NYLE Clinton showed that it is not only training partner Ciaran Cooper who is hitting his stride as he also produced a sparkling personal best on the track, writes Kevin Fahey.

Competing at the British Milers’ Club regional meeting in Tipton, West Midlands, the 20-year-old Swindon Harrier carved over two seconds from his previous 1500m best with a time of 3 mins 53.1 secs.

That came hot on the heels of his triumph in the South West Inter Counties Championships and was the second time he has bettered his personal best at the distance this season.

“It was almost three seconds off my best, so I a really pleased with that,” said Clinton.

“There was a really good pacemaker and when he dropped out at 800m, I took on the pace for the third lap. A couple of lads went by me with 250 metres to go but I tucked in and sprinted by them again in the last 100 metres. It was a really good race.”

Clinton was aiming to attack his best over 3000m in Watford last night before having a serious crack at the 5000m in August.

“The whole group is flying at the moment and as you can imagine, there are no easy sessions,” said proud father and coach Bryan Clinton.

The time lifts Clinton to 14th in the South West rankings and second in Wiltshire behind Chippenham international Dave Bishop (3:45.26).

Meanwhile, Cooper smashed his best over 800m last week to go top of the South West Under 20 rankings.

At the other end of the running spectrum, ultra runner Nathan Montague is currently in the French Alps fine-tuning his preparations for the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc.

Speaking from his base near Maribel, the Swindon Harrier said his training was going well for the event at the end of next month,which is regarded as one of the premier challenges on the ultra running calendar – and at 170k, with 10,000 metres of climbing throughout the night, also one of its most difficult.

“Wiltshire is great for training as are the Lakes, but here you can run for literally two or three hours uphill, which you can’t in the UK,” he said.

“Luckily, my sponsors, Extreme Energy, have an apartment here, which they kindly let me use for training and I have been getting in some really good sessions to prepare.”

Before leaving for France, Montague had three tough races back-to-back, the best of which was his victory in the Round The Island race, which was a 77-mile circuit of the Isle of Wight, covered in just over nine hours.

“I had three good races I really enjoyed the Isle of Wight race but then I needed to get back to some serious training and also prepare for the specific challenges of running around Mont-Blanc with all the climbing and descending needed for that,” added Montague.

He added: “I just have to make sure I don’t overcook my preparations over here and wear myself out, so I have to find the right balance. But so far, it is all going very well.”