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 men placed 21st out of 42 clubs in the team event. They were led by James Rhodes who ran well to place 188th out of 633 finishers, completing the 15-kilometre course in 54 minutes 38. Tatsuya Okamoto was 200th (55:01), Phil Coales 263rd (57:30), Conor O’Hara-Barrett 284th (58:11), Lee Flanagan 316th (59:10) and Chris Bourchier completed the scoring team in 375th (61:21). Andy Perks was 396th (62:21), Steve Harris 421st (63:32), Graeme Drysdale 476th (66:11) and Robert Zietz 554th (71:31).

Striders’ women were led by Selena Wong who placed 241st of the 312 finishers, completing the eight-kilometre course in 42 minutes 30. Debra Bourne was 249th (42:46) and Linda Jones 282nd (46:51).

Earlier in the day, Striders had 110 finishers in the various weekly parkruns. Nathan Robertshaw was first out of 167 finishers in the Lloyd parkrun (20:04), with Steve Corfield third (20:42). Niamh Vincent was the first woman to finish the South Norwood parkrun, placing fifth overall out of 173 finishers (22:03). Kara Boaks was the first woman to finish the Whitstable parkrun, placing tenth overall out of 402 finishers (21:36). Consuelo Kennefick was the second woman to finish the Riddlesdown parkrun, placing 14th overall (25:14). Cindy Siu was the second female finisher in the Bethlem Royal Hospital parkrun, placing 18th overall (25:43), while her daughter Zoe Siu was the third female finisher, placing 20th overall (26:18).

In the RunThrough Half-Marathon at Crystal Palace on Sunday, Steve Massey placed third in the M55 age-group and 53rd overall (1:43:09). He was followed by Josef Freedman (1:56:01), Maili Singh (1:59:25), Yasmin Anderson (2:08:06), James Harrison (2:10:48) and Jack Woods (2:37:15).