Harriers compete in Division One

Whilst most of the Wells Harriers were either competing or assisting at the newly reinstated Wells Fun Run a small squad of the competitive juniors together with coaches went to the second fixture in the season’s 4 match South West Track & Field Athletics League. The Harriers helped to bolster their partner Club, Yeovil Olympiads, in the top Division One Fixture at Exeter Arena. The combined team had finished 3rd, out of 8, in the first fixture last month behind strong teams from Cornwall and Poole.

The first Harrier to compete was Maizie Phillips who broke off her holiday to compete in the U’13 Girl’s Long Jump and managed to go out to a very competitive 3.94m in her debut in the League. In the U’13 Boys Glastonbury’s Callum Batten and Louis Curtis were busy all afternoon. Callum’s best performance was in the 75m Hurdles with a 4th place in a time of 16.8. He also achieved a nippy 35.3 in the 200m, a personal best (pb) 2.49.9 in the 800m, and helped the team by running the 3rd leg of the 4x100m relay at the end for valuable team points. Meanwhile Louis was equally busy with a 35.2 in the 200m, a pb 2.53.9 in the 800m for 4th place in the B string, and a 15.9 in the 100m, before running first leg in the 4x100m relay.

In the U’15 Boys, there were again pbs for Street’s Joshua Leavey-Gillespie and Chris Wady. Joshua was 3rd in his 100m race with 13.6, and then ran a scintillatingly fast first 400m of his A string 800m race before fading, but still achieved a pb of 2.25.9, some 2 seconds quicker than at the recent Mendip School’s competition 4 days earlier. Then Chris ran a pb in the B string 800m as he also ran from the front but this time finished well clear of the chasing runners to win in 2.23.1, this was despite him running on tired legs from his earlier run in the 200m event for 28.80.

In the Senior category, Club coach Laura Whitehead picked up valuable team points with two 4th places in the 200m and 400m with times of 31.0 and 63.0. The Harrier’s Veterans Team Manager Dickie Wythe made his return to the track after his competition 10 days earlier at the European Masters non-Stadia Championships in Portugal, where amongst other things he helped the England V40 team to a team relay medal. At Exeter, Dickie continued to set a good example for many athletes half of his age with his 16.57.1 in the 5km track event, preceded by his 72.4 in the 400m Hurdles to gain good points for the combined team.