Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Roberts continues to impress in debut road racing season
Morgan Roberts has already made a few waves in little more than a year of road racing, writes Geoff Jerwood.
On a weekend when the National Cross Country Championships were postponed, Roberts produced the most prominent domestic performance from a Herne Hill Harriers athlete, at the Wokingham Half Marathon on Sunday morning.
The 26-year-old’s latest top club level result was to finish sixth in a good field with a PB of 67:39. This revised his previous fastest for the distance by 86 seconds.
Other PB runs at this event came from James Nutt (24th in 70:54), Oliver Walker (32nd in 71:27) and Leonie Biemolt (21st female overall and seventh W40) with her time of 82:05.
More half marathon PBs were set by Harriers athletes at the Brighton Half Marathon – Jack Dickenson (78:41), Jamie Brown (81:09), Grace Leyland (sixth female in 81:14) and Jenny Nandi (seventh female 81:49).
Phoebe Anderson continued her purple patch on the collegiate indoor track circuit in America. She strode imperiously to victory at the Ivy League Championship in the women’s 5,000m. Although there was no club record this weekend, her winning time of 15:41.31 at Princeton was a championship record.
The London Winter Run 10km saw good runs from Ryan Willmott (33:28), M50 Ben Paviour (33:33), U20 Alex Jack (33:44) and Tom Irish (35:56).
Rowen Hughes was eighth female overall in a field of thousands in 36:45, followed by Jack Morris (38:32), U15 Sophie Jack (38:36), Charlotte Davies (38:55), Matthew Bright (39:04), Holly Govey (39:05), Milli Simcock-Brown (40:13), Hannah Edwards (41:26) and M45 Ian Jack (41:48).
Simon Coombes won the 1,500m (4:19) at the masters indoor inter area challenge at Lee Valley and was second in the 800m in 2.12. He rounded of his day with a leg in the relay – good preparation for the European Masters Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland next month.
The first four finishers at the Cannock Chase parkrun were all Harriers – Fabien Whitelock (17:11), Caspian Holmes (17:27), Sam Maloney (17:30) and Leau Roch (17:49).