BEFORE last week, Jordan Jones had not competed in 18 months.

However, he still managed to smash his 3,000m personal best by nearly five seconds on his return to the track.

Jones was one of two Warrington Athletics Club members competing at the University of Birmingham series on Wednesday.

He finished fourth in his race – his first since November 2019 – and clocked a superb time of 8mins 58.82secs.

Katie Lowery was also running her first race in six months and came third in her 1,500m race in a time of 4mins 36.80secs.

Meanwhile, Steve Watmough and Louise Blizzard took to a very fast course in Pulford for the Cheshire Elite races on Sunday.

Watmough blitzed his personal half-marathon best time, coming home in 1hour 14mins 57secs to win the over 55s age group while over the full-distance marathon course, Blizzard was second in the women’s over 45s as she finished in 3hours 11mins 47secs.

Louise Blizzard after completing the Cheshire Elite Marathon

Louise Blizzard after completing the Cheshire Elite Marathon

Three club members took part in Trafford Athletics Club’s senior open meeting on Saturday, with under 17s runner Lisa Halliday improving her personal best 300m hurdles time to 50.94secs to finish third.

Chris Fance was ninth in the men’s 800m after clocking 2mins 9.72secs while in the field events, over 50s athlete Neal Petley was fifth in the long jump and seventh in the triple jump, leaping 4.42m and 9.70m respectively.

Paul Bagan finished second in the over 40s and eighth overall in the Run Through Tatton 10k event after clocking 33mins 36secs – 43 seconds quicker than his previous best set over the same course a fortnight previous.

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