Reading Half-Marathon

There were some very good performances from our men on Sunday at the Reading Half Marathon, which was incorporating the England Athletics Championships. In fact, four men went down to Reading and all four came back with PBs.

Martyn Cryer (photo courtesy of John Harvey) was first of our lads home in 68:31, which earned him 41st place. That was just 3 seconds quicker than he ran in the same event last year. Gavin Lewis clocked 70:00 for 57th place. For Gavin, far better known as an 800/1500m man, it absolutely nailed his target of - yes! - 70:00. Interestingly, his long-time training partner Omar Mansour, also traditionally an 800m man, also ran a debut half-marathon recently - the North London Half Marathon - in 72:55.

Next in at Reading was Harold Wyber, who continues to make impressive improvements at a variety of distances. Finishing in 79th place, Harold clocked 71:44, chipping around one minute off his previous best, set in Amsterdam in 2012.

And the last of our quartet was Simon Beedell, who has only been running for a few years and until 2013 was stagnating at around the 80-minute mark for this distance. Twelve months ago he had improved that to 76 minutes, and in December he got into the 74s. On Sunday he went one better, clocking a fine 73:39 as he continues his London Marathon training build-up.

A very honourable mention to our M50 Steve Lambert, who continues to impress and improve. He ran a half-marathon PB of 85:35 in the Brentwood Half. Steve's first attempt at the distance was when he ran 99 minutes three years ago. He reduced that to 88 minutes in 2013, and ran another 88 just a fortnight ago in our Roding Valley event. He was delighted to knock another chunk off that at Brentwood.