Saturday’s National Road Relays Championship at Sutton Coldfield saw another epic day of top results for Herne Hill Harriers. It was a warm and long afternoon of racing from midday in the magnificent Sutton Park, involving men’s teams of twelve and women’s teams of six. All ran relay legs of 5km each around an undulating lap, with the eventual winners of each race claiming the titles of National Champions, with both English and British medals.
Harriers’ women brought home team bronze medals despite some withdrawals from the original A team in the days leading up to the race. Impressively the club still filled two teams for both the women’s and men’s races, sending a total of 36 runners in red and black to this major event for the first time in their history.
The women’s third placed team was led by an exceptional second leg run from rising star Lucy Jones who propelled her team from 14th as she went past almost all the runners ahead of her to hand over only just behind the leader.
In addition to her team medals the 26-year-old Wimbledon resident took home gold for the fastest overall female time of the day across the six stages. The England cross country international had just returned from almost a month of altitude training in Font Romeu in the Pyrenees as she prepares for the London Marathon at the end of this month.
First leg saw Darcie Hey handing over in 14th. then Jones moved up superbly to second, handing over to Bryony Proctor. She held her place, then during an exciting battle Liv Stillman, Helena Keenan and Sophie Tooley ensured the team were never outside the medals positions thereafter.
Tooley, also just back from Font, ran the second quickest anchor leg time to see off the challenges of Belgrave Harriers in fourth and Guildford & Godalming fifth. This was the second time the club has won medals in the national six stage event following their silver medals in 2019 and they had also won gold in the national four stage road relay in October 2024. Truly on the national medals map.
The men’s teams also excelled on only the second occasion the club has qualified a B team from the area championship to contest the national. The A team placed a very strong 11th, their highest ever finishing position and ahead of local rivals Hercules Wimbledon and the usually highly ranked Aldershot, Farnham & District. The B team were fourth of all B teams present finishing 30th overall.
The A team were led off by team captain Daniel Shaw in 24th, then next up was club men’s 800m and mile record holder Arlo Ludewick who moved through to 11th. Tom Austin held onto 11th, then Ollie Mills 16th and U20 Harry Bell 21st. From here the team moved back through with Tom Patterson saw them 20th at halfway, then Morgan Roberts 17th, Sam Brashaw 17th, Brandon Dewar 15th and Andrew Clarke up to 13th, with a great job rounded off by Alex Russell 11th and Ronan Tanguy holding station.
The men’s B team in 30th comprised Harry Roberts, Max Rose, U20 Tom O”Mahoney, Stephen McLeod, James Nutt, Andrew Warburton, M50 Simon Coombes, Joe Elliott, Matt Cartwright, M40 Jeff Cunningham, M45 Ben Millar and Seve Loudon, as they progressed from 54th at the end of leg one into the top 30 by the end of the race.
The women’s B team of Jenny Nandi, Katie Balme, Rowen Hughes, U20 Rosalie Laban, Emily Roberts and Jemima Hayward-Bhikha placed 33rd.
Elsewhere Phoebe Anderson finished 31st in the European Athletics Women’s Road 10km Championship in Leuven, Belgium on Sunday, clocking 32:52 on a challenging course.
Another fine run saw her as the third team scorer in the Great Britain women’s team in this race. This was Anderson’s senior debut for Team GB after having won the European Under 23 Cross Country title last December and cements her position as a top team member at championship events for her country.
Grace Leyland was the winner of the women’s race at the Newport Half Marathon by exactly two minutes as she recorded a big PB of 77:53. This placed her 11th overall among men and women from over 1,600 finishers.
Also, at Sunday’s Newport Marathon Festival Matt Raymond ran a PB of 2:48:47, while at the Paris Marathon Mat Hudson clocked 2:50:37 and Katie Kedward 3:18:27, both running PBs.
Geoff Jerwood