Saturday saw the highly entertaining Highgate Harriers Night of the 10000m PBs meeting at Parliament Hill, which incorporated British Championship trials for the World Championship and a series of supporting races for very good quality club athletes. Whilst the main races enjoyed near perfect racing conditions in the evening, those who raced during the afternoon had some warm weather to add to the challenge of racing 25 laps of a track.
Herne Hill’s Georgie Grgec produced an outstanding performance to win the women’s B race and would not have been out of place in the main championship race later on. Grgec followed a plan to aim to race rather than worry too much about lap times and ran in a small group with the pacemaker who stepped off the track around halfway. With the race down to just two contenders in the final 3000m, Grgec then stayed with the leader until the closing stages, refusing to yield at times when a gap almost started to develop. She then ran a superbly executed final lap, hitting the front in the last 200m for what was her biggest win so far.
The official time was 33:59.40, which is a new Herne Hill Harriers club senior women’s track 10000m record, beating a long standing mark by more than a minute.
Jeff Cunningham was the fastest Harrier at the meeting, running smart in the first race, clocking a track PB of 33:46.62, finishing 14th of 22 in the attritional afternoon heat.
Elsewhere at Birmingham University the first of this season’s BMC Grand Prix meetings witnessed excellent breakthrough PB for two of Herne Hill’s Under 23 athletes. Arlo Ludewick was second in the men’s B 1500m in 3:45.48, his first time under 3:50, while Annabel Hobday was fourth in the women’s C 800m race in 2:12.45 to improve her PB by just over a second.
At the Chester Half Marathon M45s Raj Paranandi and John Kettle both represented an England Masters team after having earned selection earlier this year. Paranandi placed 12th overall and was second in his age category with a PB of 73:07. Kettle was 31st overall and seventh M45 in 75:42.
Herne Hill athletes claimed a total of 32 medals at the Surrey County Track and Field Championship at Kingsmeadow over the weekend, with 11 gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze. An athlete who picked up one of each colour was Under 15 Ella Rennie, who won the 100m, placed second in the 200m and third in the long jump.
Jasmine Nkoso won the Under 13 girls javelin and was second in the long jump. Under 20 Niyah Costley won both the 100m and long jump, with Makarios Mensah claiming gold in the U20W triple jump. Lily-Rose Brown made a strong comeback from injury to win the U15G 300m, while Rosalie Laban was second in the U17 women’s 300m hurdles.
In the U15 boys long jump Sheriff Silly took the gold medal and in the same age group Luca Anderson was second in the 100m and third over 200m. Under 17s Dante Clarke and Alexander Abebrese were winners in the long jump and shot respectively, with Clarke also second in the 100m hurdles.
Keeran Sriskandarajah was second in both the 800m and 400m hurdles in this age group. Victoria Alicante-King was a clear winner of the U17W shot, while Caspian Holmes also enjoyed an emphatic winning margin in the U13 boys 1500m. Freddy Ricketts was second in the U13 boys 200m. Lucas Heath and Solomon Thompson-Moodley were both second in their high jump events, U13 and U15 respectively. Freddie Hake placed second in the U15 boys 300m.
At the Middlesex Championship at Lee Valley Isaac Ogunlade secured a place at the British Athletics Champs in late June running a 400m hurdles qualifying time of 53.50 and also clocked 49.44 for 400m flat in his heat.
At the Hampshire championships in Portsmouth, Mike Cummings (1500m silver in 4:04.95) and Joe Fenwick (5000m bronze in 16:13.05) claimed medals
At the Sutton Runners 10km road race Gaby Reynolds placed second female overall and first W40 in 38:20, with husband Bryn Reynolds only just ahead of her in the same time. Julia Wedmore was fourth female with 39:00 and George Melville was 11th in 35:05.
Geoff Jerwood
