Last week saw the first road race to return to the Medway Towns since the start of Covid 19 pandemic. Over the lockdown period there has been many virtual races, but no real-time races. To put this road race in place there were many changes, such as reduced race entry numbers, reduced contact points, route changes, social distancing at the start and finish and a waved, staggered rolling start.
In spite of all the changes the race produced some good times. Daniel Bradley (Tonbridge AC) took first place in a time of 32.16, only a few seconds off his PB. Roger Vilardell (Petts Wood) recorded a big PB to take second place (33.30), closely followed by Mark Wilkins of Medway & Maidstone AC with his best run at this distance in 3 years (33.59). Medway & Maidstone also took two other high places in the race, with Richard Tomlinson in 6th (1st M50 36.26) and Darren Wright 41.20. Unfortunately, because of the restricted presentations there was no team prize, which otherwise would have been claimed by the home club.
