It was a case of "H are Ace" as Paul Halford and Ann-Marie Hutchison were crowned Welsh Champions when the country's elite long distance runners competed for national honours during the London Marathon.

Perfect weather conditions greeted runners for the 2011 Welsh Marathon Championships, incorporated into the Virgin London Marathon - and it was a good day for personal bests.

Last years runner up, Paul Halford went one better this season to win the Welsh Championships, despite having an achilles injury that could have ruled him out of the race. Paul knocked 3 and a half minutes off his pb to run 2.28:32. Just 76 seconds behind was back-to-form Julian Baker, who was delighted to break 2.30 again running 2.29:48. In third place was Nathan Aspinall, winning his first Welsh medal with a pb of 2.34:30.

Les Croupiers won the men's team.

As expected, Ann-Marie Hutchison won the Welsh women's title and ran a 4 minute pb to finish in 2.50:28. Ann-Marie has been running well all season and can look forward to more pbs this summer. There was a reversal of medallists from 2010 for the minor placings, with Emily Gelder beating Ann Thomas for the silver medal. A good performance from Emily, having won the Anglo Plate 100k just 3 weeks ago and still having heavy legs, while Ann struggled after 20 miles.

Again, Les Croupiers dominated the women's race to win the Welsh team title.

Further down the field, when the temperature rose above 20 degrees, the highly anticipated battle between Wales 400m Olympians, Jamie Baulch and Iwan Thomas was easily won by Jamie who clocked a respectable 3.51:44, over 30 mins ahead of Iwan. Jamie had focused on this race and had totally thrown himself into endurance running, running a good 10k and 1/2 marathon on the way, while Iwan was hoping to run around 4 hours.

So many personal bests for Welsh runners again this year.