RADCLIFFE AC runners travelled to Chester, Rochdale and France as a busy season of racing continued.

In the Chester Marathon there was success for Jenny Yates who smashed her personal-best time by seven minutes when she ran 3hrs 36mins 26secs.

She came in eighth vet-50 despite some fierce competition in her age category when age-group championships were included in the event.

She was pleased with her time and is working towards the Manchester Marathon next April.

Michelle Hincks ran 5:00:51 but she has been in heavy training for a tough ultra next month so had no need to feel disappointed with her time.

As well as the marathon, the ninth one on a spectacular and historic route starting from the racecourse, the city held a Metric Marathon, 26.2k, and Chris Whittaker came home in 18th position and fourth male V35 in 1:50:24.

Covering 16.3 miles and billed as a stepping stone to a full marathon, Caroline Mullineaux, recovered from a challenging event in Scotland the weekend before, ran 2:49:18.

At Rochdale, the club took part in the town’s half marathon and 10k on traffic-free roads starting from the town hall and running alongside the canal and, in the longer event, to Hollingworth Lake.

There was more success when Dave Rushton had a PB in the half marathon with 1:35:44 and was ninth vet-50, while Steve Hamer was second vet-60 in 1:39:27 and Mark Garner (V45) ran 1:44:35.

In the 10k, Kate Holden (V40) clocked 46:30, Chris Fletcher 47:19, Kirsten Cook (V55) 52:29 and Sarah Rushton (V45) 1:01:27.

Lee Turner and John Andrew travelled further afield for their race to La Celle in Var in south-eastern France when they took part in the 13k Trail of the Loube with Andrew clocking 1:29:00 and Turner, running it for the second year, 1:31:00.

In the popular 5k parkruns, Karen Doherty completed the Keswick parkrun in 29:20 and 12 members ran locally at Heaton Park

Radcliffe results: Nick Barnes 22:43, Sheila Jones 23:20, Peter Hunter 24:08, Ben Darbyshire (junior) 27:31, Kath Davies 27:39, Tammy Oluyori 28:56, Amanda Darbyshire 29:28, Olivia Whittaker (junior) 30:45, Lucy Tetler 33:00, Bev Quinton 38:24, Tracy Wroe 38:27, Sharon Peterkin 40:41.

At Bolton, Paul Swyers clocked 22:08 and Steve Lomax finished in 23:56.