Event director Chris Carter had mixed feelings when almost 100 runners turned up at Brighton and Hove City's Open meeting to compete in the British Milers Club 800m races.

Having scheduled times for three races, Carter accommodated nine, which delayed the rest of the evening's event by 30 minutes.

Carter said: "The athletes were pretty patient as they could see there was some good class racing and the evening conditions were excellent for producing fast times."

Under 20 runner Chris Reynolds (Woodford) took the honours in the premier race with a personal best and the fastest time in Sussex for several seasons (1min.48.3sec). It was the eighth fastest time by any British runner this season.

Former Sussex Schools champion Andrew Dean (Havant), from Bognor, was the only home county runner in the premier race. He clocked 1min.53.9sec for seventh place and a season's best.

There were a string of personal bests from Sussex runners.

Worthing's Matt Furber won race four in 1min.55.9sec and Crawley's Ian Barratt took race five in 1min.57.6sec to duck inside two minutes for the first time.

The best Sussex performance of the evening was from Worthing's Rachel Ogden. Running with the men in race six, Ogden clocked a superb 2min.04.3sec, almost one second faster than her best ever.

The run was the eighth fastest by a British runner this season and the third fastest time recorded by a Sussex woman.

In the 3,000m races, which were delayed by 30 minutes due to the 800m, Hailsham's Ben Warren shared the pace-making with Tom Naylor (Phoenix), the county 1,500m champion.

Naylor finished fastest to record 8min.33.7sec, one tenth of a second outside his previous best.

Warren smashed his previous best with 8min.38.6sec as he enjoyed his first sub-nine-minute run. Under-17 runner Stephen Jules, from Hastings, took a couple of seconds off his best in 9min.12.5sec for third.

In the women's race, Arena 80's Caroline Horne ran her fastest time for five years when winning in 9min.36.6sec. Second, third and fourth were Brighton and Hove's Katy Moore and Esme Jalla and Worthing's Sarah Garrett. Moore clocked 10min.38.6sec, Jalla 20min.55.6sec and Garrett 11min.20.6sec.