Herne Hill Harriers’ round-up: Anderson and Snowden in Stateside action
Two of Herne Hill Harriers’ leading middle-distance athletes were at opposite ends of their seasons in the last week and both were in racing action across the pond in the USA, writes Geoff Jerwood.
Former Great Britain junior cross country international Phoebe Anderson began her new NCAA season racing with Columbia NY University on Friday with a very strong opener.
Anderson placed fourth in a high- quality field at the Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, Wisconsin.
Anderson was the highest-placed among a handful of top British U23 women and this performance bodes very well for her latest campaign racing on the USA collegiate cross country circuit.
The night before that Katie Snowden ran her final track race of what became a long season in New York.
Her race distance was 1,500m and the event was the amazingly innovative Athlos female-only meet for athletes at the very top world level.
The Balham athlete was sixth in a tactical race in 4:07.57, only three seconds behind the winner, world-record holder and three times Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya.
This was a ground-breaking event organised by Serena Williams’ husband and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanion to promote women’s sport both in the USA and globally.
It offered a unique opportunity for Snowden to round off her summer in big style.
There were some excellent road race performances from club members on Sunday morning. These included a couple of great breakthrough runs from Rowen Hughes at the Ealing Half Marathon and Max Rose at the Berlin Marathon.
Hughes finished third female in Ealing as she recorded her first sub 80 minutes half marathon. Her 79:45 was a PB by around two minutes and underlines her recent good form.
Rose led a handful of Harriers who made the trip to race in Berlin and his 2:29.05 was a PB by around eight minutes.
His fine run took him into the sub-2:30 territory that his training has been aimed towards.
Others representing Herne Hill in Berlin included Ben Warren with a PB of 2:38.21.
The women in red-and-black were led home by Laura Donnelly (3:04.28) and Sasha Dzeban (3:21.26).
Saturday afternoon saw the start of the domestic cross country season with the low-key East Surrey League races in Lloyd Park, Croydon.
The leading Harriers finishers were Florence Mills fifth U15 girl, Isabel Carter sixth U13 girl, Leau Roch sixth U15 boy and Zack Morris eighth U15 boy.
The Herne Hill boys young athletes team placed third on the day and the girls were fourth team.