Three Stevenage Phoenix members took on the Royal Parks half marathon in unseasonably warm conditions in London.

The iconic race goes through Hyde Park, Green Park, St James Park and Kensington Gardens and Colette Cooper (1:52.21) ran her first sub two-hour half marathon as Darren Gilbert (1:59.12) had a 13-minute improvement and Simon Burton (2:07.20) beat his previous best by more than 20 minutes.

Jay Papa (43.21) and Emma Mead (51.17) took on the flat, fast multi-terrain Edmonton Run the River 10k and smashed their PBs and set club age category records.

And the club also had 16 members in parkrun action, with Gavin Cooper 23:23, Conor O’Neill, 24:36, Katka Laughton 25:05, Ken Hall 25:40, Caitlin Evans 26:54, Peter Tungate 28:05, Brian Humphreys 29:36, Brian Stapleton 30:51, Denise Ricot 36:01 and Charlie Day 40:39 all at Stevenage.

Garry Wallace 27:48, Louise Chancellor 29:44 and Chris Leigh 29:46 tackled Valentines in Ilford, with Jon Boe (29:25) at Margate, Wendy Brewster (42:10) at the Old Railway Trail, Llangollen and Neil Homwood (28:18) at Pocket.

*North Herts Road Runners had three members at the Chester Marathon, where a hilly course proved a test on a warm day.

Rachel Arnott donned her first England vest and finished in an impressive PB of 3:13.09 for sixth in her age group, five minutes quicker than her old mark.

Elwyn Howell (3:57.48) broke the magical four-hour barrier in his debut marathon as Richard Barker clocked 4:16.

Squirrels also ran the Royal Parks half, with James Dalton (1:34.05) defying a slight knee injury to raise money for Caffod as Jenny Wilkinson clocked 1:47.58.

And Jill Tooley-Boys and Anna Gibson tackled the mighty Cani-Trail Ultra 50k in the Welsh mountains near Llanharan, with canine sidekicks Lulu and Flora.

They set off in the dark at 7am and, with visibility down to 10 metres at some points, finished in a respectable seven hours 40 minutes.

"It was a pretty brutal course with steep and stony ascents and descents, plus the odd bog and a few stiles thrown in for good measure - always tricky with a dog attached to you!" said Jill.

"We finished in one piece – not bad considering I forgot to pack my trail shoes and had to run the whole thing wearing someone else’s shoes!"