Hundreds of runners take to town centre for Shrewsbury Half Marathon

On what ended up being an unseasonably warm Sunday morning, hundreds of runners laced up for the start of the Shrewsbury Half Marathon.

For the second year, runners had the choice of a 13.1-mile standard half marathon distance or the shorter metric half marathon of 13.1 kilometres (eight miles).

Batman, Robin, a minion, a hot dog and a Scooby-Doo joined the kaleidoscope of club colours and volunteers as runners warmed up ahead of the race.

Some ran for a good cause, others for the challenge of a new personal best, and some just to see if they could.

A stunning new town centre route took the pavement-pounders over the Welsh and English bridges, through Kingsland, Porthill, Coleham, The Quarry, Frankwell and the town centre.

The route meant a large chunk of the town centre was shut off to cars until midday.

For Shrewsbury resident, Abi Haylett, getting a different view of her hometown was part of the appeal.

"I wouldn't say I'm confident, but I wouldn't say I'm not confident," said the 30-year-old, who was taking on her furthest challenge to date, "I'm just looking forward to a bit of a jog through town.

"We can run on the roads and not bump into a car, being from Shrewsbury it's not often you get to just run around the roads."

Amid the running teams were a Shrewsbury duo who had met at the school gates.

Louise West, 47, and Niki Edwards, 40, are part of a group of around 10 mums-who-run, having met through their children at Coleham Primary.

Louise, who was taking part in her seventh Shrewsbury Half said: "We started doing some running with the other mums at Coleham, there's a few of us that's started and hopefully next year there will be a few more."

Niki, who completed the London Marathon earlier this year, added: "The group of mums is what keeps us going. About two years ago we started with the Couch to 5K and everyone had kind of gone on from there to do various things.

"It just means whenever someone's looking for a run there will always be someone there, it's a reliable group."

From further afield, three runners from the Birmingham Swifts joined the masses for the warm-up - having signed up for the challenge just three days prior.

One of the trio, Owen Stephens, 38, was feeling confident of his chances, despite having only done his first 10K a week ago.

"I'll finish it - even if I've got cars going past me," he said, "I'll be happy just not being last!"

In the end, local runners Shrewsbury AC took three out of the top five men's spots for the half marathon, with Jon Bowie coming in first place with an incredible time of 1 hour, 13 minutes and 14 seconds.

In second place, Michael Betts finished at 1 hour 14 minutes and 13 seconds while Robert Weston took third place with 1 hour, 15 minutes and 49 seconds.

For the women, Jemma Brown took first place with a time of 1 hour, 30 minutes and 39 seconds.

Sam Morley with Rugeley & District AC was in second at 1 hour, 31 minutes and 2 seconds while Shrewsbury AC's Kate Evason took third at 1 hour, 35 minutes and 23 seconds.