The Herne Hill Harriers flagship senior track and field team produced a very solid result in their opening National Athletics League match of the season at Chelmsford on Saturday 31st May.
The Championship is formed of four theoretically equally matched regional divisions, but the East section which Harriers are in this year is by far the strongest. This was illustrated in the first fixture as Blackheath & Bromley who were relegated from last year’s Premiership could only place fourth of the six teams in the division. Herne Hill finished fifth despite being hampered by having several empty events on the day, which immediately disadvantages the overall team score.
Beyond these gaps on the team sheet there were some excellent individual performances. The strength of the division was never better illustrated than in the men’s 400m where Fred Hake found the rapid time of 47.94 only enough to finish fourth in the A string race. His time was, however, also fast enough to set a new HHH club U20 men’s record. B string man Liam Gould, another U20, ducked under 50 seconds got the first time placing third in the B string with 49.55, while Adam Thompson won the non scoring 400m with a fabulous 48.81, also a big PB.
The 1500m races were a source of great team points with a double A and B string win for the women and the men both placing second A and B. Sophie Tooley led from the gun to claim a superb win and record a PB of 4:22.72, a four second improvement and a time that puts her third on the NAL women’s 1500m all-time list and was the fastest across all the league divisions on the day. Tooley was backed up by Bryony Proctor winning the B string in 4:52.55 and she then went on to finish second in the women’s B 3000m with 10:35.70.
Club U20 men’s 100m record holder Rikaion Smith claimed an A string 100m win by the narrowest of margins in 10.70, with another U20 Sheriff Silly second in the B string in 11.19. U17 Princess Okoma was second in the women’s B 100m in 12.38 in her NAL debut.
The men’s 4 x 100m team of Andris Thorpe, Silly, Byron Robinson and Smirh ran out as clear winners clocking a good 42.16, not far outside the club senior men’s record. The men’s 4 x 400m team of Thompson, Keeran Sriskadarajah, Gould and Hake placed second with a time of 3:20.66.
In the women’s throws Zara Acton claimed victory in the A discus with 37.68m and then placed second in the A shot with 11.43m.
The men’s 1500m saw Daniel Shaw clock a PB as his well-paced run with a strong second place A string finish brought his time down to 3:54.04. Second in the B string was Peter Chambers, close to his recent PB with 3:57.14.
Liv Stillman helped the team by filling in at A string 800m, placing third with 2:27.88, 3000m as their event. They duly ran this race too in the heat of the day, with Liv 5th with 10:22.61 and Bryony 8th and 2nd B string
Over in the USA on the same weekend Annabel Hobday ran 4:31 at the NCAA Regionals in her final race at the end of a big two years at Lamar University. She now returns home to London to complete her track season.
In road racing on the Sunday Ro Hughes won the Weybridge 5km in 18:02, enjoying the first 3km on tarmac a lot more than the towpath in the final 2km where the 5km runners also had to navigate around back markers running the half marathon!
There was also the Dorking 10M, which is part of the Surrey Road League this summer, Gaby Reynolds was 2nd overall and 1st W40 in 59:55, Muhamud Haile was 2nd M55 in 61:59 and Sue Swaine was 17th overall and 4th W40 in 69:57.
Also, on the previous Wednesday Hannah Edwards was only just outside her PB with 19:27 for third female at the Chase the Sun 5K in Battersea Park and on Thursday on the track at Stratford Seve Loudon was 16th in the Tracksmith Amateur Mile A race with 4:46.35.
Geoff Jerwood