Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Anderson breaks her own club 5,000m record

Herne Hill Harriers athletes produced some superb performances over the weekend, writes Geoff Jerwood.

There was a big result on Saturday with a Harriers’ club senior women’s record for Phoebe Anderson, racing indoors at the JDL Last Chance Invitational meet in North Carolina.

Anderson followed up her sub nine-minutes 3,000m the previous weekend with a new 5,000m PB as she improved her own club best time by a few seconds (15:33.96).

The weekend kicked off last Friday evening in Battersea Park with the Podium Under the Lights 5km road races which yet again delivered PB times for many athletes.

Of the 10 Herne Hill finishers on the night, nine achieved PBs while 51-year-old Simon Coombes ran 16:01, a time that tops the UK M50 5km list for 2024.

Sam Bramwell bounced back from not finishing at West Horsley a week earlier to place a very close fourth in the high quality elite men’s race with an exceptional time of 14:04.

Bramwell smashed his best by almost half a minute and was also more than 20 seconds quicker than his fastest track 5,000m.

This is one of the fastest road 5km times recorded by a Herne Hill athlete, with possibly only 1986 Commonwealth Games 10,000m champion Jon Solly being quicker if any of his best times were during his competitive membership of the club.

Leonie Biemolt was first W40. Her PB of 17:39 sees her joint top of the 2024 UK W40 list. Close behind her in the elite women’s race was Liv Stillman (17:47).

In the other men’s 5km races at Battersea there was a string of fast times. Daniel Shaw ran a PB by 14 seconds of 14:42, Morgan Roberts took 10 seconds off his PB (14:46) and Tom O’Mahoney was around a minute faster than his PB with 15:09. More PBs were run by Andrew Clarke (15:11), Ronan Tanguy (15:21) and Ollie Mills (15:35).

Nikki Sturzaker won W50 gold medals in the 800m with 2:27.24 and 1,500m with 5:01.84 at the BMAF indoor track and field championships at Lee Valley.

Both of these marks saw her go top of the UK W50 charts.

Allan Long picked up three gold medals over the weekend in the oldest age group – M80. He won the 60m in 9.58, the 200m in 33.09 and the triple jump gold 7.76m.

Byron Robinson was the M35 200m gold medalist in 22.81 and won a 60m silver medal (7.16). Peter Phillips was sixth in the same M35 60m final in 7.46.

Husband and wife Mike and Penelope Cummings won national medals. Mike won the M35 1,500m gold in 4:05.74 and Penelope the W45 silver in the 3,000m race (18:38.43).