Alastair Falconer third at Croydon Half Marathon

Alastair Falconer, from Striders of Croydon, ran very well to finish third in the eighth annual Croydon Half-Marathon, held at Sandilands on Sunday. He completed the undulating course in 78 minutes 41 seconds, less than a minute behind the winner, Kieran Hayles of Sudbury. Striders’ second man home was Andrew Aitken who ran well to place seventh (82:52), while Tom Lawson was 11th (84:48). Andy Perks was first in the over-45 category, placing 17th overall (87:07), while Matthew Stone was first in the over-55 category, placing 19th overall (88:33). Niamh Vincent ran very well to be the second woman to finish, placing 55th overall in 1 hour 40 minutes 38 seconds. Marta Kiermacz-Abramek was 105th (1:51:25), while Linda Daniel was 133rd in a club over-55 record of 1 hour 56 minutes 40.

In the Manchester Marathon on the same day, Jay Lidbetter ran well to place 142nd in a personal best 2 hours 50 minutes 28 seconds. There were also personal bests for Darren Woods (3:15:13), Michael Smaldon (3:31:48) and James Burree (3:32:03). Striders’ first woman was Joanne Collins who ran 4 hours 22 minutes 39. In the Paris Marathon, Simone Luciani finished 426th in 2 hours 52 minutes 15 seconds. Hannah Luffman ran 4:32:04 and Gemma Halliday ran 4:36:42. In the Paddock Wood Half-Marathon, Peter Mills finished 17th in a personal best 72 minutes 05 seconds.

On Saturday, Tatsuya Okamoto placed 15th out of 254 finishers in the South Downs Way 50-mile race, recording 7 hours 42 minutes 09 seconds. Striders also had a total of 73 finishers in the various weekly parkruns (25 at Lloyd Park and 48 at other venues).