Results round-up - April

With thanks to David Chalfen for writing this up, here's just some of the highlights from the few weeks. Well done to everyone involved.

Nicolas Besson won the Last Friday of the Month March edition with a PB of 15.24, setting the scene for his superb long leg at the National 12 stage, so look out for some fancy track times once the nasty 42k business is done.

He was surpassed by Nick Torry with a 15.02 win at Dulwich parkrun on 30 March, with younger Hugh coming home in 16.33, while just up the road at Burgess park we had James Gillanders 16.51; Tim Powell 16.57 and Jonathan Moscrop 17.06 all having fine runs. Further afield Vic Crawford’s 19.20 at lac de Divonne parkrun was one of the quicker Serpie women 5k results recently.

At the Manchester Marathon there were great PBs at the front of the Serpie runners, Milan Misak notching up 2.39.02 and v40 James Gillanders peaking to fine effect with 2.41.52. Meanwhile at Boston Caitie Meyer ran 2:53:32, the fastest female time so far in 2019.

The Paddock Wood exploits of Nick Torry have been flagged up elsewhere – those who saw him almost 6 years ago at the Commonwealth Games wouldn’t have bet he’d be doing this in his 43^rd year, interrupted sleep and all.

The two teams for the National 6 stage relays, both shorn of several of the faster runners, pulled together very well and placed 24^th(women) and 28^th (men). M Besson aside, the standout legs were by the Tash Sheel/Glenn Hughes pairing. Meanwhile Tony Payne placed 4^th in 25.49 at the Victoria Park 5 miles – bizarrely only 3^rd Kiwi. More recently, Andy Greenleaf and Jonathan Poole ran 14:54:80 and 14:51:62 at the SAL fixture of the year in Perivale.

Elsewhere, the relative lack of racing results at the sharpest end is probably linked to the startling long runs and marathon-specific sessions that most of the red-and-yellow clad whippets are currently bashing out.

Many Serpies are now entering London marathon taper, a strange phase where they divide their time between angsty and frequent checks of long range weather forecasts and measuring out glasses of beetroot juice.

David Chalfen

Tom Poynton

running@serpentine.org.uk

Submitted: 18 April 2019

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