Woodford Green's Hywell Care. Pic: Ken Bray

Hywel Care, a teacher in Japan won a 10km race in the country on Sunday.

Hywel Care has been one of Woodford Green & Essex AC’s top distance runners in recent years.

And although he is currently in the Far East, teaching in Japan, he continues to perform well and won a 10k race on Sunday after an extremely close finish.

Running together with Youhei Nokzaki, who had clocked 30 minutes and 17 seconds over the distance the weekend before, Care and his rival upped the pace with 2,000m to go.

The lead changed hands several times in the last 200m, but Care got the verdict on the line, clocking 30.36.

And his prize for claiming first place included a voucher for a hotel stay in a nice skiing resort in Japan, a pair of one-day lift passes, some running kit — and a bumper pack of noodles!

Meanwhile, closer to home in Surrey, Harold Wyber went one better than his second place last year as he won the 32nd edition of the well-known Box Hill Fell race.

Covered

Run over a distance of seven-and-a-half miles, with 1,700 feet of ascent, the course was covered in snow this year.

It did not deter Wyber, though, who won by a minute after a strong challenge from Michael Fanning, especially on the descents, early on.

Under-20 athlete James Stockings finished in a good third place in the latest Chingford League race in Hackney.

Stockings followed home Victoria Park’s Paul Martelletti, a 2:16 marathon man, and Eoin Pierce of Enfield & Haringey, while Rob Cox had his best run to date to finish in 12th place.

Woodford members combined to good effect indoors to win three silver medals on the first day of the South of England Championships at Lee Valley.

Two of them came in desperately close 800m finishes, as Tara Bird and Matt McLaughlin just missed out on gold. The third was over 400m from Paul Scanlan.