GLORIOUS early morning autumn sunshine greeted the 55 runners assembled in Cliff Park for the latest Harwich Parkrun.

As usual, Harwich Runners were out in force, with 24 members taking part, and the club dominated the men’s competition by taking the top seven spots.

Mark Lloyd enjoyed his third win at the event in 18 minutes and 18 seconds, after an early tussle with first-timer Simon Harrison who clocked an impressive 18m 32s.

In third position was Robin Brookes, coming in just one second under the 19-minute barrier for a 14 second personal best (PB).

Other performances of note included youngster Archie Barrington (20m 45s, ninth overall) who has only failed to achieve a PB once in the seven Harwich parkruns he has taken part in, and Nick Beales (21m 3m in 11th overall), knocking a huge one minute seven seconds off his previous course best.

Organiser Dennis Warner (22m 12s, 13th overall) improved his previous best time by six seconds.

The quickest female on the day was Carolyn Hay, from Redhill Road Runners, in 20 minutes dead, with the fastest Harwich Runners’ women Carrie Hook (24m 3s, 3rd female) and Claire Gooding-Mathews (24m 35s, 4th female).

Claire Bransby (26m 15s, 6th female) continues to improve after her recent comeback to racing and lowered her best time by 19 seconds.

There was one Harwich Runner among the 243 taking part at the Colchester event in Castle Park.

Thomas Stafford was seventh overall and first in the 15-17 years age group in 19m, a 29 seconds improvement on his other appearance there.

Finally, Ian Cannons travelled to Mile End for his parkrun.

He completed the flat two-lap course, which started at the Olympic Stadium, and consisted of a mixture of tarmac paths and the Regent’s Canal towpath, in 21m 10s for 40th position in a field of 186 runners.

Cannons was also fourth in the 40-44 years age category.

Autumn sunshine again greeted the 352 runners who took part in the Felixstowe coastal 10 mile race.

There were 18 members of Harwich Runners in the field.

Rob Reason finished third in a time of 58m 57s.

Mark Lloyd recorded a personal best in 61m 41s, two minutes faster than his previous best, for ninth place and third in his age group (MV40).

Robin Brookes finished 17th and second in his age category (MV45) in a PB of 64m 14s.

There was also a new PB for Matt Doran, who improved by three minutes to 74m 42s.

Running their first ten-mile race for the club were Tom Stafford (72m 23s), Justin Cooper-Keeble (88m 32s) and Katherine Pleace (2h 8m 17s).

Elsewhere, Karen Martin was among over 4,000 finishers at the Windsor half-marathon in 2h 12m 5s Harwich were represented at the Essex County Cross Country relay event at Hockley, near Southend.

Madeline Lewis took on the first of the three five km legs, finishing ninth of the 34 runners in 20m 21s.

Next up was Michelle Greenfield, who posted 25m 20s, and she passed on to Elspeth Knott, whose time of 21m 57 was enough to see the team finish 14th overall.