FORMER Great Britain junior international Andrew Sherman opened his new winter season with a solid sixth place in the Decatur Shoreline Classic 15k road race in America.

The Swindon Harrier, who is based in Indianapolis, opted for the race in Illinois to gauge how well his summer training has been going and was pleasantly surprised by the result, in what was his first serious event for almost five months.

“It was my first race of the season since the half marathon in May and since then I have been working hard to increase my mileage getting into 100 miles a week and work on some strength and conditioning to help running efficiency,” said Sherman.

“The Decatur race was during a training block, so I didn’t taper at all other than missing a session that week and racing instead.

“So I felt pretty tired coming into the race and with that accounted for it was a solid race.”

Sherman ran a time of 47mins 13secs in his first attempt at the rarely run 15k distance which equates to just over 50 minutes for 10 miles.

Also he was only beaten by four good Kenyans and one other Brit, training partner Tom Anderson, so that gave him further encouragement.

“I was hoping for little quicker, but it was a hilly scenic course around the lake in Decatur, Illinois,” added Sherman.

“I had been feeling some fatigue from the previous weeks of training so it was a tough run. Overall the race was good in helping prepare for the upcoming Monumental Half Marathon in Indianapolis.”

The Indianapolis Monument event on November 1 is where Sherman made his debut at the half marathon 12 months ago.

Fellow Swindon Harrier Ben McIntyre opened his cross country season with an encouraging performance in the opening fixture of the Gloucestershire Cross Country League held at the Cotswold Country Park, Bourton.

McIntyre finished third in the under 13 boys’ race behind Cheltenham’s Fraser Willmore and Alex Grocott of Tockington Manor School.