It was a busy weekend for the club across many disciplines.
Race Walking
Hannah Hopper travelled to St. Anne's Park, Dublin for a World Athletics Race Walking Tour - Bronze Level event, held in ideal conditions. Hannah walked a superbly paced race to finish third overall and first junior woman in a new personal best for the 10km race walk of 52:42 knocking 1 minute 22 seconds from her previous best, recorded in Leeds at the end of October.
Cross Country
The South of the Thames 7.5 mile championship race was first held in 1888 and other than the fact that it is now open to women as well as men little has changed: no chip timing here! This year's edition was held in Beckenham Place Park and was enjoyed by seven of us (six men and one woman) in a field of 273, our entries being somewhat depleted by Covid isolations among other things. Dave Worden was first home for the club in 33rd, up from 108th three years ago! Team scoring for men is for teams of six in this one, and six is all we had so we all counted: 11th place, you have to go back 10 years to find the last time that we did better. You have to go back to 1982 for the last time that we won it, Keith Penny in 4th was our first finisher that day, his son Mark was 4th home for the club on this occasion. Monica Whitefield was our sole female runner in 71st. If you are sad that you missed out you may like to know that it has recently been announced that this excellent venue will host the South of England championships in January.
Dave Worden
Luke Ford
Christian Poulton
Mark Penny
Graham Maynard
Monica Whitefield
Sutcliffe parkrun
Earlier on the same Saturday as the cross country many of the club's runners decided to target the Sutcliffe parkrun, 26 in all, including all of the top 4 and 7 of the top 10, many running PBs. Chris Loudon was the winner in 16:27 just having the strength to hold off Holly Dixon by 1 second, Jordan Leblanc and Peter Reynolds completed the top 4 and Megan Marchant in 10th overall was the second female.
Chris, Holly, Jordan and Peter, in the order in which they were to finish
Sutcliffe Indoor 60’s Round 2
Another good turnout for the second in the Sutcliffe indoor 60’s meeting with 22 club members competing. Dante Legister started his indoor campaign well with a 6.94 clocking in his first round and then 6.92 in the second, a time which puts him second on the UK National rankings. Divine Akinlolu PB'd at 7.33 with Shaquille Fernandez Folkes just behind him on 7.39 and the club now has five athletes running 7.4 or quicker this winter. On the girl’s side Doyin Aderinto set a great PB of 7.77 to finish fourth quickest on the day whilst Nuriah Orhurhu ran 7.97 and remains second on the UK rankings. Another Under 15 to impress was Emily Cadman with a 8.12 time in her first round heat and she now ranks in the UK top 10 despite being only her first year in the age group. Overall the club now has twelve women running 8.6 or quicker this winter.
Dante Legister (white head band) runs 6.92 to go second in the UK under 17 rankings
Santa Run
And finally... Earlier in the week many of the Club's runners joined Plumstead Runners and members of other local clubs for the traditional pre-Christmas Santa run. Here they are taking a taxi to the start: