Bronze medal for Herne Hill’s Cathy Ansell at windy Inter Counties

Herne Hill Harriers’ distance running star Cathy Ansell went to the windy Bedford International Stadium for the British Milers Club Finals and found this is not the best place to go if you seek fast times, especially in the longer distance track races and late in the evening. A trio of her club mates had raced earlier in the evening at either 800m or 1500m and not found the weather greatly to their liking and when Cathy toed the line the wind was probably worse as she endured 12.5 laps of the track.

Despite the conditions and fresh from a PB 1500m run of 4.36.95 earlier in the week, Cathy determinedly set out to break her own club women’s 5000m record and tantalisingly only fell short by less than 2 seconds! Cathy was agonisingly just outside 17 minutes, clocking a nevertheless fine time of 17.00.97. Cathy placed 5th in the overall race, but was able to claim the bronze medal in the Inter Counties champs held in conjunction, which was a tangible reward for her to take home as some consolation for missing out on her record.

Top veteran athlete Dave Peters was close to the HHH club M40 800m record, which he arguably claimed a share in the week before when clocking 1.58.95 at HHH open meeting at Tooting when the record stands at 1.58.9 hand timed. On his follow up, Dave recorded 1.59.37 to win the London Inter Club Challenge at Copthall and in contrast to his previous clear win he this time prevailed by a mere one hundredth of a second against opponents 15-20 years his junior!

With all the attention focused on HHH men’s team being famously promoted to the Premier Division of the British Athletics League, some other good performances by club members escaped attention at the time, none better than that of 18 year old Lukas Wieland, who threw 65.91m in a club league meeting in Switzerland to set a new HHH club U20 men’s javelin record

A couple of even younger HHH lads shone at the England Athletics U15/U17 Championships, also at Bedford. Zanson Plummer won a bronze medal placing 3rd in U17 men’s 100m final in a fast time of 10.85 after running a great PB of 10.81 in his heat, while Ed Olsen was 3rd in his U15 boys 800m heat with a fine PB time of 2.03.94 before placing 8th in the final in 2.06. At the other end of the athletics age spectrum over 50 Mike Boyle won the Veterans AC 5Km Road Championship in 16:34 at the end of a good race between him and 50 year old Tony Tuohy of Dulwich and Gareth Cavell, who at 40 is a bit younger than our Mike.

This coming Sunday the Herne Hill men’s veterans track and field team will seek to try to retain our title at the final of the Southern Counties Vets League at the Julie Rose Stadium at Ashford.