Herne Hill Harriers’ senior men and Over 35 women kicked off our road and cross country season in winning fashion by claiming county team titles at the Surrey Road Relay Championships in Wimbledon Park.
Our first men’s team victory for 10 years was sealed by fine running by all 6 of our A team runners over the 3 miles course which included a steep ascent past the All England Tennis Club, where Andy Murray won Olympic 2012 gold. Ben Paviour clocked 15.01 for 4th place on 1st leg, Jonny Henderson 15.05 to move us up to 2nd, Mohammed Ismail ran 15.26 to maintain this position before Jonathan Stead’s 15.19 swept us into a lead that was more than maintained by newcomer James Fooks-Bale (15.36) and Basil Wallace (15.44) as we saw all of our team within 43 seconds of each other and a clear victory margin of 48 seconds.
In our B team, good running by Hampshire qualified Mike Cummings “won” first leg and Mike recorded 14.38 for the 2nd fastest overall time of the day, while Ben Paviour’s time stood up as 5th best time and Jonny Henderson’s run on 2nd leg was 6th quickest of the day.
Our W35 team claimed our first title in this age group, with fine runs by Bec Barrow (20.01), Ceri Diss (19.01), Debbie Panter-Jackson (19.27) and Sarah Allen (21.23), while in our W35 B team Susan Glinska returned to run her first race for the club for almost exactly 20 years, on which occasion she had been in our winning senior womnen’s team to run a time of 21.18.