Christmas Day parkruns!

Striders of Croydon had several good performances in the Christmas Day parkruns. At South Norwood, Kara Boaks ran very well to be the first woman to finish, placing tenth overall out of 94 finishers in 22 minutes 15. Striders’ men were led by James Rhodes, who placed second (18:51) with Andrew Aitken third (19:06). Ellyw Evans was the first woman to finish the Dolgellau parkrun, placing sixth overall (23:27). Martin Filer was third out of 163 finishers in the Riddlesdown parkrun (21:24), while Consuelo Kennefick was the second woman to finish, placing 27th overall (25:19). Jennifer Gutteridge was the third woman to finish the Lloyd parkrun, placing 28th overall (23:43). Striders had a total of 89 finishers in the various parkruns.

On Boxing Day Daniel Finch ran very well to place first out of 23 finishers in the Lloyd junior parkrun, completing the two-kilometre course in 8 minutes 39. His younger brother Thomas Finch was third (9:12).

James Rhodes had another good run to place 51st in a high-quality field in the South of the Thames Cross-Country Championship at Beckenham. This was the best placing by a male Strider in this event since Peter Mills placed 18th in 2016. James finished very strongly to complete the undulating 12-kilometre course in 46 minutes 19 seconds, four seconds ahead of the leading woman, Amelia Pettitt of Kent. Joseph Ibe was 102nd (51:18), Tom Gillespie 114th (52:11), Robert Zietz 149th (56:09) and Jon Dean 156th (57:26). In the women’s race, Cindy Siu was 52nd (61:45) and Debra Bourne 63rd (64:31).