It was chilly but with no wind athletes were given decent conditions for the 2023 Fred Hughes 10 - and Garden City Runners were out in force.

The 10-mile race is usually held around the lanes between St Albans and Bedmond but this year used a two-lap route to avoid some icy stretches.

It still had slippery patches but that didn't put off the 38 from the Welwyn Garden City-based club in a field of just over 1,000.

And there were some find performances among the GCR squad.

Daniel Pudner was the first home with a massive PB of 56 minutes 28 seconds, placing him 16th.

Chris Jones was next in 1:01:07 with Peter Harvey the third of the male runners from the club.

His time of 1:01:45 put him fourth in the M50 age group.

Hannah Frank was the first GCR woman to finish with a time of 1:15:09 with Helen Stafford next in 1:17:46 and Rebecca Barden third from the club in 1:18:44.

The latter's time was good enough for fourth in the F55 category while Stafford's run also gave her a PB.

She wasn't the only one to go fastest over the distance either.

Jamie Rose managed 1:04:48, Steve Ellerd-Elliott came in at 1:06:27 and Peter Jasko clocked 1:09:16.

Russell Casey, coming back from injury, put in a strong performance of 1:15:02.

Katharine Farrell's PB is now 1:20:10 while Clare Grover, running her first 10-mile race in 15 years, finished in 1:29:34.

The Fred Hughes was run on Sunday but 24 hours earlier there had been 83 GCRs out at parkruns.

Panshanger saw the majority of them, 35 in total, with Neil Hume finishing eighth overall and Lucy Iles fourth lady.

Keeping things fairly local was Alex Faulkner, who was third lady at Cassiobury and Sean Bowen, who came sixth at Letchworth.

Farrell warmed up for the next day with a 10th place in the women's race at Houghton Hall.

Other big groups saw seven GCRs go to Stevenage and eight head to Slough for the Black Park Parkrun.

The furthest flung GCR was Lizzie Belcher who attended Presint 18 parkrun in Putrajaya, Malaysia.

She managed to finish as the second lady.

Away from the road and on the track, Herts Phoenix had their first competition of the new year with the SEAA indoor U13/15/17 event at Lee Valley.

Day one saw Tiana Rizzo win both her heat and semi-final before going on to claim a silver medal for the U17 60m with a new PB of 7.70 seconds.

There was another medal on day two as well.

Jess Botheras landed a new PB of 6.27m in the U13 shot, good enough for third and the bronze.

Max Chisholm was back after an injury-ridden season in 2022, finishing third in his heat of the U17 400m with a time of 54.68, while Dan Skilbeck, making his debut in the competition, was fourth in the 200m with a PB of 24.89.