It was a very good weekend for local half-marathon runners in Britain and abroad.

Western AC husband and wife Paul and Dawn Atherton competed in Wrexham on Sunday and both enjoyed strong runs.

Dawn’s time of one hour 25 minutes and 22 seconds took more than one minute off her previous best set in last November’s local Syd Quirk event.

More significantly, it gives her a second Island Games A standard towards her dream of representing the Isle of Man in Orkney this summer. Her progress over the last couple of years has been fantastic.

Paul also set a new personal best with a time of 1hr 14m 55s, shaving two seconds off his previous best set in the 2020 Syd Quirk. Another excellent run by a very consistent athlete.

Brilliant half-marathon by Mayers in Barcelona

Also on Sunday, fellow island athlete Caroline Mayers produced a fantastic performance in the Barcelona Half-Marathon.

After 11 years, she has broken her personal best half-marathon time with a clocking of one hour 27 minutes and 37 second in Spain as she finished a fine fourth in the women's 50 category.

Caroline is now in her fourth year in the 50 age group and her previous pb for the half-marathon was set all the way back in 2014 when she set a time of 1hr 28m 02s in Copenhagen.

To set a new mark so many years later shows how incredibly dedicated she has been to her running for so long.

Her time on Sunday is only seven seconds outside the Island Games A standard for this year's event in Orkney.

Also competing in Barcelona was Helen Taylor who, despite feeling under the weather, ran a fine time of 1hr 37m 56s.

DAVID GRIFFITHS