THE Scottish title is already in the bag for runner Roger Clark and now he can now lay claim to being the best of British.

The PH Racing Club member struck gold for a second time in the space of a month in August as he raced to top spot at the British Masters Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

In July, as Press Sport reported last week, Clark – who was taking part in his first race for some time after injury – ran a superb time of 55.01 seconds to take 400 metres gold in the V50 category at the Scottish Masters Championship in Kilmarnock, an event which also saw Mary Western win V55 800m gold.

That result put Clark to the top of the UK rankings for the year so far ahead of the meet in Derby, over the weekend of August 20-22, which he maintained with another top performance.

He produced an even quicker time – 54.37 – to cross the line in first place in the M50 age group and extend his lead at the top of the UK rankings.

Clark finished more than a second quicker than silver-medalist Michael Gardiner, of Cheltenham/Midlands Masters, who timed at 55.52 and only another one-hundredth of a second faster than Coventry/Veterans runner Chris Taplin, who claimed bronze in 55.53.

Prior to that event, a new race – the Sunset Marathon – took place in Edinburgh and attracted some PH members to compete.

Organised by Blast Running, the event, which took place on the Silverknowes/Cramond promenade, consisted of six laps of a seven-kilometre course, starting in the early evening to allow competitors to complete it with a sunset finish.

Although the cloud, and subsequent rain, put paid to that, there were impressive times posted by both Kevin Hughes and Malcolm Hammond.

Marathon debutant Hughes was PH's fastest finisher, posting a time of 3:27.37, while Hammond, seeking an encouraging age group time ahead of next month's London Marathon, achieved it in convincing fashion.

While a target time of five hours for the M70 category was well within his capabilities, he put in a remarkable run to clock a time of 3:44.49 to secure qualification by a huge margin, as well as jumping to second in this year's UK rankings for his age group.