Herne Hill Harriers’ Jonathan Ratcliffe came within a minute of his marathon personal best as he finished second V45 at the Greater Manchester marathon.

Ratcliffe was 50th overall, clocking two hours 42 minutes 34 seconds, just 61 seconds short of his lifetime best set at Frankfurt in 2012.

The marathoner, however, stands fifth in his age category in the 2015 national rankings for the distance.

Ratcliffe, along with a host of other Herne Hill athletes, is now planning to run the London marathon on Sunday.

On the track, multi-eventer Thomas Ashby was in imperious form at the Kinnaird and Sword Trophies at Kingston.

Ashby cleared 1.85m in the high jump, ran 15.19secs in the 110m hurdles, despite easing down before the line, threw 13.06m in the shot, 47.62m in the discus, and 42m in the javelin.

His most striking performance, however, was in a non-decathlon event - the triple jump - with a huge personal best of 14.16m.

Nicholas Atwell ran 11.01secs in the 100m and 48.25secs in the 400m, with the latter result winning him the trophy for best track performance of the meeting at Kingston.

Elsewhere, Penel Cummings was sixth in the senior women’s Race Walking Association 20k championships at Hillingdon in 2.03:58.

On a fast day at Dulwich parkrun, Sean Fitzpatrick (16:33), Andrew Grigg (17:21), Simon Thompson (17:29) and Mike Boyle (17:33) were third, 13th, 14th and 16th respectively.

Ed Barrow ran a personal best of 18:00 to finish 19th.

Mel Edwards was fourth woman in 19:03.

Keith Newton was a winner at Greenwich parkrun in 17:36, while Oscar Millard – running in the JM 11-14 age category – was ninth at Wimbledon Common in 18:17. V50 Gary Ironmonger was fifth at Brockwell Park in 17:10.