Dom-ination as James takes marathon victory
DOM James led the way as Cheltenham Harriers filled the first six positions and placed 12 runners in the top 15 at the Cheltenham Half Marathon.
James pulled clear after a mile and went on to establish a race winning gap as he passed through 10km in 32:45 and went on to cross the line in 70:24.
The race for second and third saw Lee open a gap over Marcus England and Joe Turner who closed the gap and caught Lee.
Turner pushed on to take second in 70:58 with England third 11 seconds later before Lee crossed the line in 72:38 in fourth.
Richard Dare and George Watson picked off Cirencester’s Dave Bell and Spa Striders’ Ian Allen to ensure an all Harriers top six, with Watson moving clear of Dare as the pair were rewarded with PBS of 73:28 and 73:41 respectively.
Allen took seventh and James Bingham finished as the first veteran home with 74:30 for eighth place. Chris Booth (78:12) and Andrew van Kints (78:44) claimed 11th and 12th before Henry James finished as the leading under 20 runner in 78:49 on his half marathon debut.
Joe Willgoss (79:07) followed before Anthony Bailey (79:25) made it 12 Harriers in the top 15 as he finished as second V45 runner in his first race for 32 months.
Gareth Edwards showed good form with an 83:01 personal best and Dave Rantell (84:07) claimed second in the V50 category whilst Martin Soakell lowered his PB to 87:03.
Naomi Eaton led the Harriers ladies with 88:31 to finish as seventh lady before Matt Wood clocked 90:00 and Ben Lees recorded 90:39.
Dave Francis (93:34) and Charlie Marshall (93:36) were evenly matched before Kayla Garland impressed with a big PB of 1:40:59.
Emma Qukett (1:46:44), Sue Townsend (1:48:15), Leah Hopton (1:48:32), Debbie Smith (1:50:35) and Paul Longford (1:52:55) then completed the Harriers contingent. In the wheelchair race Ed Grazier and Les Hampton recorded times of 71:12 and 1:42:03 to finish first and second respectively.
There was further half marathon success at the Forest of Dean event where Elliot Taylor took the win.
Taylor opened up a gap and ran solo for the rest of the race as he completed the forest trails course in 76:23 for a 36 second winning margin.
Doug Wight travelled to Glasgow to compete over the classic 13.1 mile distance at the Great Scottish Run, where he was 50th in a PB of 73:04.
Charlie Jones and Taylor were first and second with times of 15:34 and 15:50 respectively at the Hereford 5k road race, whilst Dan Schofiled recorded 17:40 at the Pomphrey 5k in Bristol.
Parkruns saw two Harrier ladies claim outright first places - Amber Watson (20:19) at Newent and Kaitlyn Sheppard (19:32) in Tewkesbury where her mum Sarah (22:01) and sister Chloe (22:29) completed the ladies top three.
Tara Grosvenor (19:26) was first lady and second overall at Gloucester City whilst Marc Fallows (18:40) finished first in Cirencester.
Alice Stallberg (22:08) was the second lady at the Gloucester North parkrun whilst in Cheltenham Will New (18:09) was second and Clark Lawson (19:52) had a run out.