Surrey Cross-Country Championships

Striders of Croydon faced strong opposition in the Surrey Cross-Country Championships, at Lloyd Park on Saturday. Their best placing came from Kara Boaks who was 60th out of the 104 finishers in the senior women’s race, completing the undulating eight-kilometre course in 36 minutes 56. Ellyw Evans was 67th (38:25), Cindy Siu 75th (39:46) and Selena Wong completed the scoring quartet in 84th (41:51). Leonie Hondeborg was 88th (42:44), Debra Bourne 89th (43:02), Rachel Gwynn 92nd (43:53), Linda Jones 96th (46:47), Ruth Pearson 97th (46:48), Jadwiga Brzask-Makiela 99th (50:44) and Hannah Luffman 100th (51:19).

Striders’ men were led by Tatsuya Okamoto who placed 79th out of the 197 finishers, completing the twelve-kilometre course in 46 minutes 29. Conor O’Hara-Barrett was 87th (47:16), Chris Bourchier 130th (50:58), Andy Perks 134th (51:18), Liam Redmond 135th (51:27), Stephen Harris 143rd (52:19), Erik Schrijnemaekers 155th (53:54), Darren Jackson 176th (57:48) and James Harrison 197th (75:49).

In the Tadworth 10-mile race on Sunday, Darren Woods placed 61st (79:07). He was followed by Nathan Davies (81:06), Phillip Gardner (83:13), Robert Zietz (83:28), Steve Massey (86:14), Alex Legge (95:07) and Yasmin Anderson (1:50:19).

On New Year’s Day, Striders had a total of 100 finishers in the various parkruns. In very windy conditions, Kara Boaks was the first woman to finish the South Norwood parkrun, placing 18th overall (21:42). At Riddlesdown on Saturday, Nigel Finch became the tenth member of Striders to complete 500 parkruns. Erik Schrijnemaekers warmed up for the afternoon’s cross-country by placing first out of 96 finishers in the Bethlem Royal Hospital parkrun (19:52), while Nathan Robertshaw was first out of 199 finishers in the Lloyd parkrun (19:54). On Sunday, Zoe Siu was the first female finisher in the Lloyd junior parkrun, placing fifth overall (9:41).