Heron swoops for Peterborough AC and Fell finishes as top veteran

On the individual front Simon Fell produced another impressive run to secure the men’s masters overall league title while Ben Heron came through to win the senior men’s race on the day.

Fell has been in superb form of late and led the men’s over 40 competition going into the final fixture at Wollaton Park. His run put the result beyond any doubt as he came home in 28th place overall in a strong line-up.

Heron showed both huge fitness and tactical awareness to win the men’s race. With the early leader Cameron Smith of Notts AC stringing the race out, Heron worked his way into the mix on the second lap with the familiar figure of Nene Valley Harriers’ talented Alex Hampson also looking to make an impression.

With a mile to go Heron hit the front and drove the pace on with Hampson and Smith battling hard to get on terms. But the gap was widening and the PAC man had a five second second margin by the finish.

Heron was backed up by Shaun Walton (11th), Fell (28th), Kirk Brawn (34th), Phil Martin (51st), Nathan Popple (58th), Ollie Mason (98th), debutant Kieran Williams (199th) and Ricky Bellett (226th).

Heron said: “It was an exciting, honest race. All the PAC lot supported each other really well. Alex Hampson pushed me hard. He was second going into the last lap. I knew he would give chase which was a blessed curse and he pushed me hard to press on. I took the lead with a mile to go and thankfully did enough to hold on until the end.”

Heron was delighted to have won only his second comeback race after injury.

He added: ”I’m really pleased with my progress and that’s due to the fantastic coaching by Andy Barber and everyone in the Peterborough AC training group.”

Peterborough’s women finished the league with a battling performance. Despite having a high number of athletes unavailable, the depth of the squad was on show with the club still able to close out the team inside the top 100.

It was ever-present Sarah Caskey who led them in with a 24th place finish in a tough field and she was this time backed up by Louise Morgan (75th) and Verity Carrick (92nd) with a performance that carried the Peterborough team to sixth place overall in the league. Caskey clinched fourth place overall in the final individual senior women’s standings.

In the under 11 girls race the trio of Lola Gaches (8th), Faith Perkins (21st) and Ffion Perkins (31st) saw out the season to take PAC to fourth place on the day and third position in the league.

SOUTHERN INDOORS

Brothers Max and Cody Roe represented Peterborough Athletic Club at the Southern Indoor Championships on Saturday with younger brother Max taking the bronze medal in the under 15 boys 60m hurdles with a new personal best (PB) of 9.11.

Max, who has just moved up into the under 15 age group after finishing third in the UK outdoor under 13 rankings last year, also finished fifth in his heat of the 60m.

Brother Cody finished sixth in the heats of both the under 17 60m and 60m hurdles, setting PBs of 7.72 and 9.44.