AGAINST top-class opposition, the Swindon Harriers’ men raised their game to another level at the English National 12-Stage Road Relay Championships at Sutton Park, Birmingham.

Five of the team selected ran faster than the Midlands, three switched from short to long, and three came into the team for the first time.

“I couldn’t have asked for any more against that quality of opposition,” said team manager Simon Dill.

“Best thing was the improvement from the Midlands on the short leg times and how consistent we were on the long.”

The kudos for claiming the biggest improvement on the day went to Max Harrison-Tosatto, who clocked 29mins 12secs for the long stage, a massive 52 seconds quicker than he managed over the same course two weeks earlier.

“It was a big run by Max,” added Simon.

Omer Homer was only a few strides behind as he ran 17:14 on the 12th and final stage to carve 50 seconds off his Midlands time, while Seb Reynolds was rewarded for his promotion into the A team by improving 29 seconds to 18:11.

Dill led by example by clipping eight seconds off his Midlands time with 17:13 on stage two, and Ben Lines clocked 27:38 on stage one – 24 seconds quicker than the Midlands and the quickest Harrier on the day.

The quickest short-stage runner was in-form veteran Gary O’Brien, who ran a super time of 17mins 12secs.

Matt Woodward also did his bit for the team with the 1500m man stepping up to the long stage and recording a very respectable 28:18.

Elsewhere, barely a month after clocking 3:15.59 on his marathon debut in Barcelona, Ben McIntyre smashed his PB with 2:59.53 in the Manchester event on Sunday.

Teenager Lucy Bull went top of the south-west rankings for under 15 girls with a personal best throw of 33.30m at the Yate Open meeting. There were also PBs for Lottie Harding (U13s shot, 5.84m) and Molly Lyne (U15s javelin, 13.97m).

Lewis Belgrave cleared a PB of 1.25m in the U13s high jump at the recent Yeovil open meeting while U13s athlete Charissa Griffiths-Clack improved her 800m PB to 2:40.02.