CONDITIONS were unusually favourable at Saturday’s Harwich Parkrun.

Normally you can expect a strong wind along the seafront in one direction.

However, a still day, not too warm or cold, produced some good times for the runners.

One hundred and 47 people took park - the second largest attendance since the event started in 2015.

People travelled from as far away as Preston, Huddersfield and Birmingham to take part, plus the usual more local competitors from Great Bentley, Colchester and Chelmsford.

Despite all the visitors, it was local club members who dominated most of the top finish positions.

Harwich Runners' men took all top-three finish positions.

Steve Cooper led from the start to continue his run of excellent recent performances with a win in a new course best of 17 minutes and 28 seconds.

Second over the line was Simon Day, in 18m 32s, and third was Mark Rutter, in 19m 17s.

Fellow club member Claudine Benstead finished first lady for the 30th time.

It was also her 50th Parkrun.

Her time of 20m 47s was just two seconds short of her best set last August.

Two club members returning from injury had good runs, showing they are well on their way to getting back to their best.

They were Richard Newman (21m 42s) and Bill Haining (21m 23s).

New member Stuart Raffle achieved his second personal best (PB) in two weeks, clocking 19m 55s. Other members to record PBs this week were Valentina Burley, just six days after completing the Paris Marathon, in 25m 25s, Neil Richardson (26m 30s) and Jennifer Griffith (31m).

Mike Ball continues to improve.

This week's time of 21m 4s was his fifth PB of 2018 - a big step up from the 26 minutes he was taking when he ran his first Parkrun in September 2016.

Club members also ran at Parkruns elsewhere.

Gary Parker was at Ipswich and managed 20m 55s.

At Colchester, Hannah Jarvis ran 26m 11s but was beaten by her mother, Rachel Jarvis (23m 39s), running her second-ever Parkrun.

Vicky McCrea chose the Shrewsbury event where she recorded 27m 20s.

Will (21m 16s) and Sarah (30m 16s) Roxby Clarke tried out the new Parkrun at Felixstowe.

Two club members took part in the Brighton Marathon.

Christopher Payne ran a well-paced race to knock 13 minutes off his best time for the 26.2 miles, setting a new best of 3h 16m 57s.

Tracey George completed the race for the ninth time in 6h 9m 56s.

Ultra distance club runner James Mann travelled to Kent to take part in the Fowlmead Endurance 50-mile race.

A slight error on his part meant he actually ran 52.13 miles in 11h 2m 49s.

His time for the race distance of 50 miles was 10h 33m.