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Andrew Lemoncello believes he is now ready to step up in distance after coming home top British finisher at the World Half Marathon Championships in Birmingham.

The Scot, a former national steeplechase champion, finished 26th in a one hour, three minutes and three seconds personal best, although he did run quicker in a downhill half marathon earlier this year.

He will now reset his training focus on next year's London Marathon, with the European Championships in Barcelona next August his longer-term target.

"It's an official PB, which is great, but the time wasn't my focus, it was about performance," he said. "It was good the last couple of miles were tough. It was hillier than I thought.

"If I can run 63 on a course like that I think I can confidently go through half way at London Marathon in 65."

Great Britain finished a disappointing 14th in the team event with Mark Miles 46th, Philip Wicks 60th, Andi Jones 63rd and Gareth Raven 75th.

However, Colorado-based Lemoncello admitted running alongside US training partners, Andrew Carlson and James Carney, made a big difference.

"All three of us thought we wouldn't start hard running until around 8km, we stayed together and stayed relaxed then we hit the hill and it started getting tough," he added.

"I really started to feel it about 13km. After coming down the hill it was really about hanging onto the group.

"I've definitely benefited from having my coach and training partners here. I was working out there with Carlson, he finished about ten seconds in front of me and we were working together.

"We had a big group around us and we shared the lead of the group."

Eritrea's Zersenay Tadese wrote his name in the history books as he secured the men's title for the fourth consecutive time banking a championship record in the process.

He also became only the second athlete, after Kenya's Paul Tergat, to win World Championships medals on three different surfaces in the same year.

"The race was very hard and windy, it was not easy and there were some tough athletes competing, he said.

More than the Games / Eurosport