Road season opens ahead of marathon majors
With the Berlin (Sept 26) and London Marathon (Oct 3) fast approaching the road season is well under way. There was a full programme of activities this weekend including the Northern Road Relays in Redcar and the Swansea Bay 10k in South Wales. Anna Bracegirdle had a breakthrough performance in Redcar running the fastest leg and leading Salford to gold. Richard Allen did likewise in the men's event for Leeds City.
Anna Bracegirdle (handicap 0.0) bagged the fastest lap leading Salford to a team win at the Northern Road Relays. The Leeds City team and Richard Allen (handicap -5.5) were fastest for the men in a similar vein.
Natasha Cockram (handicap -1.6) was in fine form at the Swansea Bay 10k with 33:32 well ahead of Olivia Tsim (handicap 4.4) who ran 35:20. Kieran Clements (handicap -4.9) won the men’s event in 29:57 ahead of Abed Teweldebrhan (handicap -3.5) with 30:04 and Dewi Griffiths (handicap -5.6) a further 8 seconds behind.
At the ESSAR Chester Half Marathon there were good results from Jonathan Escalante-Phillips who won in 66:36 , which was just over 2 minutes outside his best of 64:14. Charlie Hulson (handicap -5.9) returned to form in second place with 67:03. Tracy Barlow (handicap -0.4) had a close race with Kirsty Longley (handicap 0.2) and Sarah Hunter (handicap 2.2) before coming out on top with 80:13 just seven seconds ahead with Hunter running 80:32 in third.
Philip Sesemann (handicap -6.3) was a clear winner at the Trafford 10k in 29:29 and Danielle Hodgkinson (handicap -0.3) ran a lively sub 34-minute performance to win the women’s event in 33:59.
At the Friday Night 5K Under the Lights in Battesea Park, Holly Archer (handicap -1.8) ran an impressive 15:50 and in the men’s event it was an Iranian star, Seyed Taha Ghafari (handicap -4.4) winning in 14:18 ahead of Jake Shelley (handicap -5.0). There were 26 men under 15 minutes.
At the British Mountain running Championships there were Uphill wins for Joseph Dugdale (handicap -2.2) and Hannah Horsbugh (handicap 14.5) on Friday night to the top of Skiddaw.
Scout Adkin (handicap 0.6) and Max Nicholls (handicap -5.1) were the winners of the up and down race in Sedbergh
UK runbritain rankings for endurance events and age groups
Other results from the weekend are on the following links: