Wednesday night saw a great turnout of HHH athletes at both the BMC Regional meet at Eltham and at the Hercules Wimbledon night of 5000m races at Wimbledon Park. There were winning runs and PBs in abundance from our runners wearing red and black and it was very pleasing to see widespread buying into the concept that we train to race.
At Eltham the feature events were men’s and women’s A 800m races with cash prizes and quality line ups. Katie Snowden won the women’s race with a very emphatic final 100m that saw her beat Jessica Judd by a margin of over a second with her winning time of 2.03.64 being somewhat academic with such an impressive victory over a very good field.
Others took the opportunity of good fields relative to their own targets to record PBs or get in good end of season races. Hannah Edwards did her best to try to win the women’s B 800m. race taking it on with 300m to go and her 2nd place in 2.12.59 was a good return, while behind her Steph Mitchell ran a great PB of 2.16.54. Mike Cummings ran his third PB in as many races over 3 different distances as he clocked 1.55.54, but Lewis Lloyd and Michael Dyer were frustrated by a slower than expected pace set in their men’s B race. John Tayleur was tantalising close to 2 minutes with his PB 2.00.52 and Jonathan Chen also ran a PB 2.02.50. In the mile races Lewis Laylee set what I believe to be a Dulwich Runners club record with his 4.36, just ahead of his DR/HHH club mate Wayne Lashley’s 4.38. Sean Fitzpatrick wasn’t overly happy with a 16.21 for 5000m, but it was a very solid effort given he is currently in high mileage training for the Eindhoven marathon in October.
At Wimbledon the sport was as good as the annual tennis, our fastest 5000m man there being Jeff Cunningham with his 15.49.57. In the same race Mohammed Ismael ran 16.04.46, just ahead of Robin Jones PB of 16.08.60. Tal Ramsay won his race in 16.27.00, with Gary Ironmonger showing his endurance is good with his 16.37.08, both of these guys running PB’s as did Simon Messenger breaking 17 min emphatically with a fine 16.49.74. Simon Thompson cracked 17 min with 16.56.85 in his race, ahead of Tom Conlon’s 17.26.80 and Tom Levitt’s 18.21.74. Patrick Conaghan was a clear winner of the first race of the series with a PB of 17.48.02.
Geoff Jerwood