Exmouth Harrier Tom Merson won the Torbay Half Marathon on Sunday with his fastest time in three consecutive victories in this popular event, writes Cathy Newman.

His time of 69:03 was over two minutes faster than the previous year.

Mike Musgrove finished second in the M45 category with 80:33 and Hugh Marsden was fourth in the M55 category with 90:02 – five seconds faster than the previous year.

Dave Stone is gradually returning to his times of previous years; he finished in 85:13. Craig Butler did 92:33, Chris Dupain 95:05, Grant Lee 96:08, Richard Bishop 98:03 and Terry McKie 99:37.

There were a total of 1,548 finishers.

Meanwhile, Berihu Hadera was again the first finisher in the Exmouth Parkrun with Simon Minting close behind.

Personal bests came from Tristan Kensal-Spurr with 17:46, Richard Bishop with 19:28 and Des White with 19:37.

Mike McNaghten ran an impressive debut of 18:37. There were 316 people who completed this 26th edition of Exmouth Parkrun.