FIVE Radcliffe runners took part in the modern adventure that is a day out at the London Marathon, with the oldest of them, John McParland, showing his younger club-mates what the running business is all about.

At the age of 59, he put up a cracking effort, finishing in 3hr 26 min 29 sec, coming in 3887th, to make his visit to London a truly satisfying one.

John has a smooth, economical style of running and basically trains enough to build up the stamina to last the marathon distance.

Steve Hamer had a bit of a nightmare after 20 miles and staggered home in the end to record 3.45.28.

This landed him exactly 22 seconds ahead of Ben Heron, who made his usual steady effort all the way through.

In terms of nightmares, David Bartlett's was the complete article.

Carried away with the excitement of his first London Marathon, he shot off too fast to get to 10 miles far too quickly.

After that, fatigue set in, and he did really well to keep going, reaching the finish in 4.24.26.

All things are relative in running, of course, and Tony McGlyn was well pleased with a time of 4.24.57... except that he would have preferred to catch David!

Those few seconds' advantage were worth 121 places in the finishing order, which illustrates just what an enormous event this is.

Last Sunday a sterling effort from Lee Hurst was the highlight of Radcliffe's annual 10k road race.

The Altrincham runner pulled away from the opposition to win without any apparent pressure, setting an excellent time of 33 mins 36 sec, for what is a hilly, twisting course.

In conditions that were uncomfortably warm and sunny, Chorley's Keith Johnson never gave up the struggle to win this race, ending up 19 seconds adrift of the winner, and fending off Johnathan Wardley of Scarborough who was a mere 4 seconds behind him.

Horwich runner Robert Jackson took 4th place, holding off Stephen Wrigley, a Salford Harrier who was first veteran runner.

Anne Washington showed terrific class to run in as first lady in 36.48, this performance being good enough for 11th place among the 270 finishers.

Karen Hutchinson of Horwich was best over 35, and Salford Harrier Susan Selby, who lives in Radcliffe, took the honours among the over-40's.

Brian Duffy of the Burnden Road Runners took the over-50 prize, with Susan Cooper of Southport posting a sprightly 40.04 to win the same age group in the ladies

Steve James of Southport Waterloo, now over 65, was best over-60, setting a cracking pace to set a superb time of 40.58. Among others, he held off the challenge of Jim Rhodes.

Jim's a Radcliffe man who runs for Northern Veterans.

He was seriously injured some time ago and must have wondered if he would ever run again, so it was some achievement for him to be out there running again.

Interestingly, Manny Aspinall, whose son Michael won Radcliffe's last trail race, was just behind Jim in the over-60's section, while his younger daughter Alison was setting a good pace for 155 position in 48.18.

Burnden's Tess Harrison won the ladies' over-65 prize. She continues to maintain excellent form and is an inspiration to others, as is 70 years old Brian Gaskill of Swinton, who notched a pretty good time of 50.46.

Organiser Tom West was well pleased with the event, which attracted a good number of entries, got good weather for once, and produced some super performances.