Hastings distance runner Adam Clarke, who now runs for Aldershot, broke the twenty five year old Sussex record in the Vitality Half-marathon event at Greenwich on Sunday.
In a high class race that saw Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele set a new course record ahead Chris Thompson (Aldershot) in 50:22 t0 61.00, Clarke finished a splendid ninth in in 64:06 just two seconds ahead of Worthing’s Stephen Harris, then running for Boxhill Runners, 1995 clocking.
Ross Skelton from Hastings also had a fine run placing 13th in 65:11 and club mate Greg Foster placed 53rd in 69: 30.
Inter Counties 20-mile.
Sussex teams finished second to the home county, in the Essex 20-mile road race, that included the invitation Inter-county match in both the men’s and women’s team events, while Kat Owens and Rachael Gorman took the silver and bronze medals in the Inter-county individual race.
In the Women’s race Owens (Crawley) clocked 2:13:25 for her silver medal while Brighton Phoenix’s Gorman’s third place followed on just ten seconds later. Beth Male (A80) completed the scoring three in ninth place in 2:15:38 while there was close support from Bobby Searle (Phoenix) who placed tenth in 2:15:48.
Brighton & Hove’s James Turner led the Sussex men home just missing a medal in fourth place in 1:50:22 and James Skinner (Haywards Heath) filled tenth place in 1:54:55, Phil Stevenson (Brighton & Hove) 25th in 1:58:34 and Ash Dorrington (Phoenix) 29th in 1:59:07.
In the Women’s team race Essex totalled 6:36:18 to 6:42:38 for Sussex with Hampshire on 6:49:58 in third place.
The positions were the same in the men’s team event with Essex on 5:26.04, Sussex on 5:43:53 and Hampshire 5:46:09. A pretty good weekend for Sussex Road Runners.