South of the Thames XC

Striders of Croydon faced strong opposition in the South of the Thames Cross-Country Association’s annual five-mile race, held at Lloyd Park on Saturday. They had an impressive total of 26 finishers, led by Tatsuya Okamoto, who ran well to place 45th. Andrew Aitken was 57th, Lee Flanagan 60th and Matthew Stone completed the men’s A team in 63rd. For the B team, Conor O’Hara-Barrett placed 84th with Erik Schrijnemaekers 89th, Liam Redmond 94th and Steve Corfield 98th. Striders’ first woman to finish was Consuelo Kennefick, who was followed by Jennifer Gutteridge, Ally Whitlock and Nikki Javan. Cindy Siu led the women’s B team and was followed by Amanda Hewett, Yasmin Anderson, Jadwiga Brzask-Makiela and Elsa Santana. Striders’ other finishers were Kerim Suruliz, Tom Gillespie, Andy Perks, Graeme Drysdale, Jon Dean, John Summers, Simon Webster, Luke Burden and James Harrison.

On the same day, James Rhodes won the New York City Turkey Trot five-kilometre race, recording 17 minutes 19 seconds. Marc Burrows was first out of 70 finishers in the Bethlem Royal Hospital parkrun (20:15). Rachel Lindley was the first woman to finish the Lloyd parkrun, placing seventh overall (21:23), while Kara Boaks was the first woman to finish the South Norwood parkrun, placing 12th overall (21:36). Striders had 75 finishers in the various weekly parkruns.

On Thursday, James Rhodes again ran well to place seventh out of more than 2000 runners in the Prospect Park Turkey Trot five-mile race (27:47). On Friday, Graeme Drysdale was 39th in the Serpentine 5K in Hyde Park (18:58).

On Sunday, John McGilvray won the M75 category in the Los Montesinos 5K in Spain, setting a club age-group record of 25 minutes 07. Erik Schrijnemaekers was 42nd in the RunThrough London Half-Marathon in 85 minutes 51.