South Downs Way 50

Consuelo Kennefick, from Striders of Croydon, ran very well in the South Downs Way 50-mile race, from Worthing to Eastbourne on Saturday. She was the 15th woman to finish, placing third in the W50 age-group. Her time of 9 hours 13 minutes 45 placed her fourth in Striders’ all-time women’s rankings, and was a new club W50 record, breaking the previous record set by Debra Bourne in 2019. Club colleague Gemma Halliday was the 50th woman to finish, recording 11 hours 10 minutes 39.

Andrew Aitken ran well to place 13th out of 100 finishers in the Veterans AC five-kilometre road race at Battersea on Tuesday evening. He set a new Striders M45 record of 16 minutes 58.

On Saturday morning, Rachel Lindley was the first woman to finish the Franschhoek parkrun in South Africa, placing third overall (21:02). Ellyw Evans was the first woman to finish the South Norwood parkrun, placing 18th overall (22:08). Martin Filer was second in the Riddlesdown parkrun (18:58), while Graeme Drysdale was third in the Bethlem Royal Hoapital parkrun (21:08). There were fourth places for Tatsuya Okamoto in the Eden Project parkrun (17:17) and Steve Corfield in the Lloyd parkrun (19:56). Selena Wong was the fourth woman to finish the Amager Faelled parkrun in Denmark, placing 25th overall (25:07). Striders had a total of 117 finishers in the various weekly parkruns, including 47 at Lloyd Park where Paul Cripps became the fourth member of Striders to complete 500 parkruns.

Troy Russell ran well to place 26th out of more than 1500 finishers in the Kew Gardens 10K, recording 38 minutes 15. Jacqui Smith completed the Brighton 10K in 65 minutes 42, placing 28th in the W60 age-group.