Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Bester sets new PB in London Marathon

By Geoff Jerwood

The first man home wearing Herne Hill Harriers’ red-and-black at the London Marathon was Nick Bester, who ran a PB of 2:35:17 that placed him 72nd. 

Richard Henderson clocked 2:35:37, an improvement of 52 minutes and a fine PB.

The leading Herne Hill lady was England half-marathon international Stacey Ward on her debut at the full marathon distance. 

Ward – who suffered two bouts of flu during her training – placed in the top dozen from the women’s non-elite start (2:55:38) and was crowned as Harriers women’s marathon champion for this year. 

The next Herne Hill man after Henderson was Matt Robertson (2:41:53).

After that came Andrew Perfect (2:46:49), Carl Delaney (2:46:54), Tom Dover (2:47:37), Jonathan Ratcliffe (2:50:35) and Tony Macdowall (2:54:55).

Herne Hill’s youngster competed in the mini-marathon and Phoebe Bowen was 10th in the under-13 girls, with Liv Stillman 14th of the under-17 women. Christo Chilton came 22nd in the under-13 boys. 

In the London Borough Challenge – held in conjunction with the national races – Chilton, Stillman and Bowen were second, third and fourth respectively in their race categories.

Photo: Stacey Ward