Weekly Serpie round-up
Serpies once again flourished in the rain, wind and mud and bagged a few top spots along the way. And those who like it hot (warm) ventured to the UAE or Catalonia. Read on for the week's news.
Met League Cross Country
The season's fifth and last Met League match took place in Trent Park in proper old school cross country conditions - loads of mud and plenty of hills.
Serpettes absolutely smashed the final race and won the match (div 1 and 2), with Izzy Clark 2nd, Marta Bagnati 4th, Tash Sheel 5th and Sarah Pemberton 9th. Serpie men were led home by Dave Morgan in 19th and John Franklin in 23rd, with the Vets winning the last match and the league. Both senior women and men finished the season in 2nd spot and also took silver in the combined Howard cup.
Jonah Kramer (U15) came 4th in the U17 boys race, to finish - we think - 2nd in the overall U15 individual standings. The Nationals and a couple of big schools events are coming up so there's more to come here.
For those who haven't quited sated their appetite for cross country, check the event calendar - a handful of races remain.
(Photo credit: Jamie Giles)
Arc of Attrition 100M
The Arc of Attrition is an extreme winter 100 mile footrace along the Cornish Coast Past from Coverack to Porthtowan, completing an arc around the entire southwest foot of Cornwall.
Before the race, all the runners were busy checking the changeable weather forecasts expecting the worst. It had been a wet week before the race, and that left much of the coast path in a pretty muddy state. The terrible monsoon weather didn’t materialise and we had only a little rain, hail and wind. You know that it is a tough race when only 2 runners finish a 100 miler under 24 hours, and 26 runners came in below 30 hours. Our very own Serpie Maryann Devally won the women's race in 32:26:32, almost an hour and a half ahead of the 2nd woman and 32nd overall. With a DNF rate of around 70% this is a seriously brutal race. Congratulations on defending your title Maryann!
RAK & Barcelona Half Marathons
Kevin Murray took bronze in the Veteran category at the RAK Half Marathon, despite a "pedestrian" (his words, not mine) time of 1:25:52. That is 81.5% in age-graded terms and the second fastest time ever in the Serpie V55 rankings. Not bad for an "old git"!
Jeremy Agnew ran the Barcelona Half Marathon in a PB of 1:17:57, which places him just outside the all-time top 20 of the Serpie V40 rankings.
Bramley 20/10
The Bramley 20/10 (miles) is a popular fixture for anyone training for a spring marathon and has seen multiple Serpie team successes over the years. This year's Serpie contingent for the 20 miler were led home by James O'Shea in 1:54:40 (2nd), Richard Giles in 2:07:04 (15th) and Matthew Hardcastle in 2:14:10 (50th). The three of them won the men's team prize ahead of host club Reading Roadrunners. Great work guys! The women also ran strong: Gemma Carter was 17th in 2:23:48, Alexandra Baird 23rd in 2:26:15 and Sharon Templeman 32nd in 2:29:53. In the 10M race, Jonathan Bradford came 6th in 57:00. Well done to everyone who raced in blustery conditions!
Indoor Athletics
Congrats to Jada Emoike for equalling her 60m indoor PB of 7.95 seconds at Newham on Wednesday. This is the third time Jada has run 7.95 in 2018. Awa Ndiaye ran 7.75 and then 7.83, fastest U17 on the day, and Ricardo Sutherland (U13) followed up his recent all time 3rd fastest UK 60m of 7.67 with a 7.73 and a 7.74. Congrats too to honorary Junior Hel James (FV65) for her Newham runs. Age graded 85.1% is amazing even if it was just overshadowed by Awa's 91.2%, Jada's 88.9% and Ricardo's 93.4%.
Rick Weston meanwhile bagged a new 3000m PB of 8:48:86 at the Soar open meeting.
Parkrun results for 10 February 2018 (73 runners)
5 fastest Serpies, podiums & 5 best age-graded
| Name | Event | Time | Gender # | Name | Event | Time | Gender # | Name | Event | Time | Age-graded | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Poole | Gunnersbury | 16:16 | 1 | Helen Gray | Mile End | 18:50 | 1 | Victoria Basquill | Greenwich | 19:43 | 81.32% | ||||
| Jonathan Moscrop | Dulwich | 17:42 | 7 | Victoria Basquill | Greenwich | 19:43 | 1 | Jonathan Poole | Gunnersbury | 16:16 | 81.05% | ||||
| Ben Greene | Thurrock | 18:00 | 1 | Lauren Roe | Kingsbury W. | 20:11 | 5 | Jonathan Moscrop | Dulwich | 17:42 | 79.47% | ||||
| Richard Taylor | Fulham P. | 18:20 | 11 | Zoe Birchenough | Bushy | 20:46 | 8 | Helen Gray | Mile End | 18:50 | 78.58% | ||||
| Anthony Murphy | Nonsuch | 18:25 | 5 | Anne Eden | Burgess | 21:08 | 4 | Zoe Birchenough | Bushy | 20:46 | 75.76% | ||||
| Scott Getley | Tamar Lakes | 22:03 | 3 | Tamsin Simmonds | Ally Pally | 22:17 | 1 | ||||||||
| Zoe Fiander | Orpington | 25:07 | 2 |
Milestones & PBs
4 Serpies ran PBs last Saturday.
Busiest parkruns (3+ Serpies)
Fulham Palace (7), Gunnersbury (5)
Full consolidated Serpentine results. Can't see your result? Updating your parkrun profile with Serpentine RC as your club should do the trick.
Get involved!
Would you like to see your or a fellow club member's achievement featured in the next round-up? If so, it'd be great to hear from you. Simply drop me an email by end of Monday 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).
With thanks to: Lloyd Bevan, Phil Bradburn, Peter Clarke, Jamie Giles, Alex Jeffreys
Eda Korkmaz
communications@serpentine.org.uk
Submitted: 13 February 2018