Weekly round-up of Serpentine performances
Serpies made good use of the festive break, judging by the number of great performances and PBs. Round-up #1 of 2018 includes highlights from the County XC champs, the club handicap, medals for our juniors and much more.
County cross country championships
Last weekend saw a raft of county-level champs. Serpie highlights include John Franklin finishing 7th at the highly competitive Yorkshire champs in North Stainley. This result should see him selected for the inter counties team of 9.
The Surrey champs in Guildford, saw no fewer than three Serpettes finish in the top 15: Sam Ludlow Taylor was 10th, Izzy Clarke 11th and Tash Sheel 14th. Well done ladies!
Dave Morgan finished 14th in a strong field at the Kent champs, with Nathan Wilkins coming 24th.
At the Middlesex champs, Jonah Kramer stole the show with 3rd place in the U15 race. Congrats Jonah! Meanwhile, the senior Serpie teams were led home by Martin O'Connell in 15th and by Alex Baird in 18th in the women's race, with Lavinia Singer running strongly in 21st.
Serpentine club handicap
There was a good turnout of almost 90 runners to the first handicap of the year, on a beautiful and calm but very cold day. Congratulations to Lisa Rickwood, Helen Forsey and Kim Boursnell for their 1st, 2nd and 3rd places respectively, all with convincing PBs. A further seven people achieved PBs - well done.
The Stratford Cup for best age-graded performances over 6 races in 2017 was presented to Andrew Roberts - congratulations on the hat trick! We will see if anyone can rise to the challenge of beating him in 2018.
Special mention goes to Sarah Newton, returning to the handicap after 20 years (last race June 1998), achieving almost identical age grading and still being in possession of her race number!
See you all at the next race on Saturday, 3rd February, whether you're running or volunteering.
Indoor Track & Field
Congratulations to Awa Ndiaye who won gold in the under 17 women's 60m final at the SEAA Indoor Track and Field Championships last Saturday in a PB of 7.72. Jada Emoike also took part and ran a PB of 7.95 in the semi-final. These results place Awa and Jada first and second on the Serpentine 60m indoor rankings.
Speaking of which: Jennifer Eduwu (FU15) and Ricardo Sutherland (MU13) both ran PBs of 7.97 and 7.67 respectively over 60m at the SLAN Open Indoor Meeting the same day. These performances place Jennifer third and Ricardo second on the club indoor rankings.
10 is the magic number
Congrats to Alex Baird who took victory at the Tadworth 10 mile race in 1:09:26, just one day after representing the club at the Middlesex cross country champs (see above). Special mention to Susan Edwards who was third in her age category (W60).
Johnny Boylan (second claim) finished the RunThrough Battersea Park 10k in 6th place with a (PB?) time of 36:43. Notable mentions also to Will Thompson, 14th in 38:52, and Phil Bradburn who achieved a PB of 47:02.
Branwen Jones ran a 1-minute PB of 48:37 at the RunThrough Brixton 10k, a day after achieving a solid PB at the club handicap. (Photo credit: Frances Ngu)
Sophie Flanagan managed to break the 44-minute barrier for the first time at the fast and flat Telford 10k, with a 43-second PB of 43:28.
Parkrun
Helen Gray put in a strong performance with 18:38 at Barry Curtis parkrun, finishing 1st woman and 2nd overall. Benn Thomas was fastest parkrunning Serpie with 17:37 at Fletcher's Cove, bagging himself a 2nd place. Ben Greene took victory in Thurrock in 19:38. Alistair Watson was 8th in 18:43 in Tooting Bec, while Tatiana McIntosh was 5th female at the same event in 22:20. Will Salt finished 5th in Seaton in 19:22. Victoria Basquill was 1st female and 10th overall in Greenwich in 20:27. Darren Till came 8th at Valentines parkrun in 20:57, Kemuel Solomon was 8th in Wycombe Rye in 20:16 and Steven Kjar 6th in Hockley Woods in 20:32. Gideon Reid (21:01) and David Cull (22:36) were 2nd and 5th respectively in Wormwood Scrubs.
For other great Serpie performances, please check the full consolidated Serpentine results. Can't see your result? Updating your parkrun profile with Serpentine RC as your club should do the trick.
What we missed...
... while the weekly round-up was on holiday: Izzy Clarke's impressive double-parkrun win on New Year's Day, finishing first lady at Crane Park and Bushy Park in 18:01 and 18:07 respectively and Marta Bagnati's PB of 36:48 at the San Silvestre Vallecana 10k in Madrid on New Year's Eve. Go ladies!
And last not least, the December Harbour Club Last Friday 5k on 29th December saw a new British V85 Men's record: Richard Pitcairn-Knowles of Sevenoaks AC, race number 85 (what a thoughtful gesture by Malcolm French!), finished the race in an impressive PB of 31:43. If that isn't inspiration enough, numerous Serpies ran SBs, e.g. Rick Weston (2nd in 16:00) and Victor Lio (24th in 17:55), or PBs (excl. parkrun), e.g. Pedro Werneck (19:36) and Nicola Kaye (22:24).
With a little help from my friends
The race calendar is ramping up, making it difficult to keep on top of Serpie results in a club as big as ours. If you or a fellow Serpie had a good race, why not share it with the rest of the club and inspire others (as well as bask in the post-race glow and glory)? Simply drop me an email with a few words about the event and, if you have them, photos or videos (please ask for permission if someone else took the photo or video; we will not tag anyone). I will do my best to feature performances received by end of Monday in the weekly round-up that I usually publish on Tuesdays.
Have a great week,
Eda Korkmaz, Club Comms
communications@serpentine.org.uk
Submitted: 9 January 2018