VICTORY for Annabel Granger and second place for Adam Stokes added up to a good day for Bristol & West AC runners at the 40th Stroud half marathon yesterday.
Granger was again in a class of her own as she finished almost three minutes clear of her nearest rival winning in a time of 83mins 30secs.
That win comes just a few weeks after her superb personal best of 2:47.29 in the Chester marathon when she was representing the England Masters team in the W45-50 age group category.
It also comes on top of her overall wins in the Tewkesbury and Chepstow half marathons and second places in the Fleet, Chippenham – with her fastest time of the year at 80:53 – and Torbay events.
It was a much closer contest in the men’s race with Stokes finishing only 18 seconds adrift of the host club’s Lee Stopford with Western Tempo’s Alex Lee a close third.
Stokes’ time of 71:41 is easily his fastest of the year, considerably faster than the 77:42 he posted at the Cardiff race at the start of the month.
Stokes’ personal best remains the 70:21 he recorded when finishing third in the 2019 Torbay half.
In his first half of the year Westbury Harriers’ Nick Faye won the over 50s prize with a time of 82:28 to follow up his age group victory in the Oldbury 10 last month.
Stroud half marathon – men: 1 Lee Stopford (Stroud) 71:23; 2 Adam Stokes (B&W) 71:41; 3 Alex Lee (Western Tempo) 71:50.
Local: 11 Andrew Drake (M40, 2nd) 76:33; 40 Stephen Honight (B&W, M40) 84:29; 21 Alexander Sampson (WH, M40 7th) 79:21; 25 Jack Pitcher (EGRC) 81:08; 29 Nick Faye (WH, M50 1st) 82:28; 31 Andy Bush (EGRC, M40 10th) 83:07.
Women: 1 Annabel Granger (B&W,W45) 83:30; 2 Gemma Wilks 86:23; 3 Hannah D’Ambrosio 88:06.