The end of the cross-country season season may be coming to an end but there are still plenty of races for Garden City Runners to get their teeth into.

The club had three of their male runners at the Southern XC Championships, held at Place Park in Beckenham, Kent.

"The course was one of the best out there," said Chris Jones. "A few challenging hills, grassland, woodland and a few muddy bits in places.

"The senior men got to experience 14km of it with more than 700 runners from a multitude of clubs across the region."

First home for GCR was Benj Carr in 55 minutes 36 seconds, an impressive run made even more so by the fact his spikes fell apart after 5k.

Jones finished in 58:55 while Dom Thomas came home in 1:03:51.

The final fixture Sunday Cross-country League takes place on February 18 at Royston's Therfield Heath.

The national championships is in Telford on February 24 while the Herts vets event is on March 26 in Watford.

Closer to home was the Essendon 10k and that attracted Dave Goosetree and Paul Watts.

Goosetree said: It is a run that we have done before so knew the course.

"We were aware that we would need to take it easy at points as it is two laps around the outside of the golf course with lots of trees around that has caused the pathways to be uneven at times."

Watts finished in 1:04:35 with Goosetree two seconds behind.

Two also ran at the Serpentine Last Friday of the Month 5k in Hyde Park.

Huish was 21st in 17:06 while Steve Edwards clocked 19:48 for 99th.

There were 94 GCRs at various parkruns.

At Panshanger, Adam Wadley, Rob Casserley and Simon Bostock achieved top 10 finishes for the men while Katherine Lees, Jessica Timmins and Felicity Wadley in single digits for the ladies.

Jamie Rose was fourth at St Albans, as was Chris Bayliss at Gunpowder.

Lucy Iles took the win at Aldenham while Caroline Hale was second at Stevenage and Jennifer Williams ninth at Westmill.

Chris Eland was sixth at Keswick and went 14 seconds quicker than he did one week earlier when he set a PB of 18:30.

GCRs are also on the lookout for help for their foodbank runs.

Taking place at Panshanger on Saturday and Beehive on Sunday, runners are encouraged to bring donations which will be handed over to Hertford & District Food Bank.

Over 2.1 million people use food banks, up from 1.5m five years ago.

February has been chosen, as it is a key time of the year when families are hardest hit, with utility and food bills up, and the arrival of all the post-Christmas bills.

More information on the foodbank is at https://hertforddistrict.foodbank.org.uk/