Joan gets another victory over Stan in the Birmingham half

And so our husband-wife rivalry between Stan and Joan Mason continued unabated this weekend when the pair took on the Great Birmingham Run Half Marathon. The race takes place over old stomping ground for the pair who come from the area. The route takes in all the major sites of the city, starting in Victoria Square on Sand Pits Parade, it then goes past Cadbury World in Bourneville, where the is no time to stop and refuel on the chocolatey good stuff as runners plough on to the Edgbaston cricket ground and Canon Hill Park before finishing on Broad Street by the symphony hall.

The race was televised, however, if you were keeping your eyes peeled for our Harriers pair in their club vests then you will have been disappointed, as they were both running in fancy dress: Joan as a fairy and Stan as a Scotsman, complete with kilt!

On this occasion Stan had to settle for a finishing time that was 10 minutes down on Joan who had a truly superb run to clock a time of 1:56:28 for the 13.1 miles. When you consider that her average 10k time is usually around the 55 minute mark, you can see that she ran this more than double distance race at roughly the same pace! So, women really can go the distance! ;-) She finished in a highly respectable 5'300th place out of 18'000 entrants.

Stan also had a good run but could not quite match Joan on this occasion... perhaps his sporran got caught up in his, er.... kilt, and interupted his tsride pattern! Knowing Stan, he was probably milking the costume and the attention it brought him and savouring the whole race. He took 2:06:48 to complete, giving him 7'652nd spot overall.

The fetching pair before the start of the race!

Micah Kogo made up for being narrowly defeated in a sprint finish at the Great North Run with victory on the day, just outside the hour in 60:17.

Portuguese athlete, Sara Moreira took a comfortable victory in the women's race in 72:49.

Tragically a runner collapsed and died on the course. Our thoughts go out to their family.