Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Katie Snowden sets new course record at Vitality Westminster Mile

Herne Hill Harriers’ international middle-distance star Katie Snowden has kept her summer season going well into September and put in another performance of the highest level to claim the spoils at the Vitality Westminster Mile on Saturday, writes Geoff Jerwood.

Racing on the roads in her home city, the 30-year-old was first female by an enormous margin in the showpiece British Milers Club race.

The clock showed 4:23 as she breasted the tape, with her chip time of 4:22 setting a big new women’s course record in an event which has been contested in past years by other Olympians including Tokyo 1,500m silver medallist Laura Muir.

Snowden’s impressive time is also a world lead for a female for 2024 for any road mile that is certified for record purposes, being a lap course while one or two faster mile races overseas have been run on point to point and/or net downhill routes.

Snowden’s win sets her up for her final track race of the year last night in New York 1500m, an innovative 1,500m female-only meet at the very top world level which had six athletes in the race, which will include world record holder and Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya.

Saturday also saw the South of England Road Relay Championship at Rushmoor Arena, Aldershot, a festival of relays covering all age groups from u13s to over 60.

The younger age groups have teams of three runners, while the senior women and masters teams comprise four and the senior men six.

Although no gold medals were brought home, Herne Hill teams won medals in three of the races.

In the masters races the M50 and and M60 teams both picked up silver medals, while the U15 boys were bronze medallists.

The M50 team of Simon Coombes, Jonathan Ratcliffe, Jon Key and Ben Paviour were lying second after the opening leg, then held third for the next two stages before Paviour moved them back up to second on the podium with the fastest time of the anchor leg.

The M60s were able to call upon formed club president Keith Newton, then Vic Maughn, David Taylor and Graeme Moyse. Newton handed over in fifth, Maughn then moved up to fourth before 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games Marathon fourth-placer Taylor raced through into second on the third leg. Taylor clocked the second quickest M60 time overall, then the team was brought home by Graeme Moyse.

The U15 boys medallists were Leau Roch, eighth on the first stage, then Caspian Holmes gained six places to hand over to final leg runner Tommy Clerkin in second. Clerkin fought well to keep the team in the medals as they crossed the line in third place.

The senior women were only 12 seconds away from the podium as the A team came fourth.

In an unprecedented display of depth in Harriers’ squad the B team placed seventh and if the four fastest from these eight women had been selected in the same team and still replicated their times there would have been a set of silver medals to collect.

All ran superbly as Sophie Tooley led the A team out on first leg to finish 10th with Grace Leyland close behind in 15th. Darcie Hey and Lily Newton both moved forward to fifth and 12th respectively on the second stage. Jenny Nandi maintained fifth place for the A team but behind her W40 Gaby Reynolds charged through to seventh for the B team, her form having been unknown as this was her first race since the birth of her third baby only six months ago.
Lucy Jones battled valiantly on the anchor leg to bring the A team right into medal contention before eventually coming in a close fourth, while not too far behind her Rowen Hughes held seventh for the B team to seal some impressive results, if a little frustrating in the end.

The U17 women placed fifth with Sophie Jack leading off to hand over to Orla Wright in 10th. The latter then moved up to seventh, with Maeve Minielly gaining a couple more positions on the last leg as this team shows some great promise for the cross country season to come.

The senior men had high hopes of a top dozen position and of a B team finishing in the first 30 to qualify for the National Road Relays at Sutton Coldfield next month along with the A team. The A team did qualify, but finished 22nd after a disaster with more than a minute lost at the third handover effectively meant any real chance of a top-20 finish had gone, while the B team came in 35th overall. The latter, as sixth B team did make huge progress from past years and will look to build on this.

The A team in order was Lewis Laylee 29th, Andrew Warburton 23rd, Harry Bell 37th, Brandon Dewar 25th, Morgan Roberts 23rd and Daniel Shaw 22nd. The B team was Oliver Mills 40th, Andrew Clarke 44th, Ronan Tanguy 40th, Ashley Goncalves 41st, Sam Brashaw 36th and Tom O’Mahoney 35th.

A depleted M40 team finished eighth after Jeff Cunningham held a good third at the end of the first stage. M50 Deron Fagan was one of two who stepped in and he kept the team in sixth, before another from an older age group Norman Urquia came home ninth and then Ben Millar moved back up one place to finish eighth.

The U13 girls placed 13th through Marnie Millar 12th, Isobel McLennan 12th and Cataleya Holmes 13th. The U13 boys were 18th with Josiah Aldham 30th, Henry Kucerov 11th and Conor Harrow 18th. The U17 men’s team came 50th thanks to Raphael Lerner 52nd, Jack McLennan 44th and Alfie Bryan 50th.

PICTURE: GRAHAM SMITH