By Thomas Pollak

While Ugandan Olympic representative Paskar Owor from Belgrave Harriers ran away with the Perserverance 10km road race on Sunday, it was runners from the organising club Hercules Wimbledon who dominated the event filling five of the top nine places.

Owor took early control of the race and had a clear lead as the runners emerged from Wimbledon Park for the first time.

He increased his lead as he strode past the All England tennis club in Church Road. and had a half-a-minute lead half-way round the opening lap as he raced down the slope in Home Park Road.

Owor continued to stride away to take the honours in 33 minutes, 39 seconds, three seconds faster than his winning time in 2011 and well clear of his rivals.

Hercules Wimbledon's Jonathan Cornish, a student at Roehampton University, took second place in 35.02 with clubmate Phil Glynn in third 36 seconds later.

Sean Crummy and Alex Urban, who both ran in April's Virgin London marathon, were sixth and seventh in 37.59 and 38.45 with Peter Collins first veteran to finish in ninth place in 39.48.

Top over-60 veteran Peter Giles beat all the over-50 veterans to finish 14th in 41.09.

Birthday boy Tom Edge made history by becoming the youngest ever runner to take part in the event. Edge celebrated his 15th birthday on the Sunday which, under UK Athletics rules, made him eligible to compete over the distance. He finished 28th in 44.13.

Thames Hare & Hounds' Pippa Major was first woman finisher in 42.46 with Hercules Wimbledon's over-45 veteran Alison Purnell third in 46.40.

Elsewhere, Hercules Wimbledon's Fred Slemeck was first British finisher in the Basingstoke half-marathon on Sunday. He was second out of 1,310 runners in one hour, 14.16 behind Kenyan winner Andrew Lesuuda.

Running double the distance, Tom Cheetham was fifth and third veteran over-45 in the Isle of Wight marathon in 3:12.46.

Stewart Bond was fractionally faster in clocking 3:11.49 in finishing 168th out of more than 4000 runners in the Chester marathon.

parkrun

Hercules Wimbledon runners took the men's and women's honours in the Richmond Park parkrun on Saturday.

Teenager Alex Lloyd-Jones headed the 279-strong field home in 17.11 to post the top age-graded performance and slice eight seconds off his previous best set in winning the event the previous weekend.

Over-45 veteran Francesca Clarke was just three seconds outside her best time in winning the women's event in 20.55.

Hercules Wimbledon's Ruth Clifton was also top woman finisher in the Wimbledon Common parkrun on Saturday where she was 12th in a record 397-strong field, clocking clocked 18.47.

First Hercules Wimbledon finisher was Alexie Calvert-Ansari who was fourth in 17.45. James Eden was eighth in 18.25 ahead of Andrew Davies (ninth in 18.36).

Teenager Matthew Gibbons, who was 16th in 19.13, won the Merton mini-marathon trial with Daniel Haigh (33rd in 20.11) runner-up in the trial race.

Charles Hampden-Smith was 28th and third veteran-over 50 in 20.00.

Matt Sharp was runner-up in the Dulwich parkrun in 16:28 with Rob Tuer eighth in 17:01. Further afield, Alex Abrahams was 20th out of 121 runners in the Princes Park parkrun in Liverpool in 21:19.

Coming up

This weekend, a large contingent of Hercules Wimbledon runners are in action in the Surrey Veterans cross country championships in Richmond Park on Saturday.

The women's 6km race starts at 2.30pm with the men's 10km event due off at 3pm. The races start and finish near the Pembroke Lodge car park.

A little distance away, other Hercules Wimbledon runners will be in action in an inter-club match starting and finishing at the Sheen crossroads near Sheen Gate.