COLCHESTER Harriers' Colin Ridley maintained his amazing spell of form with a gold medal in the Essex Five-Mile Road Championships.

Ridley belied his 55 years to win over-50 gold in a time of 28 minutes 30 seconds at the event, staged at Great Leighs racecourse.

Fran Norris took silver in the over-55 ladies category with a fine performance after clocking 37m 45s and Pete West (30m 06s) showed that he is on the comeback trail with a bronze in the over-50 men's category.

Other Harriers finishers: Ged McMillan (28m 36s), Craig Mitchell (30m 25s), Keith Marley (30m 25s), Tom Cresswell (30m 55s), David Wright (31m 40s), Rebecca Cooke (33m 50s), Simon Morgan (33m 38s), Rachel Rodgers (52m 07s).

Harriers claimed double victories at both the Colchester Castle and Mersea park runs.

Ramadam Osman and Amanda Henry were victorious at the Castle, while Richard Flutter and Debbie Cattermole romped to wins at Mersea.

Danny Millward was the winner at the Arrow Park Run, near Manchester.

Richard Millward has trained hard for the Manchester Marathon and was rewarded with a big personal best (PB) time of three hours 22m 04s.

Malcolm Statham ran his 194th marathon at Bungay, clocking his best-ever time at the event in 3h 23m.

Wayne Cook ran a good time of 1h 25m 34s for the half marathon.