More than 15,000 runners lined the streets of Bath on Sunday morning, taking advantage of some rare sunshine to compete in the city’s 28th annual half marathon.

In fact such was the level of interest among competitors that the start to the event was delayed by half an hour as traffic congestion stopped many athletes from arriving on time, while thousands of friends and family members lined the streets to show their support.

Once the race was finally underway it came as no surprise when experienced marathon runner Simon Tanui, of Kenya, was the first person to cross the finishing line in a rapid time of 1:00.03. There was a high number of creditable results for runners from Wiltshire.

Chippenham Harrier Hannah Lankenau-Devey continued her rich vein of form to smash her second club record in 2009.

A newcomer to the club, having only joined in the past 12 months, Lankenau-Devey had earlier broken the female 10k record and proceeded to beat the existing half marathon record by almost four minutes with her time of 1:27:00 Michael Thomas was the first male Harrier to cross the line, finishing in 1:28:02.

A familiar face at the start line was that of Freshford’s Danny Kay, who has competed in each of the previous half marathons in Bath and is a member of the prestigious 100 marathons club.

The veteran athlete completed the course in under two hours but said afterwards he viewed it as no more than a training run, having completed several full marathons in the previous couple of weeks.

Avon Valley Running Club also turned out in force, with 44 of its members taking part.

James Hart was their first man past the line in club colours in an impressive 1:20.26, six minutes quicker than his previous attempt at the course, placing him 121st in the field.

Hart was closely followed by Ian Mapperson 1:21.53 and Alastair Bartlett, 1:22.55.

Rachel Brown was the first club female to finish in a time of 1:33.13 ahead of Laura MacGregor, 1:36.02, and Sophie Grist, 1:36.17, who both set new personal best times.