Bill Makuwa leads Striders in East Surrey League at Lloyd Park

Striders of Croydon fielded 26 runners in the East Surrey League cross-country races at Lloyd Park on Saturday. Both their men and women placed third out of the nine clubs in the match. Striders’ men were led by Bill Makuwa who ran well to place sixth of the 105 finishers, covering the five-mile course in 29 minutes 45 seconds. Rob Lines was 13th (30.53) with Lee Flanagan 15th (31.12) and Matt Stone completing the scoring team in 19th (32.01). The B team placed eighth overall, with Krzysztof Klidzia 26th (32.42), Andy Perks 37th (33.32), Simon Pannell 41st (33.52) and Darren Woods 43rd (34.15). Julian Spencer-Wood ran well to win the over-60 category, placing 60th overall (35.53).

Striders’ women were led by Steph Upton who was the 12th woman to finish (38.14). Selena Wong was 15th (40.29), Nikki Javan 16th (41.27) and Jessica Polya 19th (42.16).

In the young athletes’ race, Christopher Finch ran well to place eighth in the under-13 boys’ category, covering the two-mile course in 13 minutes 16 seconds. His younger brother Daniel ran 15 minutes 25, finishing just behind sister Lucy who was 19th in the under-13 girls’ race (15.19).

Earlier in the day, Striders had a total of 56 runners in the various weekly parkruns (24 at Lloyd Park and 32 at other venues), with their best performance coming from Tatsuya Okamoto who was first at Riddlesdown in 17 minutes 36.