Gainsborough and Morton Striders race in Great North Run

Rather than heading to South Shields the runners faced a much tougher course, turning back towards Newcastle and uphill along The Great North road.

The undulating route offered relentless up and downs with little to no flat road on offer, as such personal bests were few and far between. None of this concerned Jayne Hunt as she was the only Strider to claim a new personal best, Jayne completed the run in 1:49:51, taking a sizeable chunk of one minute and seven seconds out of the time she ran at Boston in April.

Also running was James Croft who capitalised on his recent good form, his stellar performance of 78:32 was just 27 seconds shy of his personal best.

The time was good enough to rank him as third overall in the clubs rankings for the v35 age group, although he will fancy his chances of moving further up on a quicker course.

Chris Inman set the club record for the v65 category as he finished in 1:45:27, beating the previous record by nine minutes. And Carl Currie was the fourth Strider in the race, running for the Samaritans charity, Carl crossed the finish line in the fine time of 86:25.

At the weekend's parkruns there were plenty of personal bests to celebrate, particularly for Lauren Staves who took on the Rother Valley event.

Lauren produced a brilliant performance to finish in 20:11, an all-time parkrun personal best and almost a minute and a half quicker than her 5k road best.

At Cusworth Hall, Chris and Kirsty Smithson were in fine form, both running new personal bests of 31:21 and 32:51 respectively.

At Doddington Hall Simon Blacknell registered a new best for the event as he finished in 21:18, with Lee Vickers running under 19 minutes for the first time at Normanby Hall as he ran the excellent time of 18:57.