Wylie speeds to top Phil runs his best 10k for three years
THERE were personal bests for four Cheltenham Harriers athletes as Phil Wylie led the club’s squad home at the Speedway 10k road race.
In his first road race as a veteran, 40year-old Wylie went to the top of the 2019 UK rankings for the age group 30:27 as he took seventh place, his fastest since November 2016.
Alex Lee lowered his PB to 31:38 for 14th, a place and three seconds clear of Dom James.
Richard de-camps ran a PB of 31:44 as he took 16th place with Harriers second in the team event behind Cardiff.
Charlie Jones was two seconds outside his PB with 32:53 before Jacob Pickering broke 33 minutes for the first time with 32:58 and Chris Booth took over two minutes off his previous best with an excellent 33:18.
Elliot Taylor (33:26) was followed by Dave Aubrey (33:51) and Alex Doherty (34:02) before Dave Tomlin’s 34:26 saw him finish as the first V45 runner.
Dan Scofield (37:57) and Roxanne Jones (43:59) contested the second edition of the well organised race.
Jon Barnes tackled the Gloucester 50km road race and finished second.
After going through the marathon distance in 2:34:42 Barnes set a club record of 3:06:56, comfortably inside the England Athletics qualifying standard for the Anglo-celtic Plate event.
At the half marathon, Fee Maycock finished as fourth lady and first LV50 in 1:26:31 before Leah Hopton broke the 1:40 barrier with a PB of 1:38:48.
The Gloucestershire AAA road race series started with the Linda Franks 5 mile race.
Defending series champion Mark James chased Gloucester’s Steve Kenyon in the early stages before passed by teammate Joe Willgoss.
Kenyon took the win in 27:03 with Wilgoss second in 27:47, 10 seconds clear of James, the first veteran runner in third place.
A 28:12 PB by Gareth Edwards earned him fifth as he also ensured the club won the three to score team event.
Andy Prophett (30:19) followed and Dave Rantell (30:33) was second V50 runner followed by Oliver Doherty (31:15) and Paul Barnes (33:16) while Les Hampton won the wheelchair event.
Rhys Park set a personal best time of 69:01 at the Arizona Half Marathon whilst Rachel See (21:00) was the first lady home and ninth at the Claisebrook Cove parkrun in Australia.
UK parkruns saw Phil Beastall (17:18) finish first in Milton Keynes, while Dave Tomlin (17:30) was second at the Arrow Valley in Redditch and Simon Critchley (18:45) fourth in Cheltenham.