Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Athletes post decent times under the lights at Battersea Park

Herne Hill Harriers had some very good runs at the latest Battersea Park Under the Lights 5km road race series, writes Geoff Jerwood.

Andrew Warburton had never previously run under 15 minutes for 5km, but clocked 14:38. Lewis Laylee was only just behind and narrowly outside his PB with 14:42.

Joe Elliott ran a PB (15:33), followed in by three M45 athletes. Raj Paranandi, Simon Coombes and Ben Paviour ran 15:46, 16:02 and 16:22 respectively.

Among the women, Sophie Harris ran one of her fastest 5km times, clocking 16:36 for fourth female on the night.

Phoebe Anderson kicked off her outdoor season at the prestigious Penn Relays meet in Philadelphia where she produced a PB of 16:10.81 for 5,000m on the track. Only two other females from the club have run faster and this ranks her 15th on the current UK women’s 5,000m list in this year to date and third U23 female.

On Saturday afternoon there were early season track and field open meetings at both Battersea and Coulsdon.

At the Battersea meeting the standout results were Jamil Harris-Blair smashing his 100m PB to clock a rapid 10.68 and U17 Keeran Sriskandarajah just outside his 800m indoor PB with an outdoor best of 1:57.43.

Harris-Blair ran some good 60m indoor times earlier in the year, but this 100m time is a big breakthrough. Sriskandarajah acquitted himself very well in a very competitive 800m race against older athletes including a Great Britain team member from last year’s European Indoor Championship and also ran a PB for 400m with 52.74.

M50 Giuseppe Minetti ran a season’s best 100m with 12.05 and clocked 24.59 for 200m, while David Aisa Miller won a mile race in a PB 5:05.75 as a clutch of athletes recorded PBs at both meetings. Isaac Ogunlade continued his strong start to the season placing second in a 400m hurdles race at Coulsdon (54.72). Herne Hill event winners at this venue were U15 Joseph Jonson-Cole (100m, 11.88), U13 Florence Mills (800m, 2:29.56) and U13 Jasmine Nkoso (shot put, 7.90m).

Some Herne Hill athletes raced at the BUCS British Students track and field championship in Chelmsford.

Annabel Hobday ran very well in her 800m heat and semi-final to qualify for the final at a meeting which featured a handful of Olympians across the events. Hobday had a superb semi final win in a PB of 2:13.48 on Sunday, but was unable to replicate this in the final, where she finished eighth in 2:16.70.

Katie Balme ran a PB of 7:24.32 in her 2,000m steeplechase heat on Saturday but found things tough in her final, placing 11th in 7:37.35.

Zoe Tompkins and Ella Newton both reached the semi-finals in the 800m and 1,500m respectively, Newton’s event featured two Olympic athletes. Tompkins was third in her heat in 2:16.59 and then sixth in the same semi as Hobday, with Tompkins clocking 2:17.01. Newton ran 4:52.94 for 11th in her semi-final after qualifiying from her heat with 4:56.55.

Mike Cummings ran very well to finish fifth overall and first M35 at the Vitality Westminster Mile on Sunday.

Tim Kerr and Deron Fagan were 51st and 53rd in 5:14 and 5:17 respectively, with Fagan placing ninth M45.

It was followed at the same venue on Monday by the Vitality London 10,000. Lewis Laylee (31.10) and Andrew Warburton (31.17) both recorded big PBs, the latter for the second time in four days.

Eric Dol had spent the weekend in Holland racing multiple road relay legs for a student team, but was able to clock 35:30 on very tired legs.

The next fastest Harrier was Gaby Reynolds. She ran 38:36 just weeks after giving birth to her second child and was second W40 overall on the day.

Jenny Nandi was frustrated that her watch suggested sub-40 minutes when her official time was 40:10, but this was nevertheless a big PB for her.