Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Katie Snowden ends memorable season to record second-fastest 1,500m time in Brussels

Herne Hill Harriers’ 2023 World Championship 1,500m finalist Katie Snowden rounded off a big breakthrough season with the last two races of her campaign over the weekend, writes Geoff Jerwood.

The South Londoner, 29, finished an excellent fifth in a star-studded Brussels Wanda Diamond League 1,500m last Friday evening and then flew straight to New York to record a PB for a road mile race on Sunday.

A long, successful summer kicked off with a big 1,500m PB in Los Angeles at the end of May and ended with her ninth place out of 20 top athletes in the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile elite women’s race on Sunday where she clocked 4:24, only three seconds behind the race winner on a wet day.

The Brussels race was a big performance as Snowden recorded the second fastest 1,500m time of her career – 3:58.03.

This result consolidates her position in second among all British females over this distance behind national record holder Laura Muir, who was the race winner in Belgium.

Snowden will now take a short break at the end of a busy year which has seen her place fifth in a European indoor final, eighth in a World Championships final and win the UK women’s 1,500m championship title.

Last month in Budapest she set a new English 1,500m record when running her current PB in a 1,500m semi-final at the World Championships.

Next year will, if all goes to plan, feature the European Championships in Rome in June and then the Olympic Games in Paris in August.

The Surrey Road Relay Championships were held in torrid weather on Saturday in and around Wimbledon Park. Herne Hill claimed county team medals in four categories and also two individual gold medals for fastest individual times overall.

Harriers vets team were clear winners of the W35 team gold medals even though there was nobody under 40 in their quartet. Fifty-year-old Nikki Sturzaker continued her purple patch as she was third fastest of all females on the day and won gold for the fastest time in the W35 relay. Sturzaker led her team which also included W40s Karen Ellison, Annes Stevens and Gaby Reynolds.

The M60 team were also gold medalists with strong runs from Vic Maughn – second fastest M60 overall – along with Tom Conlon and Gary Ironmonger.

Although the senior men’s turnout was low-key, their seventh place team featured an exceptional run on second leg from in-form Sam Bramwell, who claimed a gold as he ran the fastest time of anyone on the day.

The senior women’s A team won silver medals thanks to the collective efforts of Charlotte Davies, Sophie Tooley, Jenny Nandi and Grace Leyland.

The M40 team picked up bronze medals despite three of their four team members being over 55. Fine runs from Norman Urquia, Jonathan Ratcliffe and Muhamud Haile were rounded off with M45 Deron Fagan bringing the team home on the anchor leg.

The senior women’s B team placed sixth overall courtesy of Sophie Gunning, Madelaine Parmar, Megan Gildea and Steph Ainley, while a new member on first leg for the C team raised eyebrows. This was a strong team debut from Annie Dalton, whose first leg time was only just outside the top 10 overall in the senior race and suggests she could be one to watch.

The Stan Allen Miles meet was hosted by Herne Hill at the Tooting Bec track last week. With the aim of providing competition opportunities for all, these races encouraged a good number of people to try track racing for the first time.

The late Miles – both a coach and ex-president of Harriers – would have been very proud, as the fairly new l Tooting Run Club community project provided a staggering 20 per cent of the evening’s participants across the 10 races, including some who are now training with Harriers groups and racing in club events.

TRC held their inaugural club championship here and Herne Hill also incorporated their one mile track championship.

The first three male athletes in red and black were U20 Harry Bell in 4:33.51, U15 Caspian Holmes 4:35.07 and Seve Loudon 4:36.62.

The female club medalists were Cat Witcombe (5:15.09), just ahead of the prolific Nikki Sturzaker (5:15.26) and another U15 Florence Mills (5:19.96).

Sturzaker’s time elevates her to the top of the UK W50 rankings for yet another race distance.