Herne Hill Harriers teams travelled to the Midlands on Sunday for the National Road Relay Championship races in Sutton Coldfield, one of the biggest and most prestigious road racing events in the club team calendar. With races for six young athletes categories followed by senior men and women, it was the first events of the day contested by the youngest age groups which saw the highest team placings from Harriers teams, with both under 13 boys and girls teams placing an excellent tenth in their races.
The under 13 boys’ team got off to a fine start as Keeran Sriskandarajah came home in an excellent seventh on first leg in 13:51 for the 3.8km undulating loop to record the tenth fastest overall time in his age group. He handed over to Fabien Whitelock whose 15:01 kept the team in eighth after two stages before anchor runner Joshua Lee-Baum produced a time of 14:29 on a strong last leg to secure tenth team position. The B team of Oak Buchan (14:31), Archie Penniceard (16:29) and Freddie Hake (15:42) placed 29th of 47 complete teams, with a C team of Mustafa Osman16:39, Daniel Aisa Miller 16:43 and John Goldston16:51 finshing 45th.
This top ten A team placing was emulated by the under 13 girls, albeit they moved forward throughout the three stages of their relay over the same course. Rosalie Laban finished the first leg in 16th with 15:35, the Lily-Rose Brown moved up to 13th on leg two with a clocking of 16:08 and Izzy Perry’s final stage run in 16:00 brought her team home in tenth place in a field of 48 full teams. The B team of Eva O’Hanlon, 15:21 ahead of her A team in 13th, Vivi Marshall up to eighth with 15:48 and Cecilia Hayward-Bhika completing the B team in 29th with 19:29.
The next highest of the Herne Hill teams was the senior women’s A team in a four stage relay around a 4.3km circuit. The team placed a good 22nd courtesy of Sarah Grover 44th on first leg with 16:41, then Helena Corbin ran superbly on second leg to overtake 21 runners to move up to 23rd with 15:32. The team then held station very well asMolly Pocock improved the position to 22nd with16:38 and Aimee Hargreaves maintained this to the end with her 16:56. An incomplete B team of Katie Kedward (16:55) and Jemima Hayward-Bhika (19:24) were 57th of the 71 teams at the halfway stage where their race came to an end, with 64 teams completing the four leg relay.
In other young athletes races Harriers had under 15 boys A and B teams finishing 45th and 50threspectively through Harvey Kande 13:36, RobinBebbington 15:31 and Diego Lister 15:24 in the A team and Evan Cowell New 15:13, Alex Spaul14:58 and David Aisa Miller 15:10 in the B team. The under 15 girls’ team placed 55th with SinianMcdowell 18:34, Sophia Ezeh 18:52 and Claire Vanheel 24:00 completing the team and the under 17 men’s team of Sam Camenzuli 13:18, Dylan Sweet 14:11 and Jacob Alley 15:20 placed 50th in their race.
More locally Herne Hill had men and women’s teams racing in the East Surrey League cross country race in Lloyd Park, Croydon, where the men’s A team of Angus Butler in second, Eoin Brady fifth, Jack Dickenson eighth and Bryn Reynolds 19th placed second team and the women’s A team of Lara Langston third, Shannon Sinclair fourth, Jodie Gray seventh and Susan Mair eighth also finished as second team. The women’s B team placed fourth and the men’s B team tenth in a fairly low key opener to the cross country league season as a prelude to this coming Saturday’s bigger Surrey League cross country races, the men racing at Effingham Common and the women in Priory Park in Reigate.