Herne Hill Harriers and coach James Macdonald will be celebrating, as we are, news of Katie Snowden’s outstanding success in athletics in the England Indoor Championships a week ago in Birmingham. At 15, Katie is still very young to have achieved such results in the U17 women’s races, getting a silver medal and setting a new personal best of 40.2 seconds in the women’s 300m race on Saturday, and taking gold in the U17 women’s 800m race on Sunday.

Katie’s parents are getting used to the motorways too, with athletics and cross country competitions all over the UK. Katie has two weekends of cross country events coming up: the Inter-Counties event in Birmingham on 13 March and the English Schools’ Championships in Manchester on 20 March. It would be easy to speculate on a glittering future, but Katie takes it all in her stride. She loves running; she’s exceptionally good for her age, and it’s just part of her life, with GCSE work and her friends still top of the list!