The Herne Hill Harriers produced some fine individual performances at the annual Chichester Priory 10K on 5 February to win second team prize and smash a number of personal records in the process. The three-man team was led home by Chris Busaileh, who finished in 8th place, clocking 30.20 minutes, just 3 seconds outside of his personal best. Chris had been in the leading pack for much of the race until a move at the 7K mark by second-claim member and Olympic hopeful, Ben Whitby, split the group. Ben went on to win the race in a personal best time of 29.37 minutes.
Harriers’ Mike Cummings and Ben Paviour were neck and neck throughout the race, with the former edging his team mate just before the finish line clocking a personal best time of 31.56 minutes in 19th. Ben closed the team in 21st also recording a personal best time of 31.59. Sarwar Khan in 29th, John Kettle in 36th and Paul Shiel in 60th all finished outside of the scoring team but recorded personal best times in a race that saw over 1400 runners take part.
Elsewhere, the Harriers dominated the East Surrey League relays on 4 February, winning the men’s team race, as well as the under-17, under-15 and under-13 team races. Middle-distance athlete, Michael Dyer, clocked the fastest time of the day in 9.31 minutes over the 1.95 mile course, ranking him second-joint fastest on the all-time list. Katie Snowden broke the under-20 women’s course record with a time of 10.45 minutes, whilst Bob Creed broke the M50 course record in 10.01 minutes.
Later in the week Chris Busaileh placed an excellent 19th in 14.38.34 and Mike Cummings 46th in 15.08.99 in the International quality Armagh 5k road race. Two PBs in 5 days for Mike, super running!
Sarwar Khan