Southern Veterans League

Striders of Croydon produced some good performances in their first Southern Veterans League match of the season, at Kingsmeadow on Monday. Sam O’Dongo won the M50 100 metres in a new club age-group record of 12.98 seconds, and also won the M50 400 metres (63.81). Steve Corfield won both the M60 400 metres (62.42) and the M60 mile (5:24.17). Lorraine Hunte was second in the W60 100 metres (17.81). Natalie Ballarin was third in both the W50 hammer (20.07) and the W50 discus (14.99), both of these being new club age-group records. Vanessa Wheeler was third in the W60 mile (8:25.56), while Sandra Francis was fourth in the W60 discus (9.42) and Sarah Allport was fifth in the W50 mile (9:44.63). Both Striders’ men and women placed seventh out of the nine clubs in the match.

On Wednesday, James Rhodes ran well to place fourth out of 455 finishers in the RunThrough 10K at Hyde Park (34:47). Club colleague Darren Woods was 50th (43:27).

On Saturday, James Rhodes was first out of 106 finishers in the Bethlem Royal Hospital parkrun (17:53). Rachel Lindley was the first woman to finish the Vermuyden Way parkrun at Belton in Lincolnshire, placing tenth overall out of 158 finishers (20:39). Leonie Hondeborg was the first woman to finish the Zuiderpark parkrun at Hoogeveen in the Netherlands, placing ninth overall (23:52). Striders had a total of 130 finishers in the various weekly parkruns. Zoe Siu was the first female finisher in the Wilsons junior parkrun in Wallington (8:33).

Vicki Ledgard completed the Newport Marathon in 3:32:33, lifting her to 23rd place in Striders’ all-time women’s rankings. Nathan Davies was 14th out of 178 finishers in the Kent Spring Marathon, starting and finishing at Kennington Lees (3:26:40).