Rachel leads Striders in National Championships

Striders of Croydon faced strong opposition in the National Cross-Country Championships, at Parliament Hill Fields on Saturday. Their best performance came from Rachel Lindley who had an excellent run to place 122nd of the 865 finishers in the senior women’s race, covering the very muddy five-mile course in 36 minutes 17 seconds. Steph Upton was 406th (42.13), Alice Ewen 424th (42.44), Adele Boesinger 584th (47.05), Katie McInnes 726th (52.06) and Michelle Clarke 758th (53.37). They finished 51st out of 93 complete teams.

Striders’ men finished 85th. Simone Luciani led them home, finishing 360th and covering the twelve kilometres in 47 minutes 43 seconds. Ernie Hann, who had won the Lloyd parkrun earlier in the day, was 688th (51.27). Philip Coales was 716th (51.45), Krzysztof Klidzia 852nd (53.07), Mike Stewart 1243rd (57.32) and Chris Morton completed the scoring team in 1386th (59.17).

Meanwhile James Bennett finished eighth in the Bramley 20-mile road race, recording exactly 1 hour 54 minutes. Damian Macenhill was 73rd in the Brighton Half-Marathon, recording 80 minutes 44 seconds.