CITY of Salisbury’s hot property Aaron Wilson made a round trip of 8,000 miles to improve his marathon time - and was rewarded with a huge personal best.

Having set his sights on the world-famous Chicago 26 miler in the ongoing quest to improve his performance, Wilson’s high quality run ended in 2hours 46min 59sec, an excellent time, equivalent to finishing almost a full mile ahead of his previous fastest for the distance.

On the Isle of Wight, Liz Roberts continued her marathon odyssey too with a fine run of 4.30.10 for a place in the top 80 finishers.

At the 10k distance, Kevin Tilley took a good third place with 37min 44sec in the Chalke Valley event, followed by Jon Rich with 39.37, Adam Bradburn 42.07 and Kathryn Dreyer 59.43. In the Gold Hill race at Shaftesbury, David Osment was the club’s quickest with 47.08, with Graham Lomas in 48.36 and Steve Lomas 55.40. Meanwhile on the city streets of the Berlin 10k, John Ruskin stopped the clock at 46.01.

Off road, the Hampshire cross country league season got underway at Farley Mount, near Winchester, where Salisbury’s young athletes did the club proud. On a course made tricky by heavy overnight rain, the under 13 girls made light of the conditions with Abby Burn in a superb second place and Isobel Horsfield coming eighth. Katie Hopper on her debut was 86th to complete the team.

Among the under 13 boys, Oliver Phillips and Ben Hopper were 71st and 84th in a big field.

The under 15 girls were led home by Maisie Grant in 25th spot with Heidi Porter 44th and Tasha Mundell 46th. The boys notched up the best team performance of the day with Josh Shuter in seventh, Alex D’Arbost 20th, Sam Coles 24th and Ben Saunby 35th.

Jay Domoney made a good start as an under-17 with a 25th placing to set a good example to his running father Gary, competing in the men’s race but finishing behind Ben Brewster who was 32nd in a field of 250.