Mark Powell continued his domination of the Hinckley Half-Marathon by rounding off a hat-trick of titles on Sunday.

It was a romp for the Tipton Harrier, who ran the Hinckley event for his second-claim club, Wigston Phoenix.

Powell had a winning margin of almost four minutes as he took the County title in 1hr 10min 55sec, slightly down on his time of 1.10.04 last year

He said: "Conditions were great and I just took it on from the gun. I was looking for 5min, 20sec a mile to get me under 70 minutes but I was a little bit erratic at times.

"That happens when you are running on your own whereas last year I was being chased.

"I'm delighted with the win and I really enjoy the Hinckley race. It's really well organised and we do really well in Leicestershire for this type of distance race."

Powell believes he can run below 68 minutes for the half-marathon and will test out that theory at Desford and Swithland later this year. His big target remains improving the 68.14 personal best he set at the Robin Hood event at Nottingham, another challenge for him this season.

The women's race was, by contrast, a much tighter affair in which Huncote's Nicki Nealon won a very close battle with Long Eaton's Sarah Harris, the Derby 10k winner. Harris led out the race and was 30 seconds clear at the two-mile mark.

Nealon persisted in the chase and eventually caught up with Harris at the top of the big climb into Market Bosworth at just short of 11 miles.

From then on, it was a close-run race until Nealon broke away to win in 1.22.44 with Harris second in 1.23.04. Results:

Results – Men: 1 Mark Powell (Wigston Phoenix) 1.10.55, 2 Tom Shardlow (Hinckley) 1.14.38, 3 Chris Curtis (Corby) 1.15.05, 4 Ben Harding 1.15.33, 5 Garry Payne (M50, George Eliot Striders) 1.16.56, 6 Andy Gore (M40, Hinckley) 1.17.01, 7 Phil Gould (Kenilworth) 1.17.51, 8 Chris Muir (South Shields Harriers) 1.17.57, 9 Tim Pillow (Shrewsbury) 1.18.12, 10 Gordon Irvine (Belper) 1.18.40, 11 Ashley Miles (Sphinx) 1.19.41, 12 Brian Stout (Ivanhoe) 1.19.52, 13 Batavia Namir 1.20.09, 14 Richard Bettsworth (M40, Wreake) 1.20.20, 15 Bruno Nikoloff (M40, Wreake) 1.20.32, 16 Phil Piper (M50, Lichfield) 1.20.58, 17 Martin Makin (Charnwood) 1.21.00, 18 Jason Weetman (Wreake) 1.21.38, 19 Ian Winstanley (Redhill) 1.21.57, 20 Shaun Coulton (M40 Hermitage) 1.22.37, 20 John Wadelin 1.23.38, 21 Ashley Belcher 1.23.48, 22 Mark Frost (M40, Hinckley) 1.23.55, 23 Paul Hood (M40, Wigston Phoenix) 1.24.09, 24 Steve Baggott (Ivanhoe) 1.24.11, 25 Simon Nash (M45, Redhill) 1.24.19. Women: 1 Nicki Nealon (F40, Huncote) 1.22.44, 2 Sarah Harris (F40,Long Eaton) 1.23.04, 3 Carolyn Wilkinson (F40, Spa Striders) 1.29,00.