Herne Hill Harriers under 13 boys completed a splendid first month to the winter season by winning the U13 boys race at the Surrey County young athletes cross country relays at bright but windy Stoke Park Guildford.
After winning medals at the Southern road and cross country relays in the past four weeks as well as their Surrey league match the boys were confident of doing well prior to the race and Paul Burgess started off positively on first leg and with a storming finish in the final 200m shot pass the Reigate athlete to win the first leg handing over to Callum Barker who stretched the lead to 80 metres and handed over to Isaac Brown. Isaac ran strongly on the final leg but there was a strong runner chasing him from Camberley and going up the final hill with 600m remaining and the Camberley athlete closing it looked like the final result would be very tight but Isaac used his strength from biathlons and strode out to win by 10 metres. Paul Burgess won the medal for the fastest leg in the race by a second in 7.50.
The under 13 girls who had also medalled in the Southern cross country championships also had good medal chances and started superbly with Saskia Millard having a storming first leg to come in first, Breagha Campbell then stretched the lead on leg two but Windsor Slough & Eton had a strong runner on the final leg and she reeled in Izzie Lamport Went who suffered in the lead and came in second. Saskia was a convincing winner of the fastest leg medal in 8.16.
One of the best races of the day was the under 15 boys where we won bronze medals, Lascelles Hussey ran well on first leg coming in second in 7.28 in a close race and Fraser Cunningham set off with three other runners and maintained close contact coming in fourth. Sakeriye Abdirahman set off in fourth place chasing Windsor Slough & Eton, Guildford and Camberley athletes but behind him was English Schools champion Tom Holden of South London Harriers who was closing fast. When they came back into sight with 1000m to go Windsor had a clear lead with Sakeriye second and Tom Holden just behind. The two had a great battle in the final half mile with Tom just prevailing and we had to settle for bronze medals with Sakeriye the second fastest runner on the day.
Our under 17 mens team of Amiin Jisow, John Tayleur and Idiris Ali were fifth and Clare Burgess ran in the under 15 girls race, Unfortunately with half term holidays our under 15 girls and under 17 women were decimated by athletes being on holiday although our B teams in Under 13s were 12th (girls) and 19th (boys).
Steve Bosley.