Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Grgec sets new club record for women’s 10,000m

Georgie Grgec set a new Herne Hill Harriers’ women’s 10,000m club record on Saturday, writes Geoff Jerwood.

She was competing at Highgate Harriers’ Night of the 10,000m PBs meeting at Parliament Hill which incorporated British Championship trials for the World Championship and a series of supporting races for very good quality club athletes.

While the main races enjoyed near perfect racing conditions in the evening, those who raced during the afternoon had some warm weather to add to the challenge of racing 25 laps of a track.

Grgec won the women’s B event and would not have been out of place in the main championship race later on.

She followed a plan to aim to race rather than worry too much about lap times and ran in a small group with the pacemaker, who stepped off the track around halfway.

With the race down to just two contenders in the final 3,000m, Grgec stayed with the leader until the closing stages, refusing to yield at times when a gap almost started to develop. She then ran a superbly executed final lap, hitting the front in the last 200m for what was her biggest win so far.

The official time was 33:59.40, beating a long standing Herne Hill mark by more than a minute.

Jeff Cunningham was the fastest Harrier at the meeting. He ran smart in the first race, clocking a track PB of 33:46.62, to finish 14th of 22 in the attritional afternoon heat.

There were breakthrough PBs for two of Herne Hill’s U23 athletes at Birmingham University at the first of this season’s BMC Grand Prix meetings.

Arlo Ludewick was second in the men’s B 1,500m in 3:45.48, his first time under 3:50, while Annabel Hobday was fourth in the women’s C 800m race in 2:12.45 to improve her PB by just over a second.

M45s Raj Paranandi and John Kettle both represented an England Masters team at the Chester Half Marathon after earning selection earlier this year.

Paranandi placed 12th overall and was second in his age category with a PB of 73:07. Kettle was 31st overall and seventh M45 in 75:42.

Herne Hill claimed 32 medals at the Surrey County Track and Field Championship at Kingsmeadow over the weekend with 11 gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze.

An athlete who picked up one of each colour was U15 Ella Rennie, who won the 100m, placed second in the 200m and third in the long jump.

Jasmine Nkoso won the U13 girls javelin and was second in the long jump. U20 Niyah Costley won both the 100m and long jump, with Makarios Mensah claiming gold in the U20 women’s triple jump. Lily-Rose Brown made a strong comeback from injury to win the U15 girls 300m, while Rosalie Laban was second over the same distance in the U17 women’s event.

Sheriff Silly took the gold medal in the U15 boys long jump and Luca Anderson was second in the 100m and third over 200m in the same age group.

Dante Clarke and Alexander Abebrese were winners in the U17 long jump and shot respectively. Clarke was also second in the 100m hurdles.

Keeran Sriskandarajah was second in both the 800m and 400m hurdles in this age group. Victoria Alicante-King was a clear winner of the U17 women’s shot.

Caspian Holmes enjoyed an emphatic win in the U13 boys 1,500m. Freddy Ricketts was second in the U13 boys 200m. Lucas Heath and Solomon Thompson-Moodley were both second in their high jump events, U13 and U15 respectively. Freddie Hake placed second in the U15 boys 300m.

Mike Cummings (1,500m silver in 4:04.95) and Joe Fenwick (5,000m bronze in 16:13.05) claimed medals at the Hampshire championships in Portsmouth.

Gaby Reynolds placed second female overall and first W40 in 38:20 at the Sutton Runners 10km road race, with husband Bryn Reynolds only just ahead of her in the same time.

Julia Wedmore was fourth female with 39:00 and George Melville was 11th in 35:05.