Tewelde on the pace
Cross-Country
Tewelde Menges led the Medway & Maidstone team home at the second race of the Kent Cross-Country League at Tonbridge.
Host club Tonbridge AC took top honours but M&M clinched second place in the four-toscore and the 12-to-score team competitions from the 22 competing.
M&M had 12 finishers in the top 60 from a large turnout of runners. The club’s 24 finishing senior runners was a record for this league.
Menges finished the hilly and muddy 10k course in fourth place with a time of 33min57sec ahead of club-mate Rob Meyer in fifth (34.01). Completing the four-to-score were Marley Godden (18th, 35.44) and Tom Collins in 19th (36.14).
Notable finishers from the 12-to-score team were Simon Habtom, in his first race after a long spell out, in 31st (37.46), Barry Royden (40th) claiming first M50 in 38.16 and Justin Lane, who had run the Amsterdam Marathon the previous week. He finished in 43rd place (38.33).
Back-up runners included Ben Hughes, who was in his first race for the senior team with a 68th-place finish (40.20).
The under-20 men were led in by Alex Donnelly, finishing in ninth (18.53) and supported by Jude Gordon (12th, 19.32), Quinn Austin (14th, 19.53) and Reegan Archer (17th, 22.28). The team finished in second place.
The under-17 men’s team were represented by the pairing of Ethan Gear and Luke Stringer, finishing in 10th (17.56) and 11th (17.59) places, respectively. There was a fourth place overall for the under-15 boys. Hayden Gear had another superb race to finish sixth in 14.01.
The under-13 boys finished fifth on the day and for the second consecutive race. Jay Trimmer was first home in
11th place (11.20) and Ethan Rollings (11.23) and Henry Gibson (11.43) also finished in the top-20.
In the senior ladies’ race, Emily
Hale finished sixth (20.05).
With some team members missing, M&M still had a good number of runners with Jenny Fowler (W40 35th, 22.26) and Claire Wilkins (W35 24.43) completing the three-to-score with the team finishing sixth. Newcomer Amanda Matthews (W45) had a good start in 78th (24.57).
The under-15 girls saw Anna Palmer in her first race of the season finishing well in seventh place (16.52).
She was followed by strong runs from both Abigail Royden (15th, 17.26) and Annabelle Young (20th, 17.42) with the three-to-score finishing in fifth. There was another strong race from Iris Crossley in the under13 girls, finishing in 15th (12.14). This was followed by Amber Matthews in 27th (13.01) and Elizabeth Fry (30th, 13.11) to close the three to score with the team seventh.
There was only one runner contesting the under-17 ladies, with Charlotte Young eighth (21.04).
There’s no stopping Tom Carpenter after he won Saturday’s Maidstone parkrun in 17min 26sec.
Max Read (18.35) was second with first-timer Mark O’Boyle (19.04) third.
Another debutant, Anna Thomson, was the fastest woman, followed by Alison Strange (23.52) and Lucy Butt (24.28).
Trevor Edgeley (VM70-74) was the top age-graded performer with a score of 75.80% for his time of 23.33 and 28th place overall out of 320.
Lee Parker won Malling in 18.55, ahead of Alan Spivey (20.10) and Sam Patterson
(20.39 PB).
Rebecca Lednor (JW15-17) was the leading lady in 21.56, followed by first-time visitor Lynn McKeague (23.51) and Jenny Brown (24.18).
Best age-graded score went to Paul McAuliffe (VM60-64) who finished fifth in 20.52 to score 79.63%.
There were 214 runners.