TAVISTOCK athlete Jordan Andrews scouted out his neighbourhood half-marathon well in advance of the big day — and it paid off with a win in his debut appearance.

Andrews, 32, had never run the Tavy 13 before, but that didn’t stop him blasting ahead of the opposition in the first time the half-marathon had been run since the Covid-19 pandemic kicked off two years ago.

He ran it in a time of 1hr 10min 56s, beating the record by more than five minutes.

The part-time university student and electrician, a member of the Tavistock Run Project, had run the course a few weeks before the starting gun was fired on Sunday.

He said: ‘I’m sure it helped a bit, because you know what’s coming - when you’ve got hills and when you can coast a bit. I’d never run the Tavy 13 before, although I’d run the Tavy 7. I go running around Tavistock, so a bit of local knowledge certainly helps.

‘The race is quite a difficult one, because it’s a long climb at the start and a pretty hilly course, but it’s a lot better coming back.

‘I was really happy with coming first, because although I knew I wasn’t going to set any personal best times, I felt really good on the day and I’d done a lot of training.’

The race had attracted hundreds of adult runners - and 488 primary schoolchildren who had completed 12.1 miles in stages at their schools, then run the final mile on Sunday.

Andrews, whose next race is the Reading half-marathon next month, said he was pleased to see so many schoolchildren taking part in the race, which helped to make it a good day.

He said: ‘It was really good to do a local race where there were supporters there and your family and friends turn up. It made for a good atmosphere. There were a lot of kids there, which was good to see — probably more than there were adults.’

See six pages of pictures from the Tavy 13 in this week’s Times, out today