RITHY Hy's courageous effort saw him come within a whisker of a golden victory in the Dorset Invader summer marathon.

The City of Salisbury runner recorded an excellent 3hours 30mins 10secs at the hot and hilly 27-mile event, just 13 seconds shy of first place.

Those honours were snapped up by Reading's Barry Miller, who crossed the line in 3.29.57.

Phil Smith was the next Salisbury finisher in 4.6.51, then came Steve Auton in 4.27.49 and Liz Roberts 5.22.38.

The linked half marathon saw Lizzie Guasch timed at 2.9.06, Andy Robbins 2.18.51 and Kathryn Dreyer 2.33.03.

With the track season drawing to a close, the south west championships at Exeter featured a string of first-class results from the Salisbury club with no fewer than eight title wins.

Star of the day was Greg Herring, unbeaten this season, who in a tactical 800m won the gold to go into the top ten of the national age group rankings, breaking the club record set in 1978.

Richard Holt also showed the way with a first placed 11.52sec run in the senior 100m, and taking the long jump with a leap of 6.49m.

Molly Hole continued her recent success by winning the under-13 shot put with 8.89m and the javelin with 29.07m.

Hamish Mundell not only won the under 20s' 110m hurdles with a personal best 19.33sec but also came second in the 400m hurdles with 60.01sec.

Skye Allen won the under-15s 100m with a pb 12.88sec and Ottilie Knight won the under-15s javelin with 31.63m.

John Shuter was second in under 17s 1500m, Abigail Burn was second in the under 15s 1500m and Georgina Henry was also second in the under 17s discus.