HANNAH Alderson’s superb form in the second half of the year continued with another personal best in the AVR Wiltshire half marathon yesterday.
The Bristol & West AC runner (pictured right made the top ten of the 268 finishers as she placed eighth overall and easily top woman in a time of 78mins 54secs.
That time carved a whopping 4mins 12secs off her previous PB set in the 2016 Bristol half and immediately puts her sixth in the 2021 South West Rankings currently headed by the Taunton AC pair of Kate Drew (75:57) and Elle Twentyman (76:09), both of whom ran their time sin the Reading half at the start of the month.
Furthermore Alderson’s time was also a course record, slashing over five minutes from the previous best of 1:24.16 set by Lucy Richens of Westbury Harriers in 2013.
Alderson has also set PBs of 16:54 in the AVR Westbury 5k (August) and 34:22 for the Newport 10k (October) as she enjoys the benefits of a concerted period of sustained training.
In the men’s race Westbury Harriers’ Dan Summers placed fifth in 76:45 with victory going to the host club’s Tom Gurney (72:08).
In his first race since clocking a PB of 2:46.04 in the Barcelona marathon at the start of the month Jack Pitcher of Emersons Green Running Club placed sixth (77:16) with Clevedon AC’s Steve Wood seventh (78:15).
Wood would have been doubly delight with that run as it not only earned him the over 50s prize but also clipped 50 seconds off his three-year-old best set in Tewkesbury.