VETERAN runners Pat Finnie and Don Hale swapped the great outdoors for the magnificent indoors on Saturday (March 5) and struck gold at Sport City during the North Wales Regional Championships.

The two North Wales Road Running Club (NWRRC) athletes ran for the 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.

In addition to recording massive personal best, both 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 in 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 one 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 North Wales Championships, firstly in his MV60 age category in the 600m event, with a new personal best of two minutes and 24.96 seconds.

In the 200m which followed shortly afterwards, he again won his age category with a superb personal best 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 category in just 11.35 seconds, and although it was not part of these championships, his time promoted him to second 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 category for the 600m and 200m events, and similarly collected two new personal bests and top Welsh rankings.

His massive personal best time of two mins and 11.38 seconds in the 600m race was about 29 seconds faster than his previous personal best and earned him first place in his age category.

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 category win.

His double success on Saturday gave Don a hat-trick of recent age category 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 number one spot in the Welsh rankings for the 60m, 200m and 600m distances.

Meanwhile, Steve Bozier claimed a new personal best time at last Saturday’s Conwy parkrun, which was completed in bright sunshine this week in stark contrast to recent events.

The NWRRC member finished third overall and he was second in his MV40-44 age category in 19 minutes and 10 seconds.

Steve led home seven other team-mates, with six recording age category podium places including three outright wins.

Steve Mason was another runner in top form, and finished shortly behind in fourth place overall but won his MV45-49 category in 19.38, with Harry Driscoll going well again in 11th spot and finishing first in his SM20-24 category in 20.50.

Gethin Wyn Jones was back to his best in 16th place and was second in his MV35-39 category in 21.23, with Jamie Tharme in 27th place in 22.54, and Josh Keogh finished 30th and 3rd in his SM30-34 category in 23.23.

Master veteran Mike Hayton also enjoyed another good outing to win his MV70-74 age cat, finishing 72nd overall in 27.03, and Sam Williams returned to parkrun finishing third in her MW35-39 category and 78th overall in 28.02.

Elsewhere, Stuart Culverhouse and his young son Joe competed at the Nova Prestatyn parkrun on Saturday morning, and both won their respective age categories.

Running together, Joe finished in 13th place in 23.47 and won his JM11-14 category, with Stuart 14th and first in his MV50-54 category in 23.48.

Will Williams made his race debut for NWRRC at the Trafford 10k last weekend and claimed a new personal best of 37 minutes 21 seconds in 249th place.

Kelly-Marie Alford and her partner Cai Roberts ran well around the circuit together at Oulton Park in Cheshire last Sunday during the 20-mile race.

Kelly claimed a massive 15-minute personal best time of three hours, 16 minutes and 27 seconds, with the pair finishing in 87th and 88th places respectively.

Llyr ap Geraint-Roberts performed well at the Mallory Park Duathlon on Sunday, finishing 16th in the 27.68 kms event, which he completed in just one hour, four minutes and three seconds.

Llyr ran a personal best in the opening 5k race, before completing a bike circuit, and recorded another good time in the second 5k run challenge.