Congratulations to U15 Theo Creed on becoming National Cross Country Champion and leading teammates James Fraser (22nd), Anas Briki (27th) and Dylan Gilbert (47th) to team gold in Sedgefield, County Durham today. Theo was impressive from the start, moving directly to the front of the 300+ field, then gradually winding it up and stretching out his lead to take the win comfortably.

Alex Milne shattered Club Chairman Dave Clarke’s 37 year old Marathon Club record today in Seville over the fast flat course through the beautiful city, clocking 2:11:41 to finish in 30th in a race won in 2:03:59 by Ethiopian Tola Shura Kitata in a dramatic photofinish.

The Club’s young athletes won four medals at the England U15-U20 Indoor Championships in Sheffield over the weekend of 7/8 February.

At the Southern (SEAA) U20 and Senior Championships at Lee Valley on 31 January/1 February there were gold medals for Maia Heward-Mills in the 60m (in a PB of 7.47) and Adam Ofeimun in the 200m in 21.90.

This is the picture we have waited 56 years to see! Having finished in the silver medal position for the last two years the Club’s Senior Men were finally crowned Southern Cross Country Champions yesterday in Beckenham Place Park - the first win since the legends team of 1970 clinched the title. It was a day that started and ended with medals, as the U15 Boys kicked off proceedings with a silver team medal and an individual silver for Theo Creed. Full report to follow.

At the Southern (SEAA) U13-U17 Indoor Championships at Lee Valley over the weekend (10/11 January) Thomas Whorton won the gold medal in the U17M 800m to add to his 1500m gold at the SEAA Indoor Middle Distance Championships on 13 December.

The irrepressible Theo Creed opened his 2026 racing account in emphatic fashion, taking the U15 Boys title at the Surrey Cross Country Championships at Denbies Vineyard on 4 January, and leading his regular team mates, James Fraser, Thomas Hennigan and Max Harrison (in ninth, 10th and 11th), to team gold.

Just three weeks after his eighteenth birthday Pancho Panchev found himself lining up in front of the cameras on the start line of the U20 race at the European Cross Country Championships in Lagoa, Portugal on 14 December. 

U15 Theo Creed added yet another accolade to his remarkable young career when he won the Liverpool Cross Challenge in Sefton Park on 22 November by 11 seconds, covering the (approx) 3Km course in 9:33.

Ruby Carter and Andrew Penney won silver medals in the SEAA London Championships on Parliament Hill on Saturday (8 November). Niamh Thompson in 20th, Claire Grima in 32nd and Rebecca Schofield in 54th brought the women’s team home in an excellent fifth, while Claire’s performance was good enough to win the individual W40 gold.

Between them Lisa Thomas (W60) and Anna Garnier (W70) brought home nine medals from the European Masters Championships in Madeira, contributing to the record-breaking, table-topping Great Britain team which finished with an amazing 132 gold medals, 102 silver medals and 77 bronze medals.

The trio of Theo Creed, Max Harrison and James Fraser added yet another set of gold medals to their collection with a win at the Southern Cross Country Relays at Wormwood Scrubs on 18 October. Representing the increasingly competitive U20 Men’s squad (over the 3km course) Thomas Homes (8:53), Alexander McGuigan (8:27) and Pancho Panchev (8:28) secured the silver medals.

Ruby Carter (U23) made Hercules Wimbledon history on Saturday 11 October as she became the Club’s first Senior Woman to win a race in the hugely competitive Surrey Cross Country League.

The U15 Boys combo of James Fraser, Max Harrison and Theo Creed strike again, taking the bronze medals on a blustery Saturday at the National Road Relay Championships in Sutton Coldfield.

Full report to follow.

The Club turned out in force for the Surrey Cross Country Relays at Nonsuch Park on 27 September, pocketing four team golds, two silvers and a bronze, backed up by a host of excellent performances outside the medals.

The Under-15 Boys combo of James Fraser, Max Harrison and Theo Creed (above) secured the gold medals at the Southern (SEAA) Road Relay Championships at Aldershot on 20 September, taking the title by 11 seconds.

At the Surrey Combined Events and Track Relay Championships (the final County event of the season) on 7/8 September the Club’s young athletes collected handfuls of medals over the two days of relay-racing. On day one there were silver medals for Amelia Barnes, Beatrice Eminson, Lucy Whorton and Freya McAndie , who broke their own Club record in the U15 Girls 4×300m, bringing the baton home in 2:57.11. Patience Namazzi, Sofia Vinni, Ligaya Walters and Benedicta Oporum won the silver medals in the U15 Girls 4 x 100m.

