Although it was a very wet day which resulted in a very wet course, several schools still made their way to Parliament Hill Fields, Hampstead Heath to compete in the London Schools cross country championships, many of them hoping to be selected for the London team for the English Schools championships in March.
Herne Hill Harriers dominated the races with many top ten performances. The first race was for the Junior Girls. Alex West finished a fantastic 3rd place in 11:05 and so gained selection for the London Team. Maisie Hillaire and Ashleigh Campbell, for once not competing on the same team, pushed each other, finishing in 6th and 7th place respectively with times of 11:15 and 11:18. Karin Muya and Leila Abandah finished in 23rd and 24th place out of 165 finishers, with the same time of 12:09.
In the Junior Boys' race, James Allan finished an impressive 3rd with a time of 13:24. John Tayleur finished in 15th with a time of 13:55. In the Intermediate Girls' race, Katie Snowden had a fantastic run, taking gold in a time of 11:38. Hannah Edwards also finished well in 4th with a time of 11:58. Aisha Naibe-Way finished 10th in a time of 13:15 and Jessica Quartey-Piggott finished 15th with a time of 13:32. Tamsin Cornelius finished in 18th in 14:05 and Mathilda Lewis finished 21st in 14:31.
In the Intermediate Boys' race, Lewis Lloyd and Sam Woods ran extremely well, finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively with times of 18:40 and 19:57. I was running in the Senior Girls' race and finished 2nd in a time of 13:46.
All the Herne Hill Harrier athletes displayed their experience and were not deterred by the weather conditions, running some excellent races. Overall, it was a very successful day, with seven athletes receiving definite places to run in the English Schools championships and a few are being strongly considered for selection.
Julia Wedmore
It was a dry but extremely windy day as four Herne Hill Harriers made their way to Biggleswade, Bedfordshire a few days later to compete in the South of England Inter Counties cross country championships in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, representing Surrey. Luckily the course was very dry but it was cold and windy.
However, this did not stop every Herne Hill athlete coming home with a medal. In the U15 girls' race, Katie Snowden had an excellent race; she finished 4th with a time of 15:16 and her team won the gold medal. Next was Lewis Lloyd, who finished a fantastic 2nd in the U15 boys' race with a time of 13:40. He also picked up a team gold as well as his individual silver.
The pressure was now really on for Hannah Edwards and me in the U17 girls' race, but I was more confident I would be able to do well having seen the performances of my fellow Herne Hill Harriers. Hannah and I both had good races; she finished a fantastic 5th in a time of 18:25 and I came in 9th in 19:23, so we both contributed to the gold medals that the Surrey team won. Not only had we all done really well, coming away with a gold medal each, we were also all automatically selected for the National Inter Counties Cross Country Championships in Nottingham later this season as we were all one of the top five Surrey finishers on the day.
Julia Wedmore
