Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Katie Snowden enjoys strong results in attempt to end season on a high

Herne Hill Harriers’ British international middle-distance star Katie Snowden enjoyed a very busy and successful 12 days on tracks in four different countries in Europe as she seeks to overcome the disappointment of not being in the team for this year’s Paris Olympic Games.

Having run a season’s best and her second fastest ever 800m time of 1:58.75 when placing third in Szczecin, Poland in the previous week, she then moved to Rovereto in Italy to race on Tuesday. Here she finished a close second with a PB by seven seconds and a new Harriers club women’s 3,000m record with 8:40.95. This is the fastest outdoor 3,000m time by a Great Britain female athlete in 2024.

Two days later on Thursday Snowden could be seen on BBC TV as she paced the early laps of a women’s 5,000m world record attempt at the Zurich Diamond League meet. Finally she then followed this up on Sunday evening in Zagreb, Croatia with her third podium place in the three completed races in quick succession. This time the race distance was 1,500m where she was again second across the line. Her 3:59.39 was the fifth sub-four minutes tine of her career to date in 1,500m racing and her strong ending to a difficult season is not quite finished as yet.

Up in Newcastle on Sunday nine Herne Hill athletes completed the Great North Run, a half marathon event also screened by the BBC. Rowen Hughes could be seen on TV on the elite women’s start line, but the standout run came from Alex Jack. His fast 73:52 placed him fourth overall among all U20 men in the race.

Hughes was disappointed with her 84:15, having experienced some sickness during her race. The other Harriers to finish were Alex’s father Ian Jack 1:29:21, Simon Evans 1:34:23, Richard Stansfield 1:41.04, Tom Armstrong 1:44:50, George Howell 1:51:52, Catherine Moore 1:58:56, and Martin Wheeler 2:28.47.

The Jack family enjoyed a very good weekend in the north as younger sister Sophie was an excellent winner of the U17 women’s junior mini GNR race on Saturday with medals and a trophy presented by GB international distance runner Chris Thompson.

Friday evening saw the second running of a very innovative event, the Podium Underground meet where some top athletes competed around a go-kart track near Canary Wharf with the winners picking up good prize money.

Maybe not one for the purists, but an exciting racing format and venue which was enjoyed by Sophie Tooley and Ryan Willmott. Tooley placed 13th in the women’s final in 6:47 for around 2km after being sixth in her semi-final in 6:48. Willmott won his heat with 6:18 and then ran 6:33 for 15th in his semi-final.