Hercules Wimbledon take title over Tonbridge in Southern Counties Vets Athletics League Finals
HERCULES WIMBLEDON
It’s been a busy couple of weekends for Hercules Wimbledon’s half-marathon men, writes George Mallett.
Competing at the Big Half this weekend Alex Milne ran strongly despite humidity reaching 90 per cent to finish 15th in 68:28.
Milne competed admirably to finish in the top 15 of a field that hosts 18,000 runners from across the UK.
Five Hercules runners spent a weekend in Northern Ireland, hosted by club stalwart Finn Johnson, who is now based in the country, finding time to compete in the Antrim Coast Half Marathon.
Conditions in Larne were anything but summery with temperatures of 12 degrees and constant rain and wind. Despite that Hercules knocked up some decent performances.
George Mallett, training for the Yorkshire marathon in October, finished in 69:04, good enough for 39th on the day.
Despite improving his PB by 38 seconds, he has stayed 16th on the club’s all-time list.
A quartet of Charlie Wyllie, Oli Carrington, James Stockings and Archie Walton all went into the race a little unsure of the pace to head out at. They chose to set out at the same 72:30 pace in Larne, intending to run as a pack and potentially fragment towards the end.
But the quartet felt so good, and enjoyed the experience so much, that they ended running the whole race together, holding hands as they crossed the line. Carrington, Stockings, Wyllie all finished on 71:51 with Walton’s chip cruelly being clocked one second slower. They occupied positions 60-63.
Wyllie and Walton’s runs see them enter at 35 and 36 on the all-time club list with Stockings (11th) and Carrington (23rd) already having clocked better marks.
Johnson, returning from lyme disease that saw him unable to run for four weeks, rebounded gamely to gut out a 79:56 clocking for 188th out of the 5,000 or so entries.
In the Southern Counties Vets Athletics League Finals, held at Horspath, Oxford on Saturday, Hercules edged out Tonbridge by less than a point to take the title. A score of 268 proved enough to beat their Kent rivals by 0.5 points.
Particular mention should go to Teresa Bowden, who scored the second most apoints of any athlete (41) on the day with Mark Andrews (35), Anna Garnier (23), Alison Purnell (22) and David Orchard (22) also proving heavy hitters.
Bowden won the high jump and was second in the shot put, javelin, pole vault and long jump in her W45 age category, with further podiums in the discus and hammer too.
PICTURE: DAVID ORCHARD