HIGHGATE CONTINUE THEIR BRILLIANT YEAR ON THE ROAD AND COUNTRY
13-May-2012 Alastair Aitken
HIGHGATE HARRIERS VETERANS won the British 'National' Masters Road relay at Sutton Park, near Birmingham on Saturday..
Their race was for '35 to 45 year old's' over eight stages and the team, in order of running, were Chris Bailey, Alex Davidson, Richard Scott, Duncan Burbidge, Chris Beecham, Henry Dodwell, Ben Pochee and Ben Noad.
Highgate Harriers beat last year's Champions from Glasgow. And of the many clubs that ran in the event the 2nd fastest Leg was done by last year's Southern Veterans cross-country Champion Ben Pochee, who ran 14.56 for his stage and the third fastest was by Ben Noad who ran 14.59.
More Results from the British Masters Relays
GREAT RUNNING BY FINBARR RICKETS IN COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIPS
13-May-2012 Alastair Aitken
Finbarr Ricketts ran to a personal best time of 50.40 to come 2nd in the Final of the 400m in the Middlesex Championships behind Lloyd King of TVH, who did 49.43. Ricketts was 2nd in his heat to qualify for the Final in 50.90. Ricketts only started training seriously for his new event a couple of week's ago and ran over 53 seconds when winning his new event in the London Inter Club Challenge race a couple of week's ago. He was basically a 100/200 runner till then, except for 4x400 relays.
Justin Duru did well to make the Final of the 200m in a county which has plenty of sprinters. he was 6th in 22.7.
It was good to see Ron Smith back from injury as he came seventh in Heat 3 of the 100m in 12.02 and declared he would be able to run at the next fixture of Highgate Harriers on Saturday (19/5) in the Southern Athletics League at Battersea. Besides the 400 Justin Duru had run before that in the 100 Heat one and came 5th of 8 in 11.17.
SCOTT OUTSTANDING IN THE LONDON MARATHON
24-Apr-2012 Alastair Aitken
Highgate Men were 2nd team in the LONDON MARATHON with six finishing well inside 3 hours.
RICHARD SCOTT finished in 2:24:42, going through the half marathon in the fast time of 1hour 10minutes and 7 seconds and was 38th of the 38,000 plus field. The other runners inside the magic mark of 3 hours, which is a very good club time, were Stephen Whiting the second runner in the London Over 45 in 2:37:38 and he was closely followed by David Bruce who did 2:37:39; Guillaume Cribier 2:41:59; Dan Higgins 2:45:44; and KATE MEREDITH who ran 2:57:54, going through the half marathon in 1:26:15. Other Highgate runners included Damian Shirley 3:04:05; Kevin Linehan 3:10:26; ELINOR WINTER 3:20:41; Stephen Meredith 3:28:54; ANNA McCUTCHEON 3:50:17; Thomaso Mancuso 3:50:18; Alex Edwards 3:59:10; Roger Low, who has done every single London marathon since it started in 1981-His time 4:07:33 . He is now in the 65-69 bracket!; and KIRAT NANDRA, in her 10th London did 4:47:16, after injury and for Charity too.
Terry Fawden, was 14th and 2nd of All the London Boroughs in the 3 miles London Mini Marathon
His time was 17:21.
HIGHGATE'S FIRST ENTRY INTO A NEW TRACK AND FIELD LEAGUE
23-Apr-2012 Alastair Aitken
It was decided that in 2012 Highgate Harriers would leave the Men's Southern league Division 1 and the Women would leave Southern League Division 2 North' and enter another league called SAL-- The Southern Athletics League and as it was the first meeting on SATURDAY they had been put in Southern Division 2 Central. It will be a joint fixture where the Men and Women compete for accumulated points all season. The reason for that is 'A' for just needing 'Officials' for one fixture, as it is hard enough to get officials for two fixtures and 'B' The Club not having to spend a lot of money to enter two fixtures running to-gether. All that solves the two major problems.
However, although Highgate are likely to improve as they get used to the new situation, they were fourth of the five clubs that competed on Saturday at Hemel Hempstead. Things were not helped by being the day before the London Marathon. They only had six women competitors (Two Double vctories Hannah Viner & Georgia Doolan in the 800/ Harry Ashman/Greg Winfield in the 400) and they had only 'One' of the top 30 middle distance men in the club. Another factor was 20 events with either 'A' or 'B' points were not covered at all.
Dacorum & Tring were the top club with 214 points and Highgate Harriers were fourth with 128.5 points.The interesting thing there was, the hammer throw was won by Paul Dickinson of Dacorum & Tring with 38'49. Dickinson is a well known BBC athletics commentator, Current British Vets Champion in 1980 the UK Champion and also the UK record holder in 1976.
Highgate's, Ryan Mckinlay, was the 'Star' of the whole meeting.His tally was 1st in the 400m hurdles 'A'; 3rd in the 'A' 800m; 3rd in the 'B' pole vaullt with a personal best of 2.20m, 1st in the 1500m 'A', then after winning the 5000m 'A' in 15:20, he went straight to the next event on the track the 2000m steeplechase and won the 'A'.
More Results from the SAL
