Plymouth’s Ocean City Half Marathon is one of the three qualifying races for the national masters squad England programme, and as such, attracted a lot of fast runners from all over the South West and beyond, writes Dave Mutter.

It's a tough course taking in a two-mile steady incline at mile two to what is a steep finish up past the Barbican to cross the line on the Hoe.

Graham Newton managed to come second in the MV70 category in a time of 1:43:36. He has now qualified to run for the national half marathon squad at Maidenhead in September to add to his successful qualification earlier in the year to run in the national marathon squad at York in October.

Also producing fine performances were three other AVRs. Angela Kerr completed yet another terrific run in 1:56:14, achieving a hard earned eighth position in the heavily competed VW60 category.

Diane Newton was very pleased to finish third in the VW65 category in 2:31:36 and Martin Kerr completed the AVR success in a very respectable 2:39:20.