South of England Cross-Country Championships

Striders of Croydon faced strong opposition in the South of England Cross-Country Championships, at Beckenham Place Park on Saturday. Their senior women placed 30th in the team event. They were led by Jennifer Gutteridge who was 144th of the 362 finishers, completing the eight-kilometre course in 33 minutes 58. Consuelo Kennefick was 169th (34:39), Selena Wong 266th (39:21) and Linda Jones 320th (43:04).

Striders’ senior men placed 34th in their team event. Andrew Aitken placed 230th of the 720 finishers, completing the 15-kilometre course in 53 minutes 30. James Rhodes was 266th (54:27), Andy Perks 349th (57:06), Tatsuya Okamoto 357th (57:24), Luke Burden 374th (57:53), Conor O’Hara-Barrett 454th (60:47), Steve Harris 510th (63:11) and Rob Zietz 632nd (69:04).

Earlier, Striders had 102 finishers in the various weekly parkruns. Rachel Lindley was the first woman to finish the Oxford University Parks parkrun, placing 29th overall (19:14). Tom Gillespie was second in the South Norwood parkrun (19:20), while Cindy Siu was the second woman to finish the Lloyd parkrun, placing 31st overall (24:52).

On Friday, Andy Perks placed 45th out of 237 finishers in the Serpentine 5K in Hyde Park, recording a personal best 18:00. Steve Corfield placed second in the M60 age-group and 49th overall (18:12), achieving an age-grading of 88.5%.

On Sunday, in the RunThrough Half-Marathon at Crystal Palace, Kara Boaks was first in the W35 age-group (97:43), while Andy Elliott was first in the M75 age-group (2:30:08). Angela Seesurrun was first in the W55 age-group in the RunThrough 10K (55:20). Matthew Byrne  (2:01:47), James Harrison (2:27:03), Elsa Santana (2:36:14) and Kerry Kane (2:38:46) also completed the Half-Marathon. Steve Massey (46:25), John Boaks (61:48), Holly Harrison (72:52), Yasmin Anderson (74:31), Jacqui Smith (74:31) and Isabelle Kita (79:44) also completed the 10K.