Josh Griffiths, Matt Clowes and Aaron Scott are set to race at the JCP Swansea Half Marathon on Sunday (June 24), while Caryl Jones faces defending champion, Claire McCarthy, and Tracy Barlow in a top women’s field.

The Welsh city half marathon features a revised route but still uses a pancake flat course that will take over 5,000 competitors up to the seaside town of Mumbles, allowing for incredible views across Swansea Bay on the way back to the finish near Museum Green.

Both Griffiths and Clowes will be chasing maiden victories and a potential course record at the seaside race that was voted the best half marathon in the UK for 2017 and 2018.

Griffiths was the 2017 British Marathon Champion and competed at his first Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April. The Swansea Harrier was third on his last outing at this race in 2016 but likely to move up the podium in 2018.

Cardiff AAC’s Clowes is the most likely to upset the party for Griffiths and is the fastest athlete on paper with a best mark of 64:38. He is also the only man in the field to have run under Dewi Griffiths’ course record of 64:49 set 12 months ago.

Lincoln Wellington’s Scott is the next fastest on paper, also having run under 66 minutes in the past.

RELATED: Training diary of 2:17 marathoner Aaron Scott

Tom Merson has shown great 10km form with a best mark of 29:50 and a win at the Great Bristol 10k in May. The Exmouth Harrier is also a great racer and will be on hand to push the pace in the search for a new half marathon best.

Michael Kallenberg will look to support his Cardiff club mate Clowes. Kallenberg is better known as an ultra-distance runner these days but is also the 2018 RAF Cross Country Champion.

Phil Matthews competes for local Club Swansea Harriers and is a regular at Welsh races. Recent form includes a silver medal at the Welsh Cross Country Championships in the City from February.

Claire McCarthy will return to defend her race crown from 2017. The Irish athlete who was 33rd at the 2017 IAAF World Championships Marathon in London will also have her course record of 74:34 at stake.

RELATED: The alternative route to the top by Ireland’s marathon women

Caryl Jones is likely to improve on her third place from last year after steadily returning to her best over the last twelve months.

The Swansea Harrier now looks to be very close to the form that saw her run 71:18 at the Great North Run in 2012 and finish 10th at the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships later the same year.

More recently, Jones finished eighth in the Commonwealth Games at the women’s marathon, in the heat of the Gold Coast.

Tracy Barlow of Thames Valley Harries will also contest the race and is another athlete who has proven recent form. Her lifetime best of 72:35 was set whilst competing for Great Britain & Northern Ireland at the 2018 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Valencia.

Gladys Ganiel is another Irish athlete who should feature and has a PB of 75:08. Laura Graham completes the trio of Irish competitors and should be in the mix after setting her 75:15 best whilst finishing 12th at the Vitality Big Half earlier this year.

Evergreen Emma Stepto who was the 2014 British Half Marathon Champion and regularly makes the trip from Cornwall to compete in South Wales will also be present.

Swansea’s Sian Edwards, Cardiffian Lucy Marland and Cwmbran based Natasha Cockram will help to add a local flavour. MMRT’s Cockram set a Welsh Marathon all-comers record with victory at the ABP Newport Wales Marathon in April.

The post British and Irish runners set for Swansea appeared first on Fast Running.

Elsewhere, at British Indoor Championships, Laura Muir and Jake Wightman’s won British titles on the first day, with Eilish McColgan and Andrew Heyes bringing the curtain down on the two-day competition.

A report from Saturday’s can be found here and Sunday’s action in Birmingham here.

Roads

Welsh marathoner Caryl Jones continued the preparations for the Commonwealth Games winning the women’s crown at the Llanelli Half Marathon on Sunday.

The Swansea Harrier runner crossed the line in 74.26 adding to her win at the Telford 10k in January.

“I’m really pleased with the race. I was given a task by my coach and I executed it really well, so I’m happy with that,” said Jones afterwards. “I’ve just done a 100-mile week, so it was just a training run really, although a hard one, obviously.”

Matt Clowes overcame blustery coastal conditions and a strong field to run away with the men’s race. The Cardiff AAC runner won in 65.14 ahead of Andy Davies in 67.42. Like Jones, Stockport Harrier Davies will be heading to Australia’s Gold Coast in April.

In Scotland, Robbie Simpson, part of the Scottish Commonwealth Games marathon team, won the Kinross to Lossiemouth Half Marathon. Simpson crossed the line in 67:13, with Alison Matthews the first women home in 84:53.

Charlotte Purdue continued her preparations for London Marathon in Australia finishing second in the Bank of Us Run the Bridge 10k. Purdue crossed the line in 33:41 behind fellow Olympic marathoner, Australian Lisa Weightman in 32:41.

