Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Grgec records fastest women’s long leg at National 12-Stage Road Relays Championships

Herne Hill Harriers’ men finished 19th at the the National 12-Stage Road Relay Championships at Sutton Coldfield on Saturday, writes Geoff Jerwood.

It was one of their best-ever performances on this stage in Sutton Park. The women’s team placed 11th.

The biggest success was individually as Georgie Grgec come home first on a strong leg one, a long stage of 5.34 miles. Grgec beat British marathon international Lily Partridge by 10 seconds to record the fastest women’s long leg of the day (28:34).

Her national gold medal-winning performance was also the fifth best female time around this version of the course.

Harriers women raised eyebrows in the first half of the race as Lily Newton (18:54) and Charlotte Davies (18:58) combined on the next two short stages of 3.16 miles to see the team hold second place at the halfway stage.

Sarah Grover, a last-minute switch from a short stage to a long one (sixth in 33:00) and late replacements Charlotte Kenyon (20:58) and Megan Gildea (19:47) on the final short stages fought superbly.

Lewis Laylee got off to a good start for the men in 25th (26:54). Mike Cummings clocked Herne Hill’s fastest short stage (15:55) to hand over to Andrew Clarke (27:43) in 24th, a position he held onto.

Matt Cartwright (16:12) moved up to 22nd and Morgan Roberts (27:32) to 21st. Fifty-year-old Simon Coombes (16:47) ensured 21st at halfway followed by Daniel Shaw (28:13) in 22nd and Joe Elliott (16:39) 23rd.

Sam Bramwell (26:58) ran a strong ninth leg to move into the top 20 for the first time, coming home in 19th. M40 Jeff Cunningham (16:47) moved up to 18th on leg 10. Ollie Mills (27:59) maintained this on the penultimate stage. Ross Brown (17:06) shrugged off a week of sickness to finish an excellent job for the team in 19th place of 57 complete teams of 12.

Gaby Reynolds, 41, finished fourth female overall and first W40 with a huge PB time of 2:41.21 at the Manchester Marathon. This exceptional run places her second on the Herne Hill all-time women’s marathon list and is comfortably a club W40 record.

Mum-of-two Reynolds has juggled the demands of motherhood and a busy lifestyle to put in the hard training that made such a fine performance possible. Her time sees her second in the British W40 rankings for 2023 so far.

Other Harriers to finish in Manchester were Craig Duncan (2:58.45), Andrew Dumbrell (3:00.29), Julian Bentham (3:17.19), Mark Preskett (3:17.23), Pedro Henrique Pinto (3:20.05), Ian Jack (3:24.10), Simon Evans (3:40.08), Billy Herklots (3:46.15) and Alison Beck (4:22.22).

Great Britain international sprinter Kristal Awuah clocked 11.68 for 100m at the Hurricane Alumni Invitational in Florida a week after her 11.53 at the Pepsi Florida Relays saw her at the top of the early season UK women’s rankings.

Phoebe Anderson ran a rare 800m (2:10.06) for a very under distance outing that demonstrates good shorter distance speed at the Larry Ellis Invitational meet at Princeton, New Jersey.

Arlo Ludewick returned from injury to open his season with a quick 1,500m in 3:44.02 at the Mount Sac Relays in Walnut, California. It’s a time he has so far only bettered on two previous occasions last year.

Isaac Ogunlade – one of Herne Hill’s most consistent and best team points scorers in track and field league matches last year – made a strong opening to his outdoor season with a sub-50 seconds 400m at Lee Valley with a good 49.91.

More strong performances for Harriers’ younger middle-distance women have come from U23 Alexandra Brown, who made time to squeeze in a PB 1,500m race into her revision schedule for her final degree exams at Oxford University as she ran a very good 4:23.36 on a wet and windy evening at a Watford open meeting.

New U17 member Eliza Nicholson clocked an equally good 10:00.63 for a 3,000m PB at the Tonbridge open meeting on Easter Monday, also in unfavourable weather.

Finally, two younger sprinters recorded good early season 100m times at the same Be Fit Today Track Academy Outdoor Series meet at Lee Valley as Ogunlade as U23 athletes Andris Thorpe stopped the clock at 11.24 and Judah Wallace ran 11.44 as the track and field season gets under way.