Track & field meetings, parkruns and itinerant lions

Bit of a short-notice report this one: I got conned into writing it late last night, when it emerged that the usual scribes were away taking pictures of wildlife (photo of black bear © Gabi Johnson, 2012).  If there are any more budding wildlife photographers at the club, the good news is that there appears to be a lion on the loose in Essex, so there's an opportunity not to be missed.  If anyone just wants to fake a photo, Simon Brown informs me you can do a pretty good job with a common house cat and a slice of bread with a hole in the middle.

Happily for Woodford Green, it is no longer officially part of Essex, so presumably the lion won't be visiting there.  Several of Heathside's U20 men did, however, for the WGEL graded open on Tuesday: Alexander and Melvin took the top two places in their 800m race, running 2:25 and 2:28 respectively, and Miron finished fourth in the 3000m in 10:14.  Izaiah, who ran the 3000m and did the hammer throw at the WGEL meet, was back on the track on Saturday at the London Inter-Club Challenge, where he finished first with a PB of 2:39 in his 800m race.

The pick of this week's parkruns was Simon Nash's speedy 17:35, which was good enough to earn him first place at Finsbury Park, holding off the second runner by just four seconds.  Although this instantly makes everyone think of an exciting sprint finish, it's equally possible that Simon was miles in front and just eased up quite a bit.  Hard to say without talking to him, which I haven't.

Also, the 'Most Exotic parkrun' award is back by popular demand after a week-long hiatus (apologies to Tom and Claire who went all the way to the Isle of Wight for nothing last week, no hard feelings).  This week is a dead heat, or as close as I'm unprepared to split hairs about, between Laura, who visited Cambridge, and Elspeth, who made it as far as Whitstable.  The two are roughly equidistant from their nearest M25 junctions, so I'm prepared to call that a draw.  In case anyone else fancies having a go at either of these in future, Whitstable is a seaside town so may have a couple of decent chip shops, but the biggest supermarket is probably a SPAR; Cambridge is a thriving hotbed of bicycle theft and apparently has some kind of university.

To round up a couple more results from the previous weekend, Chris came 61st of 340-odd finishers (ninth place, V40-44) in the National Triathlon Championships in Milton Keynes.  John ran a PB in the Isle of Wight Half Marathon, finishing 58th of around 300.

Woodford Green Open Graded Meeting 21/08/2012

800m, race #2

1 Alexander Beattie 2:25.13

2 Melvin Wachira 2:28.63

3000m, race #1

4 Miron Woldemichael 10:14.35

15 Izaiah Turner 12:20.08

Hammer

14 Izaiah Turner 16.45m

London Inter-Club Challenge, Hendon 25/08/2012

800m, SX 3

1 Izaiah Turner 2:39.06

Myriad parkruns 25/08/2012

Ally Pally parkrun

7 Gavin PARISH 00:22:31

8 Steve BUTTLING-SMITH 00:22:46

17 Alice PARISH 00:26:54 (2nd lady)

Bushy Park parkrun

213 Usman HASAN 00:23:27

Cambridge parkrun

253 Laura BOOTHMAN 00:29:29 (78th lady)

Finsbury parkrun

1 Simon NASH 00:17:35

4 David HELLARD 00:18:53

10 Alexander SWEET 00:20:49

Hackney Marshes parkrun

13 Brian BOYLE 00:20:52

Hampstead Heath parkrun

11 Nick DE SAUSMAREZ 00:22:57

21 Rajesh BATRA 00:24:25

Highbury Fields parkrun

32 Claire THORNHILL 00:23:28 (4th lady)

Whitstable parkrun

10 Elspeth STORRAR 00:20:25 (2nd lady)

Wormwood Scrubs parkrun

2 Daniel MCKEOWN 00:18:09

12 Nessa JACKSON 00:23:50 (2nd lady)

MK Tri 2012 Triathlon England 19/08/2012

National Triathlon Championships

Pos Finish1500m swimT140k cycleT210k run61Chris Gardner02:12:3900:23:3100:01:2301:05:2500:00:4500:41:32

Isle of Wight Half Marathon 19/08/2012

58 John Mullee 1:45:06 PB