THE third race took place in Harwich's 5km Handicap Series.

Conditions were warm but 84 of the 145 runners managed to beat their predicted times.

The runner who managed that by the biggest margin was Ellie Haynes, of Harwich, closely followed by Kathy Barfield and Niall Burke.

The fastest runner on the night was Danny Millward, of Colchester, who sped round the course in 17 minutes exactly.

His closest challenge came from Harwich’s Graeme Knott, who finished just eight seconds behind.

The fastest lady for the third race out of three was Aiko Henington, of Colchester, in 18m 22s.

This race saw a welcome return to action for Mark Lloyd, who clocked a good 18m 22s just two days after completing the Harwich Sprint Triathlon.

Young Archie Barrington continues to improve with a new personal best of 18m 48s.

Mark Higgs ducked under 20 minutes for the first time and will be looking to lower his time of 19m 55s in the final two races of the series.

Kris Dalby has recorded a personal best in each of the three races so far this year, the latest being 25m 48s, while Kim Pretty continues to improve with a new best of 24m 13s.

Also running their fastest times were Alexander McCreadie and Helen Benham.

Karen Stapleton, Trevor Lewis, Ruth Benham and Sam Edwards recorded their quickest times since joining Harwich Runners

There were season best times for Becky McCorquodale, Peter Fraser-Hopewell, Ian Bolton and Kathy Barfield while Katie Holmes posted her fastest time since returning to the club.

In the accompanying junior race run over a mile, there were some very fast times recorded.

Eddison Barker posted the quickest time of 6m 15s, three seconds ahead of Archie Henington.

Amy Thompson was the quickest girl in 6m 39s.

The runner who beat their predicted time by the most and therefore the race winner was Darcy Peck, who also completed the course faster than ever before. Others recording their best times were Daisy Ward, Jemima Garner and Molly Richardson.

Mike Ball was the only Harwich Runner at the Maldon 5k.

He finished 36th in 21m 50s.

On Saturday, some members travelled for their weekly Parkrun while others ran in Harwich.

Mark Rutter was seventh in 19m 11s at Bryn Bach.

Junior Michael Knowles finished 36th out of 715 in 20m 35s at the Chelmsford event.

Bill Haining was second at Clacton in 21m 22s and Lee Allen was first in 19m 50s - his fastest at the Clacton event.

At Harwich, there was PBs for Allan Bush (22m 47s), Aiden Downs (27m 57s) and Emma MacKillop (24m 4s).

The first finisher was Graeme Knott in 17m 59s and third was Simon Harrison in 18m 35s.

Club ladies took all first three positions and they were Claudine Benstead (20m 23s), Kate Hodgkiss (21m 47s) and Karen Stapleton (22m 13s).

A number of Harwich Runners' ladies took part in the Ipswich Race For Life mud run at the weekend, including Helen and Ruth Benham, Clair Block, Penny Barrington, Madeline Lewis, Faye Elliot, Zoe Orr and Claire Gooding-Matthews.

Over the two days the event is expected to raise in the region of £180,000 for Cancer Research.