In the men’s race, Australia based Nick Earl from Norfolk finished fifth in 29:47.

At the Hendy Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon on Sunday, Simon Goldsworthy and Maria Heslop won the titles. The Guildford & Godalming runner was the first across the line in 71:21, with Tonbridge’s Heslop winning a fourth women’s title in 82:25.

Anthony Woodward won the Rugeley 10 mile road race crossing the line almost two minutes ahead of Matthew Missen. The Notts AC runner won in 54:15, with Kristina Defries winning the women’s race in 66:05. Reading AC’s Naomi Mitchell was crowned the women’s champion in 77:55.

Indoors

Over the BUCS Indoor Championships weekend in Sheffield. The St. Mary’s runner won in 9:23.73 with Loughborough duo Hannah Nuttall second in 9:25.53 and Jo Hickmann Dunne third in 9:27.90.

Mahamed Mahamed won the men’s 3000m race in a personal best 8:18.93. Southampton Solent’s Mahamed, who finished 10th at the Armagh 5k last week, won by less than half a second ahead of St. Mary’s Surafel with James McMurray just pipped on the line for second.

Huddersfield Uni’s Ossama Meslek got the better of Dominic Brown to win the men’s 1500m in 3:54.56, while Birmingham’s Lydia Hallam was crowned the women’s champion winning in 4:29.82.

The post Commonwealth Games and London marathoners out in force appeared first on Fast Running.

They Welsh endurance stars have got to where they have off the back of 5.30am starts in the milking parlour and long hours in the lambing sheds, juggling high mileage training with farming.

Interestingly, the Griffiths and Jones family farms lie less than 30 miles apart, and, with the exception of Jones’s ‘second’ job as a chartered accountant, the Swansea AC pair’s daily routines are similar too.

Here, we look at how these rising stars from the Welsh hills and valleys of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire balance the often gruelling, energy-sapping work on the farm with the equally demanding marathon training.

Caryl Jones

Jones enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2012, running PBs at 5000m (15:37.3), 10,000m (32:52.53), 10k (32:28) and the half marathon (71:18) before succumbing to back to back stress fractures through to the end of 2013.

The Swansea star admits she ‘lost it mentally’ in relation to athletics during that period and for a number of years afterwards, although she did make the beginnings of a comeback in 2016 when she won the Welsh national cross country championships.

The best was yet to come from Jones, though, and in October last year, she joined Griffiths in making a stand out marathon debut, for her stunning 2:34:12 inaugural outing over the 26.2m distance proved she was well and truly back on track.

The 30-year-old finished 2017 ranked 7th in the UK for the marathon, and topped that off with a top class 27:28 clocking over 5 miles at the end of that year.

Her most recent race outing was a victorious one, taking the win at the notoriously competitive Telford 10k in 33:18, her fastest time over the distance since her most successful year to date, 2012.

Unlike most elite endurance runners, Jones doesn’t start the day with breakfast or the first run on the schedule, but instead, she’s up at 5.30am to milk the cows on the family farm in Tavernspite, Pembrokeshire.

“We have two farms – one is arable and beef and the other has dairy cows and beef,” she explains. “We have holiday cottages on one of the farms as well, so I’m busy helping my mum with that as well as the farming. I live a mile away from the ‘home farm’, where we milk 130 cows.

“My typical day involves waking up at 5.30am to go and milk and help do some smaller jobs on the farm until 9am, with a break for breakfast at some point!

“I then train between 9-11am before starting my other job as a chartered accountant at 11.30am. I’ll finish that job at 5.30pm, and then go back to the farm where I will help finish the milking and feeding and be home by about 7.30pm, when I do my shorter run of the day before settling down for supper.”

As if that doesn’t sound exhausting enough, she trains twice a day six days a week with ‘just’ one long run on Sunday. That’s right, no rest days, from running or farming!

Jones goes into more detail: “I run 45 minutes to an hour in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 30 minutes in the evening, while my sessions are on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, with a second run later on. I don’t run to pace, I just go by how I feel on the day.”

She’s quick to credit the support she receives from her partner, who does all the cooking, adding that ‘having him has made my training consistent, as I’m getting all the right nutrients’. Jones also says that since she started targeting the marathon with her coach, Alan Storey, she has enjoyed having a new training focus, with ‘everything starting to fall in to place’.

“Alan is an excellent coach, and has been a massive help in getting me over my injuries and making sure I train consistently,” she enthuses.

When speaking Jones was away on a training camp in Murcia, Spain, with Welsh Athletics, which is served not only a chance to train with Wales’s finest – including Dewi – but also a chance to have a break from farming!

“It’s a massive help,” she confirms. “It’s a nice break away from the farm. My brother and parents are covering my shifts and I can’t thank them enough to allow me to be away.”

