Rachael Franklin produced yet another magnificent performance on Sunday morning in the Ribble Valley 10k road race in Clitheroe, Lancashire.

The Manx runner was in fine form as she smashed her personal best time and the Isle of Man record.

The race doubled as the North of England Championship and Rachael took the silver medal in the women’s race with a fantastic time of 33 minutes 24 seconds.

She finished just over one minute behind Great Britain athlete Jess Judd who recently finished sixth in the European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon.

Franklin was three seconds clear of third-placed Holly Archer and was well ahead of at least two recent Great Britain internationals.

Rachael set what was thought to be an Isle of Man record of 33.51 in the Leeds Abbey Dash two months ago but, as has been well documented, the course measurement was found to be very slightly short, thus disqualifying all the times for record and ranking purposes.

But the Ribble Valley course is long-established and there should be no such problems this time.

The official island record of 34.20 had stood to Brenda Walker since 1991, but Sarah Astin recently ran 34.07 in Valencia.

Rachael has now taken the record into new territory and is establishing herself as a high-class 10k runner on the national scene.

In the Leeds race, Rachael ran the first five kilometres at a very fast tempo and was hanging on somewhat in the closing stages, but she is quickly learning the distance and this time her pacing was much more even.

She ran an extremely strong second half, passing many of the male competitors and her final mile was her fastest of the race.

Rachael returns to Lancashire this weekend where she will start as strong favourite for the women’s title at the Lancashire Cross Country Championships in Blackburn (see below).