Herne Hill Harriers’ U13 girl’s team struck gold and the M50 quartet bronze at the South of England road relay championships at Aldershot at the weekend.
The U13 girl’s team trailed City of Portsmouth AC going into the final leg of three, but a sensational run by Alex Brown – the joint third fastest individual – propelled Harriers into an unassailable lead with an ultimate winning margin of 41 seconds.
While Brown may have had the glory leg, the finest individual performance came from Eloise O’Shaunessy who – after taking the baton from Lily Newton – ran the second fastest time of the day, just four seconds slower than Portsmouth’s Josie Czura.
Remarkably, an U13 girl’s B team of Kayah Wilks, Lucy Olsen and Eimear Griffin were a whisker away from also medalling, finishing nine seconds behind the third place team.
At the opposite end of the age spectrum, Tony Harran led the M50 team off, completing his leg in 11th. Gary Ironmonger elevated Harriers to sixth, before Vic Maughn gained a further two positions. A superb last leg by Mike Boyle – the fourth fastest M50 individual runner – saw Harriers overtake Harrow AC to win bronze medals.
Harriers’ senior man finished 19th out of 80 teams, with just 84 seconds separating the club’s fastest and slowest runner in a well-balanced team. Mike Cummings ran the quickest leg of the Harriers’ six, with the club rising as high as 18th before Jonny Henderson brought the team home in 19th.
Other results at the relay championships were: U15 girl’s (sixth), U15 boy’s (seventh), U13 boy’s (19th), U17 boy’s (20th) and senior women (42nd). Within those results were several outstanding individual performances, notably Saskia Millard (third overall in U15 girl’s), Oscar Millard (fourth in the U13 boy’s), Paul Burgess (sixth in the U15 boy’s) and Ed Olsen (12th in the U17 boy’s).