Road Runners struck Welsh Gold at Sportcity indoor championships.

Road Runners struck Welsh Gold at Sportcity indoor championships.

Veteran runners Pat Finnie and Don Hale swapped the great outdoors for the magnificent indoors last Saturday and struck gold at Sportcity during the North Wales Regional Championships.

The two NWRRC athletes ran for the very first time on the superb and steeply banked indoor track in Manchester, which is often used for World, International, or for many other national race finals.

The meeting on Saturday had to be re-arranged due to fixture clashes yet it still attracted a host of top elite performers, backed by a large, vocal, and enthusiastic support group from across the UK.

In addition to recording massive PBs, both Welsh runners also collected prestigious gold medals for winning their respective age categories and time trials in the 200m and 600m track races, which has now propelled them into the top Welsh rankings over these distances.

And following their gritty performances in the tough 600m event, they are currently not only the top Welsh ranked athletes for their ages, but they also hold the number 1 spot in the UK, mainly due to the rare running of this unusual distance.

Pat Finnie (64) enjoyed a great indoor debut by winning two gold medals in the NW Championships, firstly in his MV60 age cat in the 600m event with a new PB of 2 mins 24.96 seconds. In the 200m which followed shortly afterwards, he again won his age cat with a superb PB time of 37.41 seconds.

Amazingly, Pat also ran in the warm-up 60m event held at the very start of the competition and he again won his age cat in just 11.35 seconds, and although it was not part of these championships, his time promoted him to 2nd place overall for his age cat within the Welsh rankings.

Don Hale (69) was another indoor debutant, and he too won a couple of gold medals in his MV65 age cat for the 600m and 200m events, and similarly collected two new PBs and top Welsh rankings.

His massive personal best time of 2 mins 11.38 seconds in the 600m race was about 29 seconds faster than his previous PB and earned him 1st place in his age cat.

In the 200m event, Don also smashed his previous time over this distance by nearly 10-seconds, finishing in 36.55 seconds to celebrate another age cat win.

His double success on Saturday gave Don a hat-trick of recent age cat sprint victories in the North Wales Indoor Championships, following his previous 60m win (11.15 seconds) – held two weeks ago at Deeside – and he has now secured No 1 spot in the Welsh rankings for the 60m, 200m and 600m distances.