However, the demands of farming are never far away for this hard-working Swansea athlete, who adds that she had to delay her Sunday run before heading out to Spain ‘because I had to dose some sheep and ensure there was nothing urgent that was going to pop up when I was away’.

Dewi Griffiths

While Caryl Jones has only recently returned to form with a sparkling inaugural marathon performance, Griffiths’ own 26.2m debut in Frankfurt last October marked the pinnacle of the best running year of his life.

The 26-year-old’s 2:09.49 clocking came after posting PBs in every distance, from 3000m up to the half marathon, in the months leading up to his marathon breakthrough. But his commitments on the farm keep his running ambitions in perspective on a daily basis.

“Farm work can be physical, it can be long hours, but I guess for the marathon you’ve got to be mentally tough and strong,” he reflects. “A lot of runners used to do manual work back in the day, and ran 100 to 120 miles per week on top of it. My lifestyle with farming and running probably corresponds to that, as I’m only running 100 miles a week when marathon training.”

The crucial point to focus on is that he manages to balance running ‘only’ 100 miles a week with helping out on the 300-acre family livestock farm in Llanfynydd on a daily basis. The Griffiths farming empire consists mainly of sheep, with a small herd of milking cows.

“When I’m home I’ll be helping out every day,” he explains. “However, I’m pretty fortunate to have supportive parents, so in the last couple of years, the bigger jobs have been planned around my running a bit more.

“This year we’ve planned to start lambing a couple of weeks earlier than usual, just so that I’d be home to help out with some of it. It can be tiring at times but it’s something I’ve grown up doing.”

RELATED: Dewi Griffiths: How do you bounce back from a bad race?

As a result, Griffiths has adopted a surprisingly relaxed attitude to his training schedule, to allow for the demands that both farming and living in a rural area place upon his timetable.

“Training needs to be flexible,” he explains. “Where I live, once it’s dark that’s the end of the training day for me, as there are no street lights here. This means I regularly have to cut my second run shorter than planned, or sometimes not do it at all, because I’ve been caught up somewhere.

“During peak lambing times, I might not physically be able to manage more than about 50 miles in a week, where normally I’d be double that. I’m lucky that my coach (Kevin Evans) understands my situation!”

As Griffiths explained, lambing will be early this year to allow for him to concentrate his training, but regardless of where he is competing on the world athletics circuit, this Welsh runner knows that whenever he’s home, the miles must be balanced with the demands of the farm.

“Like everything in life, if you want something you’ll make time for it,” he says, summing up why he and Jones have balanced their physically demanding lifestyles so successfully.

The post Caryl Jones & Dewi Griffiths show working long hours farming is no barrier to running success appeared first on Fast Running.

On a quick course and in much better conditions than back in December when the race had to be postponed, Charlie Hulson of Liverpool Harriers beat a strong field to win in a new personal best of 29:12.

Cardiff AAC Ieuan Thomas, winner of the Nos Galan Road Races last week, was only one second adrift and also posted a PB with 29:13.

Finishing third was Petros Surafel of Enfield & Haringey who also improved on his previous lifetime best with 29:21.

Of the top ten runners, eight dipped under the 30-minute barrier, led by Matt Bergin (Bedford & County) in 29:25, followed by Josh Griffiths (Swansea Harriers) in a PB 29:28, Luke Caldwell (Dorking & Mole Valley) 29:32, Kevin Seaward (Cardiff AAC) 29:36 and Matt Clowes (Cardiff AAC) 29:39.

Completing the top ten was Jake Shelley (Shaftesbury Barnet) in 30:01 and Richard Horton (Shaftesbury Barnet) also with 30:01.

Swansea Harrier Caryl Jones, who won the Glynneath 5 mile on Boxing Day, was the first woman to cross the finish line clocking a time of 33:18 ahead of Faye Fullerton (Havering and Mavesbrook) in second with 33:26.

Third place went to Dani Nimmock (City of Norwich) with 33:44 and fourth to Eleanor Davies (Bristol and West) in 34:40.

County Cross Country Championships, England wide, Saturday, January 6

On Saturday across England, the County Cross Country Championships took place and provided fantastic grassroots action as always.

The regional races offer high prestige even for the most acclaimed athletes and allow club runners of any standard to pitch themselves against some of the countries’ best.

Some notable results from across England include:
Great Manchester: Andy Norman (Altrincham) and Carly Needham (Rochdale).

Hampshire: Matt Sharp Enfield & Haringey and Louise Small (Aldershot Farnham and District).

Lancashire: Dan Bebbington (Preston Harriers) and Sarah Astin (City of Norwich).

