Bolton United Harriers athletes competed in various competitions throughout the area and at the London Marathon last weekend.

Some of the Harriers travelled to Wigan for the opening Mid Lancs League fixture of the season. There was a strong turnout of more than 50 athletes throughout the age groups, as the club looked for a strong start to the season.

It was an impressive team performance with some outstanding individual results.

Simon Bissell (discus and hammer) was a double winner, as was Callum Ashton (200m and 800m) and Sian Pledger (100m and long jump).

Rachel McMorran (U15) continued her impressive form taking her personal best in the 100m to 13.0sec, which puts her in ninth place on the UK ranking list for the season so far. Will Valentine (U15) with two third places and a second place.

Other individual winners on the day included Matt Osborne (long jump), Rick Lowe (high jump), Ashley Marshall (long jump), Robert Makin (javelin), Aaron Stannard (100m), Jack Garmory (1500m), Saffron Mackie (triple jump) and Lizzie Oliver (200m).

The whole team contributed superbly to leave the male team leading Division One and the female team in third place after the opening round of competition.

Sunday saw four intrepid Harriers senior ladies take on the London Marathon: Tina Holt 4.59.36; Sue Higson 5.05.07; Lesley Harwood 5.22.29; Angela Pilling 5.28.35.

Meanwhile closer to home Bolton United Harriers hosted the Bolton 10k on Sunday. The biggest ever field of 550 Runners lined up for the Harriers Centenary 10K Road Race.

Sixteen Bolton United Harriers finished, with Tony Valentine taking fourth spot overall when a third place looked a certainty until an unfortunate fall turning on to the track.

Eric Ranicar won the over-60s and Jill Hargreaves was first lady finisher for the club. The Harriers men's team had a magnificent day, winning the team trophy.

The men's race was won by Damian Nicholls of Wilmslow RC in a time of 32.44. The women's race was won by an 18-year-old Leanne Sheehy, of Salford Metropolitan AC in 38.41. The ladies team winners were Rossendale Harriers.

RESULTS: 4 Tony Valentine 33.00; 16 Mark Swannell 36.01; 20 Dave Shaw 36.52; Alexander Chadwick 37.04 (3rd JM); 25 Steve Houghton 38.12; 29 Eric Rannicar 38.26 (1st V60); 36 Brendan Higgins 38.57; 55 Graham Shaw 40.07; 56 Ian Gregory 40.11; 77 Ian Gamory 40.55; 244 Andre Wieckowski 48.27; 274 Geoff Knowles 49.31; 420 Jill Hargreaves 57.06 (16th Lady V35); 449 Alison Markland 58.56 (14th Lady V45); 501 Carmel Higgins 1.04.18; 542 Malcolm Pittock 1.16.27.

The race has been organised for the past 11 years by Nick Howarth, who is also currently the club's chairperson.

Nick has sadly had to make this year's event the last he will organise due to other commitments.

The race, through Nicks hard work over the years, has made this one of the prestige events in the 10k calendar, and now sees athletes travelling from all corners of the country to take part.

This year's entries included runners from as far afield as Scotland.

lTWO Radcliffe AC runners joined the thousands in this year's London Marathon.

Yasmin Parapia and Dave Bartlett had been training hard all year and Dave clocked 3hrs 58mins, and Yasmin 4hrs 19mins. Dave, who came back from an injury during his training, was disappointed with his time but the two enjoyed the big day.