A strong Sunday showing from HRC seniors saw PBs broken in Barcelona and preparations for April’s London Marathon stepped up a notch in races across the UK and Europe.

Following on from the juniors’ success at the Derbyshire XC Mini League twenty four hours before, the quartet of Lisa Palmer, Louise Insley, Jill Burke and Colin Blount travelled to the “ciutat comtal” in Catalonia, Spain to race over 13.1 miles whilst Rose Leivers, Carl Hughes, Sarah Fullaway, Jo Potter and Lizzie Poole stayed a little closer to home to tackle the Stamford Striders’ St Valentines 30K.

In a race that saw Kenyan Florence Kiplagat run 65:12 to destroy the women’s half marathon record and become only the fifth female in history to run sub-66, Lisa, Louise, Jill and Colin were in equally inspired form in the perfect conditions at the eDreams Barcelona Half Marathon.

Lisa is an obvious fan of the Barcelona setting after posting a big personal best in the same event last year. She obliterated that mark further this year to go sub-80 for the first time. Lisa’s time of 79:27 saw her slice over eighty seconds off her PB and with it the added kudos of sitting ninth in the early 2014 UK half marathon rankings.

Louise followed suit to destroy her previous best set in Valencia just four months ago. The 2013 Midland Masters 10k champion stopped the clock at 82:37 to finish eleventh and second veteran. It may only be mid-February but Louise’s time also sees her sit second in the 2014 UK V40 rankings.

Jill ran her fastest half marathon since 2011 to finish fifteenth in the vet standings. Her time of 91:18 sees her sitting inside the UK top-3 for her age. Colin put the disappointment of missing out last year due to injury firmly behind him to run a big personal best of 1:49:30 in the Spanish sun.

Full results

Over in Stamford at the St Valentines 30K, Carl, Sarah, Lizzie, Jo and Rose flew the HRC flag as preparations continue towards the London Marathon, now just eight weeks away on April 13th.

Recognised as a tough training run ahead of London, Carl was the first back in yellow and blue in 2:12:47. Rose continued her strong form and followed Carl home in 2:30:54 as Jo and Lizzie left sore but happy in 2:47:26 and 2:47:27 respectively. Sarah went home a “very happy lady” after completing the rarely-raced distance in 3:03:10.

Full results

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