (24:39), while Debra Bourne was the third woman to finish, placing 46th overall (26:55). Striders’ fastest time of the day came from Erik Schrijnemaekers, who was fifth in the Brockwell parkrun (18:35). Striders had a total of 83 finishers in the various weekly parkruns (including 38 at Lloyd Park, where Michelle Klein was celebrating her 250th parkrun).