Anthony Bailey delivers one of the best performances

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​Anthony Bailey delivers one of the best performances of his career in the Stroud Half Marathon

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Anthony Bailey returned to the streets where he grew up to deliver one of the best performances of his career in the Stroud half marathon.

Racing for the first time since injuring his calf in the Cheltenham half marathon last month the 41-year-old postman produced a first class run to smash his personal best by almost two minutes with a time of 72mins 58secs and finish runner-up behind runaway winner Rob Keal of Notts AC.

Keal tore clear of the field to win in an excellent time of 69mins 19secs, his third sub 70 minutes clocking this year, but the local honours clearly went to Bailey who grew up in the town and went to Archway School before moving to Cheltenham where he has lived for the past 20 years.

"Everything went perfect for me on the day," said a delighted Bailey, who is a member of Cheltenham & County Harriers.

"I was supposed to run the Abingdon marathon last week but I had a bad run in the Cheltenham half and did my left calf in so I had to ease off to recover and opted not to run the marathon and decided to line up for the Stroud half instead.

"I spent 10 years living on the course and walking up and back to the school near the start and finish so I know the roads well."

While Keal enjoyed a solo run around the lanes of Gloucestershire the battle for second place was a more intriguing affair as Bailey tucked in with Stroud & District AC's Jordan Frapwell and Dean Parker (Bournville) to chase Cirencester's Adrian Williams during the first half of the race.

The pack caught Williams after the Whitminster hill and they all headed back towards Stroud with Bailey and Frapwell pushing on the pace.

"Jordan then made his move around 10 miles and I held on to him and when I went to the front he dropped off so I knew then that I had got second place," added Bailey.

"It is a shame that the guy who won it drove two hours to get to Stroud as it would have been really nice to have won the race but I'll have another go next year."

Parker finished strongly to claim third in a personal best time of 73:11 and there were also PBs for 22-year-old Frapwell (73:22), veteran Williams (73:23) in fifth and Gloucester AC's Nathan Smith in seventh (75:55).

Smith's performance was notable as he carved 1min 25secs off the PB he set in Cheltenham last month to mark him as one of the most improved runners in the club.

On a perfect day for racing there were also PBs for the Stroud AC pair of Alastair Cambell (11th, 78:34) and Robin Loftus (14th, 79:34) while from Almost Athletes veteran Steve Linton clocked a new best time of 82:11 in 2nd.

Bailey also led the Cheltenham Harriers squad to success in the team competition with solid support from Dave Rantell (18th in 80:55 and first veteran over 45), Steve Hall (27th, 83:22) and Paul Horsfall (28th, 83:28).

Cheltenham's outstanding over 70 runner Martin Ford again beat all the vet 60 athletes with a 90:31 clocking and top vet over 50 was Stroud's Ian Roberts with 85:58.

In-form Annabel Granger completed a hat-trick of west half marathon wins as the Bristol & West AC runner added the Stroud women's title to her previous successes in Cheltenham (September 27th, 81:10) and Exeter (October 18th, 81:16).

Granger's time of 79:43 was her second fastest of the year only and put her three minutes clear of Swindon's Kate Jacobs with Shona Crombie-Hicks of Bourton Road Runners third.

Gemma Hargraves of Almost Athletes was sixth (86:48) with Bourton's Lucy Walmsley seventh (87:18) and Stroud's Heidi North tenth (89:10).

There were 820 finishers with Dursley's 68-year-old Peter Brown bringing up the rear in a time of 3:06.57.