Mansfield Harriers in good form at home and abroad

Paige Roadley and Alex Hampson were in good form for the Mansfield Harriers.

Mansfield Harriers continue to be active on the roads with a string of terrific performances at Valencia, Telford, Bolsover and Keyworth.

The Valencia marathon has a reputation of being one of the best and fastest courses in the world and three Mansfield athletes made the journey. Kristian Watson, Drew Hurst and Fraser Bain all went with specific targets and have put in a major block of training with the aim of achieving the challenging personal goals that they have set themselves.

All three ran the race to perfection coming away with massive new personal best times and achieving the targets that they had set. Kristian ran a new best of close to 8 minutes as he recorded 2.25.27, Drew recorded 2.44.45 a new best by 13 minutes and joining the sub 3 club Fraser Bain raced to a time of 2.58.49 to obliterate his target time of 3.15 and knocked a massive 25 minutes from his previous best.

The fantastic performances continued at the Telford 10K, an event that also doubled up for the England Athletics 10K Championship. After a superb block of training and dominating the North Midlands Cross Country League this year Alex Hampson went into the race in the shape of his life.

Mixing with the best in the country he recorded sub 30 for the distance for the first time with 29.53. Jan Bailey recorded 32.44 closely followed by Brad Caress who recorded a new best or 32.58 which is his first sub 33 time for the distance. Dan Wheat recorded a new best of 33.49, Jordan Boam 34.15, Dave Savage a new best of 36.38 and Matt Bottomore 36.58.

Two Mansfield ladies also competed at the event with both Paige Roadley and Hannah Jones going into the race on the back of a great training block and strong races. Paige recorded a new best by over a minute with 40.38 and Hannah a 24 second new best time of 42.09.

On the same day athletes competed at the Bolsover 10K with Wayne Lowe first dipping under 40 minutes, recording 39.58, Greg Holden 42.14, Paul Castledine 45.21, Gemma Bacon 53.28 and Lilly Adkins 56.04.

The Keyworth Turkey Trot Half Marathon is raced over a tough undulating course. Neil Kennedy continues to improve as he placed 23rd in a new personal best of 1.22.07 and Carolyn Hay recorded a terrific 1.26.43 to place 5th lady and first Master 50.