MARK Williams led home Radcliffe Athletic Club's seven-strong contingent at the Swinton 10-mile road race on Sunday.

The Radcliffe runner finished 36th out of 209 in a time of 1hr 6mins, despite taking a tumble at nine miles.

Tony Holt (V50) just pipped Rob Shiels (V40), coming home in 75th place in 1:11:41 while Shiels was nine seconds behind in 76th position.

Dave Bartlett clocked a personal best of 1:16:35secs in 98th.

Chemane Brier was first home among the women, in a time of 1:23:08, with Kate Holden (V40) clocking 1:25:21 and Zena Knowles (V40) 1:27:58, knocking four minutes off her time in last year's race.

The event was part of the Central Lancs Grand Prix.

It had been a tough but successful week for fire officer Holt, who helped the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service win the Fire Service National Cycling Hill Climb Team Championships in Northumberland in midweek.

On a 60-mile course with several timed climbs totalling 6,000 feet, each of seven team members had to cover the full route and the Greater Manchester team claimed the title in the gruelling event.

Mark Wolfenden ran the midweek Mandy Goth 5k Trail Race at Whitworth, Rochdale and clocked 21:00.

The event marked the achievements of Goth, a member of Todmorden Harriers, which included completing her 21st Ben Nevis Fell Race at the beginning of the month.

On Saturday, 75-year-old Jim Rhodes took part in the 5k 77th birthday run of well-known former Olympian runner Ron Hill at Whitworth.

He finished in 38:56 and was third in his age group, beaten by a former England runner from Bingley and Hill himself.

New member Karen Doherty was well pleased with her 32:36.

At the 5k Heaton parkrun, Peter Hunter just missed out on a personal best when he ran 19:52, coming 28th out of 514 runners, and Sheila Jones (V60) clocked 49:30, tail running at the back of the field after suffering an injured ankle.

At Bolton, Vince Ashton was 59th out of 241 and seventh in his age group with a time of 24:52 and Kath Davies (V50) clocked 25:10.

Williams took it easy in 26:19 ahead of his exertions in Swinton, but encouraged Caroline Mullineaux to a good run of 26:18.