Steph Twell overcame a chest infection to retain her British University and Colleges title in Scotland on Saturday.

Despite a sleepless night before the race, the St Mary’s Twickenham student took control from the start.

She finished 75m clear of the rest, winning the 6.4km race in 22 minutes, 41 seconds.

Her coach Mick Woods said: “Steph was comfortable and led for a lap and a half.

“However, she was clearly unwell and she only ran because she wanted to support the college and defend her title.

“She was very ill and didn’t train for three or four days leading up to the race.

“She had a run-out on a couple of days just to see how she could do.

“It was unfortunate that she was not really able to enjoy her victory as she was up for much of the night coughing her heart out.”

Twell’s next race is the English Championship at Leeds on February 27.

St Mary’s took bronze team medals, only missing silver because Bristol’s third scoring runner finished ahead of theirs.

The absence of Jessica Sparke through illness and Charlotte Purdue, who is recovering from a stress facture, hampered St Mary’s title hopes.

Their other leading runners were Jo Harvey in fourth (23:08) and Laura Parker 15th (23:59).

Women’s teams: 1 Loughborough 14; 2 Bristol 20; 3 St Mary's 20; 4 Birmingham 42.

There was a winning double for St Mary’s with Andy Vernon (34:32) retaining the men’s title.

Belgrave’s Nick Goolab, running for Birmingham, was runner-up more than 100m behind (34:58).

With Mitch Goose third (35:11), Ben Lindsay fourth (35:16) and Ronnie Sparke 25th (36:34), St Mary’s took the team title.

Belgrave’s Dan Mulhare, representing Edinburgh Napier, was sixth (35:17), with clubmate Jonathan Blackledge, of Oxford Brookes, 19th (36:14).

Hercules Wimbedon’s Alex Bruce-Littlewood, representing Portsmouth, was 35th (36:52).

Men’s teams: 1 St Mary’s 33; 2 Birmingham 49; 3 Loughborough 80; 4 Oxford 113.

St Mary’s also took the team honours in the men’s 7.59km B race over 7.9km with Tommy Carroll (25:57) was third, Ryan Saunders (26:05), Stuart Huntingdon (26:27) seventh and Tom Comerford (26:27) eighth of more than 200 runners.

Men’s B teams: 1 St Mary's 22; 2 Birmingham 26; 3 Loughborough 47.