Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Another club pentathlon record set by Jasmine Nkoso

The domestic outdoor track and field season kicked off last weekend with another Herne Hill Harriers club U15 girls’ pentathlon record set by Jasmine Nkoso on Saturday at the Hercules Wimbledon multi-events open meeting, writes Geoff Jerwood.

Indoor England Schools international representative Nkoso had set the club indoor record during the winter season with slightly different events and here she notched up four PBs in her five events.

Her five event performances were 12.01 in the 75m hurdles, 1.58m in the high jump, 5.31m in the long jump, 12.14m in the shot and 2:42.25 in the 800m. Her total points score of 3,237 is a new PB and takes her to the top of the early season UK rankings for her age group in this event.

The Friday Night Under the Lights team delivered their first 10km road race around their Battersea Park loop on an evening that saw a good number of red-and -black vests among those racing.

The results included some PB times albeit the first Harriers finisher – Andrew Warburton – was seconds outside his lifetime best with a strong 31:24.

He was followed by PB runs from Jack Brotchie (32:22) and George Withers (32:43). Brandon Dewar (32:53) and Joe Elliott (33:41).

Alex Lee’s 34:30 was another PB, Stephen McLeod ran 35:13 and Jamie Brown smashed his best with 36:01. M55 athlete Jonathan Ratcliffe ran 36:30, yet another time which belies his age.

The three female finishers from the club all ran well. Grace Leyland recorded a rapid debut at this distance (36:52), chased home by Jenny Nandi in 37:21. Megan Gildea’s time of 38:18 was a PB by more than a minute.

There were Herne Hill athletes at the Manchester Marathon on Sunday morning with Ross Brown clocking 2:44.00, Oliver Marriott PB 2:47.30, Matthew Bright a marathon debut time of 2:54.22, M60 Tom Conlon 4:07.52 and M55 Simon Evans 4:20.42.

A couple of USA college club members ran fast 1,500m times over the weekend.

Herne Hill club senior women’s 5,000m record holder Phoebe  Anderson’s 4:20.13 was good for third place at the Princeton Invitational meet and Annabel Hobday ran 4:27.21 at the Bryan Clay Invitational.

It is a measure of the quality of the female middle-distance athletes at the club that neither were overly happy with these times or their race execution when only a few years ago either performance would have been a club record or thereabouts.