Sam Bramwell of Herne Hill Harriers finished eighth among the thousands of non-elite entrants in The Big Half from Tower Bridge to Greenwich on Sunday.
The event attracted a huge entry of runners from the top end, ranging from Mo Farah’s swansong to first-time aspirants taking on running 13.1 miles on a warm day. Bramwell produced a stunning PB of 66:37 on what is not a particularly fast course.
Morgan Roberts has only been racing for a few months and again demonstrated his huge potential as he clocked a rapid 69:05. Raj Paranandi provided superb backup as his 72:34 placed him second M45 on the day with a PB by more than half a minute.
More leading times were recorded by Alex Russell (76:05) and Ryan Willmott (77:49). Jonathan Ratcliffe was second M55 (78:07). Alex Lee followed up his excellent 5,000m track PB lasty week with 78:23, Alex Gutteridge ran 79:29, followed by two more highly-placed masters athletes – Robin Jones’ 79:40 saw him finish eighth M50 and Muhamud Haile (81:24) was fourth M55.
Grace Leyland was 28th female with a PB 83:42, just ahead of Jenny Nandi in 83:44 for 30th female. Leonie Biemolt was sixth W40 ( 85:15).
Allan Long and Nikki Sturzaker enjoyed a successful weekend at the British Masters BMAF track and field championships in Derby. Long claimed three championship titles and set a new British M80 age group record. He won the M80 triple jump with 7.90m, the 100m in 15.29 and the 200m in 33.80.
Sturzaker was also a triple UK champion with PBs in all three of her W50 events, winning the 1,500m in 4:53.29, the 800m in 2:24.72 and the high jump with 1.20m. In the space of a week she has moved up to the top of the UK 2023 age ranking a for road 5km, 1,500m and 800m.
Two club records were broken at the Surrey Combined and Relay Championships on Sunday at Carshalton. The U17 men took down a 4x400m record set in 1979 with 3:28.25, and the U17 women’s 4x300m clocked 2:49.70, to break the record set in 2009.
The club’s relay teams won three gold medals and three silver in the various age group 4x100m relays plus, in the longer relays, the aforementioned two club record gold medals and a further silver and two bronzes.
The county combined events, race walking and steeplechase championships were also held. Jasmine Nkoso won gold in the U15 girls multi events with 2,958 points. Kazia Asiedu Boafo collected silver in the U17 women with 3,055 points.
Penelope Cummings was second in the senior women’s 3,000m walk (17.35.82). Keeran Sriskandarajah won the U17 men’s 1,500m steeplechase title in 4:47.48.
Geoff Jerwood