Sunderland Harrier Matt Jones sits proudly at the top of the UK Marathon ranking list for 2016 following his fine personal best in the Seville Marathon last weekend.

Matt's 2:27:54 in placing 37th, represented a 7:42 improvement on his previous best and moves him a step closer to his goal of representing his native Wales in the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia's Gold Coast.

A heavy-mileage winter paid off as Matt ran impressively even splits of 1:14:07 and 1:13:47, having taken advantage of the elite women's pacemakers in the early stages before striking out on his own.

"The key decision of the race was to leave them (the elite women)." He says, "I was back in 90th place after 20k but just moved steadily through, and even in the last 5k, which I ran in 17:40 I felt really strong and within myself".

"I'm not sure you could design a better day for a marathon, the course was incredibly flat and the weather was perfect." said Matt, whose next challenge is the altogether more demanding Marathon des Sables, the self-proclaimed 'Toughest Footrace on Earth', entailing running 156 miles in six days across the Sahara Desert!