Bury’s senior men fielded a team for the fifth time in the English National Six Stage Road Relays in Birmingham on Saturday.

Martin Clark took the first leg and covered the course in 18mins 12secs, handing over in an excellent 37th place - the club’s fastest leg of the day. Ben Coop took the second leg but had to concede 12 places with his time of 19:26, before Matthew Lowe ran a nippy 19:15 on the third leg to hand over in 50th place to team captain Byron Edwards. He covered his leg in 20:46 in 56th place. The penultimate leg was taken by Jack Passey in his club debut and he ran a strong 20:40 to hand over to Alexander Hannay in 59th place. Hannay covered the final leg in 21:44 to bring the team home in 62nd position. The total team time was 2:00:03, the team’s fastest time for the event and with a couple of key members missing.

On Sunday there were some 5k PBs for Bury athletes at the Tameside Graded Races. Abigail Warburton ran strongly to finish as second woman in the A race with 17:42, smashing her previous best for the distance. In the B race, Alex Leach recorded a personal best of 19:19 in 12th place, while young Lucy Dent also set a new best of 19:30 for the distance, taking second woman’s position.

Callum Gaunt competed in Sunday’s Chester Marathon, anticipating a strong run. However, he was struck with stomach cramps early on in the race which thwarted his intentions. He nevertheless bravely battled on and crossed the line in 2:52:36 in 155th place. Team-mate Irfan Qureshi finished further down the field in a time of 4:21:04.

Several members of the club ran at Heaton Parkrun and Katie Geelan returned to winning ways, crossing the line as first woman in 19:49. Paul Marshall, Craig Sykes and Curtis Simpson were all in the first 15 with respective times of 18:05, 18:28 (PB) and 18:54. It was also marvellous for coach Paula Gears to see two of her development group athletes, Karl Hinze and Kat Holden, make their debuts at the run, both ducking under 28 minutes. They were supported by colleague Martina Antalova. The development group is for people who are very new to running.

* Anyone thinking about starting running will be warmly welcomed at the group and further details can be found at www.buryac.co.uk.