Nine Heanor Running Club members were in amongst the 7130 finishers at the Robin Hood Half Marathon last weekend as half of those competing in yellow and blue recorded new personal bests on a warm morning over the county border.

The race became something of a intra-club competition for Heanor RC’s ladies to see who would break their personal best by the most minutes as Laura Beth James-Hutchinson and Abbie Leivers both recorded lifetime bests for the 13.1 mile distance.

Laura’s form and confidence have grown unbelievably since she joined the club earlier this year and she dropped another personal best last Sunday to go with her 43:03 performance at the Wilne 10k earlier this month.

Laura recorded a personal best by over four-and-a-half minutes to clock 1:34:29 – a whole sixteen minutes faster than on the same course two years ago!

Abbie, meanwhile, has been in such smashing form of her own, most recently at the Lichfield 10k two weeks ago when she ran a PB of 47:03. Chopping almost three minutes off her previous best, Abbie ran 1:41:54.

The returning Ben O’Connell was the fastest performer for the yellow and blue in a race won overall by Run-Fast athlete Matthew Kimutai in 64:21. Ben ran almost twenty minutes quicker than at the Ramathon in June to finish 61st in 1:20:12.

Robin Clegg finished just outside his best in 1:25:49 whilst Carl Hughes, only four weeks on from his efforts at the BUPA Great North Run, ran almost six minutes quicker – and three minutes faster than on the same Nottingham course in 2013 – to run 1:27:14.

A personal best for Scott Wigman (1:41:50) saw him narrowly edge ahead of teammate Leivers whilst Jeff Everitt (1:47:47) and Gary Fletcher (2:11:07) recorded their fastest half marathon times of the year so far. Glenda Alton (2:25:04) completed the club’s efforts.

Not to be outdone, Dylan George grabbed an impressive third-spot out of over 2000 competitors and Lily Winfield saw off her Rushcliffe AC challenger by three seconds to take the ladies category honours in the Mini Marathon.

Full results HERE

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