There was a double dose of cross-country action for St Albans Striders this weekend.
On Saturday the second match of the Chiltern League kicked off at Teardrop Lakes, Milton Keynes.
the race got going following a minute’s silence for Lucy Pygott and Stacey Burrows, two young aspiring athletes from Aldershot, Farnham and District AC who died on a training run with their club when they were struck by a car.
Striders’ senior ladies were first to race with Megan Steer the first from the club across the line in 56th.
She was followed by Zoe Lowe in 97th, and 4th in her age category, Victoria Robertson 128th, Liz Walls 136th, Carole Jack 212th, Alex Leech 213th and Charlotte Holloway in 271st.
In the senior men’s race James McMurray was first Strider, the 22nd of 456 finishers.
Mark Dickinson was 83rd, and 2nd in the MV45 age category, followed by Steve Buckle 16 seconds later in 89th.
A further 14 male Striders took part, including Martin Medforth in 441st.
After two rounds Striders lie fourth in Division One.
On Sunday, 22 men and 20 women travelled to Grovelands Park in Enfield for the second fixture of this season’s Sunday League.
Paul Adams repeated the victory he achieved last month in Cheshunt with a minute-and-a-half gap between him and his nearest rival from another club.
New club chairman-elect Graham Smith was the next in for St Albans, coming 15th, closely followed by Cathal Gallaghar in 19th and Alex Juggins in 22nd.
Striders had a further four male athletes in the top 80 to round out the scoring ‘A’ team.
On the ladies’ side, the ‘A’ team consisted of Magda Bobon, Katherine Caris-Harris, Mandy Attree, Vicky Laitner and Deirdre Heydecker running in close formation, finishing overall in 248th, 254th, 261st, 263rd and 267th respectively.
Elsewhere Adam Mellor ran the point-to-point Grand Union Canal Half Marathon in two hours and four minutes while Si Fraser came first at Stevenage parkrun in 18 minutes exactly.
Patrick Smears ran his 100th parkrun and Matt Childs completed his 50th.
St Albans Striders is a friendly, mixed-ability club for all types of runners which meets by the Westminster Lodge Athletics Track building at 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
More info can be found at www.stalbansstriders.com
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