Controversy rocked round two of the Midweek Road Race League for Division One clubs.
Held at Watford's Cassiobury Park, it had looked like North Herts Road Runners' ladies had put everyone else in their wake, taking the round win and closing in overall on St Albans Striders in the cumulative table.
However, the entire round was declared void as an incident on course saw a good chunk of the field sent the wrong way, with runners from both the Squirrels and Fairlands Valley Spartans caught up.
Had the results stood, six from NHRR ladies would have made the top 20, Katie Harbon once again taking the individual win while Jane Clarke (fifth), Rachel Arnott (sixth) and Astrid McKeown (eighth) were all in the top 10.
Sam Coxon was the best of the men in fifth, two places ahead of Andrew Patterson of FVS.
Suzy Hawkins had led the Spartans women home in 27th with Yuko Gordon and Christine Lathwell the next two to finish.
North Herts Road Runners at the Hitchin Hard Half. Picture: NHRR (Image: North Herts Road Runners)
The Hitchin Hard Half lived up to its name.
Starting and finishing at the Priory, the course heads into the hills around Hitchin and Preston before heading back.
For Spartans, Jim Brown was 150th in two hours five minutes 20 seconds while Stephanie Mayfield was 190th in 2:29:42.
For North Herts, Rachel Arnott and Rhia Botha came second and third in the ladies' race while Nick Malpeli and Caroline Thrussel were both first in their age categories, Malpeli taking fifth overall too.
The Hitchin Tough 10k was raced alongside, Gillian Knowles of FVS clocking 1:11:20 while Sharon French of NHRR was first in her age group.
Stevenage Phoenix were also in Hitchin with Alex Wasley the first of them home in a PB of 1:37:07, placing him 27th out of 201 runners.
Alex's dad Martin manager 2:30:20 while Ashley Bates (1:59:09) and Damla Akkul (1:59:54) both dipped inside two hours.
Phoenix coach Chris Leigh meanwhile was contenting himself with a double ultra.
He ran the annual Footfest at Farthingstone in Northamptonshire, completing a 27.7 mile figure of eight trail route, where participants follow written instructions to navigate, in a time of 5:57:29.
One day later he took on the Pick & Mix Challenge in Wendover, Bucks.
This consisted of six different off road loops between 10 and 4.5 miles that participants could mix up to suit.
He completed 38.5 miles in 7:25:43.
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