‘Let’s see what I can do,’ was 18-year old Conor Kelly’s parting shot before leaving for the European Under 20 Championships in Tampere, Finland over 8-11 August. What he really meant was only the gold in the 400m would do. After the hurt of settling for bronze at the European U18’s Championships in Slovakia last year, when he had hoped for so much more, winning in Tampere was the single thing on his mind, his whole year of training, physio and working with a dietician, geared to crossing the finishing line first. ‘I couldn’t stop smiling; it was special’ he told the Irish media clamouring for interviews and photos after he was crowned European U20 Champion.

A bashful Anna Garnier surprised herself with a W70 World Masters Record of 6:33.46 in the Dave Clarke Mile Extravaganza on 23 July, sponsored by Lauriston Runners, in the first of fifteen races, which also saw Peter Giles set a new M80 British record, despite running with a hamstring twinge which almost forced him to withdraw.  The meeting also saw serial record-breaker Clare Elms smash her own W60 World Record by over 6 seconds to finish in 5:18.97.

Four Club athletes headed to South Africa on 8 June for the 98th running of the iconic Comrades Marathon, the one they call ‘The Ultimate Human Race’. First staged in 1921, the essence of the race is to unite and connect people 'through a shared celebration of human perseverance and possibility', over approximately 90km between inland Pietermaritzburg and coastal Durban. The race direction alternates each year, with the Up run starting in Durban and the Down run in Pietermaritzburg. 

For 2025 the Surrey Championships in Kingston were split even further – from two parts last year, to three this year – in a further attempt to take in all the events across the age groups without officials being subjected to too long a schedule – such huge numbers of entries has meant that in recent years the event has frequently over-run.

A record number of runners took to the streets for the 2025 London Marathon, as London officially became the biggest marathon in the world with 56,640 finishers crossing the line in this the 45th edition of the event – among them thirty HW athletes including a strong contingent of the usual suspects from the senior road and cross country teams, some experiencing either the distance, or London, for the first time. Despite this being one of the warmest London Marathons on record, eight HW runners  finished in under 2 hours 30 minutes, with four in the top thirty of the Championship wave which led off the mass start. 

The beauty and the beast of the 12-Stage Road Relays is the ever-present sense of jeopardy, think chess in club vests as each team plays out different strategies, alternating, in the case of the Southern Championships, long  (8.6K) and short (5K) legs over 4 hours or so of racing. Who will front-load, who will wait to pounce at the end, and where are the hidden weapons?

Rounding off one of the Club’s most successful Indoor seasons, In the Surrey Indoor Championships at Carshalton over the weekend of 1/2 March, Ryan Facey (below left) took the gold medal in the Senior Men’s 60m, with Monae Winston-Westfield taking the bronze in the women’s event. Jamari Roper also took gold in the U13 Boys 60m, with Angel Gutierrez-Bailey coming home for the bronze. U17 Maia Heward-Mills won gold in the 60m hurdles, and silver in the 60m flat.

At just 17, Conor Kelly took the senior 400m title at the Irish Indoor Championships in Dublin in 46.54. To put that in perspective, his time was quicker than the winning time of 46.70 run by Alex Haydock-Wilson in the UK Indoor Championships, held over the same weekend (22/23 February).

Ankle-deep in mud, the Senior Men finished in eighth in the National Cross Country Championships on Parliament Hill on 22 February, the most iconic venue of them all.  The sight of nearly 2,000 athletes charging up the steep slope at the start of the Men’s race is one of the great moments in sport.‘

Over the weekend of 8/9 February at the England Athletics U15/U17 U20 Indoor Championships in Sheffield the Club’s young sprint stars won two gold medals in less than five minutes.

The Senior Men clinched an historic fifth Surrey Cross Country League title yesterday (8 February) on a bleak and misty Epsom Downs. The U13 Boys also topped their league, as did the U17 Women, while the U13 Girls, U15 Girls, and combined U15 Boys/U17 Men team were second. The Senior Women finished in an excellent eighth in this ultra-competitive league, given injuries have frequently decimated the turnout.

Congratulations to the Senior Men who won the silver medals for the second consecutive year at the Southern Cross Country Championships at Beckenham Place Park – and to the U13 Boys who topped that with team gold, following their bronze in 2024! Full report to follow.

A handful of the Club’s youngsters rang in the New Year with a medal haul in the Southern (SEAA) U13-U17 Indoors Championships in the familiar venue of Lee Valley over the weekend of 11/12 January.