As the temperature begins to rise in War Memorial Park, so do the numbers: 105 of you crossed the finish line this week, including 11 people for the first time. It must be stressed, however, that not everyone ran the course this week - as the photograph of Kelvin Gower to the left shows, dancing around the route in a manner that would make John Travolta jealous appears to be all the rage these days.

In his 59th run, Mark Shepherd (SM35-39) of Team Kennet took his quarter century of wins in style today in a time of 16:59, demonstrating that he is returning to form. Ian Berry (SM35-39) of Winchester & District was second in a new personal best of 17:27 and Pete Williams (VM40-44) of Overton Harriers was third in 17:45.

Sandra Bowers (VW35-39) of Winchester & District AC took her ninth win today. Running with her characteristic huskies, Sandra was only the third lady to duck under 18 minutes at the Basingstoke course and obviously nets a new category record for the course and also earns her today's highest age graded score of 83.83%. Very well done Sandra! Newcomer India Lee (SW20-24), also of Winchester & District AC, was second in 19:06 in the process - an excellent time for first time out, and one which nets India the SW20-24 age category record. We hope to welcome India back soon where a bit of familiarity with the course should pay dividends! Kerri Barton (SW25-29) of Overton Harriers & AC was third in a time of 23:01.

Although the new results system doesn't allow us to quickly check who ran massive personal bests any more, we overhead so much talk about huge improvements at the finish line, we manually looked at all the personal bests today and saw there were some staggering improvements: 

There were 21 new course bests today, but performance of the week was earned by young Katie Metalli (JW14) of Newbury AC who, running the course for the second time, managed to run a huge personal best of 4 minutes and 44 seconds and broke the 25 minutes barrier for the first time. Well done Katie! Other highly creditable performances today go to Martin Coleman (best by 3 minutes and 13 seconds), Tony Reid (2 minutes and 50 seconds), Kieran Little (2 minute best), Helen Brandon (1 minute and 41 seconds), Liz Rough (1 minute and 22 seconds), Clare Murgatroyd (1 minute and 20 seconds), Tracey Lowther (1 minute and 16 seconds), Trevor Perrett (37 seconds), John Whitehall (34 seconds) and Craig Barry (31 seconds). Huge congratulations to all of you!

In the points competition Steve Gillingham has a lead of 443 points over second placed Mark Shepherd. Sue Caratelli leads Clare Murgatroyd by 440 in the ladies competition.

Since the event started, 1286 runners from 87 different clubs have completed the race 6387 times and covered a distance of 31935 kilometers. The male course record is held by Brian Wakem who ran 15:54 on 18/07/09, event number 54. The female equivalent is held by Sophie Morris who ran 16:56 on 29/11/08, event number 21.