Race ace Lee Stopford has added to his impressive CV by winning the Berkeley 10K.

The Stroud Athletic Club runner won Sunday's race in 33 minutes, five seconds, some five seconds clear of the unattached Jack Gardiner and 41 seconds ahead of Western Tempo’s Alex Lee.

The Stroud AC men’s captain has been clocking up race wins for a number of years now – he won the Stroud Half Marathon three years in a row not so long ago – and he remains a major force.

When he spoke to The Local Answer yesterday evening he'd just returned home after a 10-mile training run and he said: "I love it, I like being fit and I enjoy competing."

And he certainly had plenty of competition form Gardiner in the Berkeley 10K.

"It was a bit of a tactical affair for the first 5K, it was really windy,"  Stopford said. 

"We got to halfway and I put my foot on the accelerator and with one kilometre to go I just gave it everything."

 Stopford, who is 41, struggled with injury for quite a lot of last year but he is fully fit now and his performance on Sunday was all the more impressive because it was the first 10K he'd done for a while.

His next big race is the Milton Keynes Half Marathon on Monday 4th May and he plans to run as many as many races as he can in the coming mionths.

"I know I won't be able to do this forever but I like to race," he said.

"I'm quite stubborn, if I'm in battle I give it everything I've got."

Stopford has got a big supporter in Stroud AC chairman Ian Newns.

“He’s still a top runner," he said. “He used to run on the track and you don’t want to be near him in the last 400 metres. He just gets the bit between his teeth and goes.”

Stopford, a former Maidenhill School pupil, grew up in Ebley and Newns continued: “He’s Stroud through and through, he’s a credit to the club.”

Bourton Roadrunners Stephanie Lane was the first female home in the Berkeley 10K, finishing 11^th in 37.57.