Carpenter holds off rival

Close rivals Tom Carpenter and Niall Stewart led the field again at Saturday’s Maidstone parkrun with times of 16min 32sec and 16.50 respectively. Neill Wright, running a personal best of 17.49, took third place. After a gap of three weeks, Charlotte Bates returned to lead the ladies home in 19.47. Nicole Priestly produced a PB of 21.01 for second place and Sharon Barnett also ran a PB to finish third in 21.11. Tony Rea (MV70-74), from Dragons Running Club, repeated his performance of last week by topping the age-graded list with a time of 22.37 for 81.13% and 44th place overall. There were 372 runners. Martin Beardsmore led the field at Malling, finishing in 19.06, while Dillon Hobbs (20.24) pipped James Andrews (20.31) to second – both men running PBs. Sophie Ward was the first lady home in 22.48, Claire Roberts took second with a PB of 24.04 and Amanda Smith finished third in 24.29. On his first visit to the course, Peter Hamilton (VM65-69), of Blackheath & Bromley AC, took the age-graded top score of 80.65% with a time of 21.37 for 10th place overall. There were 182 runners.