Serpentine Last Friday of the Month 5k, Hyde Park (Fri. 23rd Feb.)
Jonathan Sargent made his debut for the club on the roads, having only previously run cross country, at the lunch time 5k in Hyde Park. He finished 33rd in 17:47.
RunThrough 10k/5k, Battersea Park (Sat. 24th Feb.)
Fresh from warm weather training in Lanzarote Holly Dixon finished 8th overall and first women in the RunThrough Battersea Park 5k in a time of 16:21. Emer Tynan (U17W) finished 33rd overall and 11th women in 18:42. Hayley Newman also ran, but does not appear in the results, she recorded her time at 19:50. Lucy Forman contested the 10k, finishing 60th overall and 7th women in 37:38.
England Masters AA Indoors Inter-Area Challenge, Lee Valley (Sun. 25th Feb.)
A handful of the clubs older athletes represented either Veterans AC or Southern Counties Veterans AC at the EMAA Indoor Inter-Area Challenge. Chris Loudon produced an outstanding run over 800 metres, to take the win in the M35-49 age group, clocking sub-2 for the first time indoors with 1:59.69s, not far off his life time best outdoors.
Tim Carter won the M70 long jump by one centimetre with a best on the day of 3.75m. He also contested the 60 metres clocking 9.24s (2nd). Mark Ashby (M60) took second in the 60+ 2000m race walk. He was credited with a time of 13:11.18s. This was challenged! Inquiry with the photo finish team reveal that Mark's time was 12:04.69s.
There were seasons bests for Matthew Preston (M50) over 800m (2:20.40s) and Natalie Mann (W35) in the shot with a throw of 8.16m.
Brighton Half-Marathon (Sun. 25th Feb.)
Matt Lisley was the only club member to travel to the Sussex coast for the Brighton Half. he finished 470th in a field of over 8000 runners with a time of 1:31:36.
The National Cross Country Championships that weren’t!
A group of us set off Friday morning to find that the National Cross Country Championships at Weston Park, Staffordshire had been cancelled before we had even reached the Dartford Tunnel, writes Chris Bond. We realised it wasn’t a joke when we all got `ping’ notices on our phones. The cancellation had been due to flooding which we thought would make an excellent cross-country course, having done Tough Mudder's & The Grim 8 but it was more a question of the parking in this remote place. Rather than turn the car around, decided to continue bringing clubs Bexley & Cambridge together having heard the Shrewsbury Parkrun was a nice course.
We did witness many fields under water as we travelled closed to Telford. On Saturday morning the Lawrence family were planning on the Telford Park run but that was cancelled not long before the race was due to start due to ice, luckily, and with Peter’s skilful driving within the speed limit, they made it to join us for the Shrewsbury Parkrun, complete with our club mascot Skye, who seemed confused but delighted to see us all there. Despite different terrain trainers Amelia Lawrence, Christine Bond, Marian Hine, Hilary Lawrence, Maria Macdonald, and from Bexley, Beata Kubala-Todd, Geraldine Legon & Sarah Dobbs completed the course to be rewarded with a full English breakfast back at the hotel!
