Harriet Lester has not let a fear of the steeplechase put her off helping table-topping Kingston & Polytechnic Harriers to Southern Athletics League promotion.

The 24-year-old Harriers’ ladies team boss leads the squad into Saturday’s Division Three South West title decider against second-placed Hastings, North Devon in third, Bracknell and Hercules Wimbledon at Kingsmeadow.

Lester and brother Gordon – the men’s team manager – have led Kingston back from last term’s disappointing Division Two relegation at the first attempt.

Usual suspects Chris Dack and Pippa Wingate are expected to dominate their respective A string throwing events.

While Will Trimble, who threw a personal best 66.82 metre in the club’s British Athletics League Division Two meeting in Kingston on Saturday, should be a key performer.

Lester wants the title to go with the club’s already assured promotion, and she is prepared to do whatever it takes to get her team over the line for a fifth win from five matches this term.

“It has been a very, very good season. We struggled last year – I’m not going to lie – but this year we have really pulled it out of the bag,” said the Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust radiographer.

“I’ve been at Kingston for nearly 15 years now and it would be great to win the league this year.

“I used to do a lot of hurdling until university and full time work meant I couldn’t do as much training. Now I just plug the gaps when we are short of athletes.

“I end up doing the distance events that nobody else wants to do and I seem to be doing the steeplechase most. It seems to bring in quite a lot of points.

“The water jump is the worst bit of it. The first time I ever did it was in the middle of last year’s drought so they didn’t fill it. That made it less of a problem “The fact I have done hurdling helps because it means I can spring off the top quite well.”

Lester, who has a 3,000m best of 15 minutes 21 seconds, might be busier this weekend with the likes of Phoebe Law and Nicole Kendall competing at the South of England U15/U17 Championships rather than Kingsmeadow.

But New Malden’s Lester is confident some careful management of the team’s resources can see them collect enough points to triumph.

“There are so many competitions across the season that it is difficult to schedule the league meetings to avoid clashes,” she added.

“We encourage the individuals to get the qualifying times that take them to these championships, but it does affect us when they go. We can sometimes lose a lot of athletes.

“We are missing some of our big guns this week, which will massively dent the team. But we have managed before and I’m sure other athletes will step up.”

* A string wins from William Trimble (javelin) and Michael Cole (high jump) helped Kingston & Polytechnic Harriers’ men to a third place finish in the British Athletics League Division Two match at Kingsmeadow on Saturday.

The result means Kingston rank as the 19th best men’s team in Britain.