Tom snatches second in Brighton Half

The sun came out for the Brighton half on Sunday and shone on London Heathside’s runners. In particular Tom Aldred, who reeled in a 60 second deficit over the last three miles to take second place with 400m to go, finishing in 1:08:25. 
 

Kev Gadd came home 35th in 1.18:50, though without the pantomime horse costume he’ll be wearing in London. Claire Thornhill ran strongly to claim a time of 1:40:45, 114th of 3215 female finishers.

The senior men's race was won by Paul Martelletti of Victoria Park Harriers, a minute or so ahead of Tom. Well done also to the Brighton Half organisers for not making everyone run extra this year.

Elsewhere six  Heathsiders travelled to Bramley on Sunday to run in the Bramley 10m and 20m races, mostly as an early tester for the marathon season. This year the conditions were ideal - no wind and not too cold - but there were no PBs from our lot (and Gavin managed a PW despite having wimped out of the previous day’s cross-country).

The performance of the day came from Sarah Swinhoe who was the third woman and first v40 despite having the Saturday cross-country (plus a few extra miles) in her legs. The first Heathside man in the 20-mile event was Julian Ferraro, who, although disappointed with his time, was the second V45 home. Barbara Tomaszyk was the first of our women in the 10-mile event and took second place in the V50 category.

There were other results around, this from Jacob: "One result which might slip through the net.  Official results not up yet, but Ryan McCrickerd came 19th in 4hrs 15 in this cross London Ultra, despite a wrong turn or two (55k, he says)."

The race is listed on the event website as 50k, so it seems Ryan's navigational woes may have been worse than he feared.

"If you have room in this week's race report, here's my result from the Stamford 30k on Sunday 17th February," said Chris in an uncharacteristically brief email. His result is also below, and pretty swift it is too.

In other news, Stuart Meiklejohn gets this week's 'Most Exotic parkrun', largely because I promised him as much on Friday when we were jogging round Hyde Park. To give Stu his due, he did go all the way to Edinburgh, although that was probably more to do with a friend's stag do than any sort of obsessive parkrun pot hunt. As well as being exotic, Stu was our quickest parkrunner this week with 17:59, presumably because he was in a hurry to get to the pub.

Brighton Half Marathon

2. Tom Aldred  1:08:25
35. Kev Gadd  1:18:50
1208. Claire Thornhill  1:40:45
 

Bramley 20-mile (780 finishers)

29. Julian Ferraro – 2:04.22 (2nd V45)

74. Gavin Evans – 2:12.35 (4th V50)

76. Sarah Swinhoe – 2:12.45 (3rd woman, 1st V40)

648. Claire Silwerski – 3:15.56

Bramley 10-mile (513 finishers)

193. Barbara Tomaszyk – 1:20.04

294. Alison Harrow – 1:27.10

Stamford St Valentine's 30km

43rd. Chris Hartley 2:04:05 (fifth V45)

London Ultra (50k)
19RYAN McCRICKERD04:16:32

Ally Pally parkrun

18 Caroline ESSEX 00:26:07 

22 Shouma KHAN 00:26:52 

23 Louise CRIPPS 00:26:59 

Barking parkrun

11 Luka MELON 00:24:15 

Brighton & Hove parkrun

Mark DERRY 00:19:28 

Edinburgh parkrun

17 Stuart MEIKLEJOHN 00:17:59 

Finsbury parkrun

11 Costi STAVRIANAKIS 00:19:41 

66 Adrian ESSEX 00:23:59 

67 Ken TOWNSON 00:24:05 

70 Sarah ILLINGWORTH 00:24:11 

85 Aislin MAGEEAN 00:25:43 

Hampstead Heath parkrun

14 Tom TABORI 00:20:30 

44 Andrew SULSTON 00:24:24 

Hilly Fields parkrun

10 George MARGESSON 00:21:14