THIS weekend saw another weekend of varied events for Haslemere Border athletes.

The coastal town of Bournemouth hosted its annual marathon festival. With races starting on the Saturday, the event offers a plethora of distances from a 2k junior race right up to the full 26.2-mile marathon.

Events for the Haslemere Border team started on Saturday with Andy Wareham and Clair Green competing in the Supersonic 10K, coming home in a time of 45 minutes 22 seconds and 50.18 minutes respectively.

Rosie Dyke ran the full marathon, completing the event in an awe-inspiring three hours, 58 minutes and 34 seconds, a personal best, knocking a massive six minutes off her previous best time.

Taking part in the half-marathon, Dominic Perkins brought the Borders home in a fantastic personal best time of 1.37.32, closely followed by Andrew Steele in 1.48.43. Steve King came in under the two-hour mark in 1.59.04 with Andy Wise finishing in 2.03.25. Ann Varnes bought the Haslemere Borders ladies home first in a fantastic 2.19.01, smashing a huge five minutes off her previous personal best. And another tremendous performance by Debbie Parry bought the Border team home, finishing in 3.20.49 in this her first proper half-marathon and another Haslemere Border personal best.

The Kingston half-marathon was the race of choice of head coach Daniel Allaway and Lari Williams. Dan maintained his exceptionally high standards, coming home first in his class in his second best ever half-marathon time of 1.21.27. Lari completed the course in an impressive 1.47.59.

Across the pond, Cairon Pearson took part in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Having recently completed Berlin, Pearson finished the total distance in an impressive 4.25.25. Cairon’s next challenge is the New York marathon in November.

Perhaps the trickiest event for the Haslemere Borders runners was undertaken by club coach Dave Bateman, who acted as a pacer at the Alice Holt Park Run. Dave had to complete the 5k Parkrun in 27 minutes, with many runners using pacers as a guide for their speed, and indeed to achieve their own personal bests, a pressurised run was fabulously completed by Dave in immaculate time.

The previous weekend, Clair Green and Emily Sturman competed in the Windsor women’s 10k in the beautiful setting of the Great Windsor Park.

World Championships medal-winning long distance runner Jo Pavey got the race under way, then started at the back and wished everyone a good run as she passed them.

Clair completed the distance in 51 minutes 50 seconds with Emily finishing in 52.38, an excellent achievement in her first 10k race.

Another day, same location, Sunday saw the Windsor half-marathon, starting and finishing on the ‘long walk’ with a backdrop of Windsor Castle as the course follows an undulating route around the Great Park.

Coach Sarah Barnett completed the 13.1 miles in two hours 25 minutes three seconds, with Philomel Bennet continuing her outstanding season by finishing in 1.35.31 and securing first place in the F45 category, and in doing so moved up more than 300 places in the F45 rankings for half-marathons.

Sunday also saw Karen Sinclair completing her second half-marathon in as many weeks. The Ealing half-marathon has been voted the best 13.1-mile race three years in a row, and Karen saw a monumental improvement on her previous Ealing half time, coming in 20 minutes faster with a time of 2.09.21.

Sunday was also an important date in the club calendar, with the Punch Bowl Challenges. It also signified the start of the club’s Grand Prix competition. Now in its sixth year, the Grand Prix aims to encourage friendly competition between club members, with points being awarded for taking part in specified races, attaining personal bests, or marshalling club races. There is also a ‘wildcard’ available to members.