Sussex: Tom Evans (Lewes) and Nicole Taylor (Tonbridge).

Yorkshire: Emile Cairess(Leeds City) and Claire Duck (Leeds City).

Kent: John Gilbert (Kent) and Emily Hosker-Thornhill (Aldershot Farnham & District).

Leicester: Frank Baddick (Newham & Essex Beagles) and Lucy Crooks (Leeds).

The post Charlie Hulson and Caryl Jones win Telford 10K appeared first on Fast Running.

Fionnuala McCormack and Andy Vernon compete against international fields at the Antrim International Cross Country – full preview can be found here.

Elsewhere across England club athletes are set to contest the County Cross Country Championships.

GAA Miler Meet, Glasgow, Sunday, January 7

Laura Muir leads the entries for the Scottish 3000m Championships in Glasgow on Sunday for an eagerly-awaited GAA Miler Meet.

Muir, who won double gold at the European Indoors last year, begins her indoor season ahead of the World Indoors in Birmingham in March. The European champion, set this event alight last year with a superb run in the 5000m when her time of 14.49.12 broke the British Record for indoors, previously held by Liz McColgan.

Muir will compete in the men’s race that includes Sol Sweeney, Grant Muir, Ben Potrykus, James Donald and Irish athlete Daniel Mooney and pace-maker Adam Craig.

“I’m really looking forward to another GAA Miler Meet event at the Emirates as I love to race in Scotland when I can,” said Muir. “It is the first of two, of course, with the Great Edinburgh XC at Holyrood Park the following week when I am involved in the 4 x 1K International Relay.

“Sunday should be a really good afternoon of athletics at the Emirates so hopefully people can come along and support the athletes and their coaches.”

The women’s 3000m race features Katie Snowden and Melissa Courtney who will chase the 8:50 qualifying time for selection for the World Indoors in Birmingham. The race will be paced by Charlene Thomas.

Among the start-lists for the other races are Kelsey Stewart and Jill Cherry (600m), Erin Wallace and Josephine Moultrie (3000m); and masters clashes will see the likes of husband-and-wife team Fiona and Grant Matheson in action.

BMC Indoor GP, Sheffield, Sunday, January 7

Andrew Heyes leads the entries in the 3000m with a best of 7:55, the Team New Balance Manchester athlete had a great 2017 ending with a win at the Percy Pud 10k in 29:42.

Other sub 8:00 minute athletes include Adam Clarke (Aldershot Farnham & District) Jonny Davies (Reading) and Richard Weir (Derby).

Jacqueline Fairchild (Preston Harriers) will race over 800m and leads the British entries with a best of 2:02.09 and her closest rival is Swedish athlete Anna Silvander also with a best of 2:02.

The women’s 1500m has a strong line up including 2011 world silver medallist Hannah England (Oxford City), Stacey Smith (Gateshead) and Irish international Claire Tarplee (Solihull & Small Heath).

The men’s 800m is lead by Liverpool Harrier Jamie Webb with a best of 1:46 in a field that consists six athletes who have run under 1:50 including BUCS 800m champion Jonny Monk.

Telford 10km, Telford, Sunday, January 7

The rescheduled Telford 10k takes place this week and the course is renowned for fast times. The popular road race is normally in early December, but following a heavy spell of snow, organisers postponed it to the beginning of January 2018.

Eighteen men broke the 30-minute barrier in 2016 with Aldershot Farnham and District athlete Josh Grace taking the win in 29:21, in front of Tom Lancashire who ran 29:22 (Bolton Harriers) and Jake Shelley of Shaftesbury Barnet in third with 29:23.

This weekend sees another great line up including; Swansea Harrier and World Championship marathoner Josh Griffiths, Kevin Seaward, who was announced in the Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games squad this week and his Cardiff AAC teammate Matt Clowes.

Dan Studley of Bristol and West along with a host of the country’s top runners who will descend on Telford, hoping to be rewarded with quick times.

Leading entries in the women’s race include Rebecca Robinson (Kendal AAC), Faye Fullerton (Havering), Emma Clayton (Leeds) and Swansea’s Caryl Jones.

Elsewhere, across England club athletes are heading to their County Cross Country Championships on Saturday. The best of the counties will have aspirations of becoming County Champs and representing at the Inter-Counties on Saturday 10th March 2018 at Prestwold Hall, Loughborough.

Norfolk County XC have been holding group training sessions for all clubs in the build-up to the Champs with new Senior XC team managers Chris Merrylees and Dom Blake taking the progressive step to improve the County Team going forward.

A full preview of the  Antrim International Cross Country featuring Fionnuala McCormack and Andy Vernon can be found here full preview can be found here.

The post Athletes set for indoor, cross country and road racing across Britain appeared first on Fast Running.