The return of the St Albans Stampede event at Heartwood Forest had St Albans Striders jumping for joy.

The aim is to cover as many laps of a four-mile circuit as possible over a 12 hour period with the beauty of the being not only is it accessible to wider group of runners since it provides the flexibility to run as a team rather than solo, it is also a real community event with most of the 250 or so runners coming from the likes of Garden City Runners, Harpenden Arrows and Wheathampstead Warriors, as well as the Striders.

The host club pretty much had a clean sweep of the medals though.

Out of the 53 individuals who were brave enough to tackle the challenge alone, Jacob James achieved the highest number of laps with 16 (64 miles), followed by Callum Bond with 15 on what was his first ultra.

The pairings category was won by Chris Dennell and Matthew Nicholson, who managed 21 laps between them, while Matt Holman, Jonny Pennell, Stephen Buckle and Sam Dear won the team of four section.

They covered 28 laps.

Simon Frazer, Jonathan Scott, Jim King, Stephen Hosty, Max Campbell, Michael Martin, Gareth Beavis, and Sebastian Rowe won the team of eight category with 27 laps.

Holman recorded the fastest lap of the day in 22 minutes 11 seconds with Lily Seach the fastest female in 27:02.

Sarah Bruce Green from Wheathampstead was third overall in the solo category and first female after achieving an impressive 14 laps, 56 miles.

A spokesman for the club said: "A huge thank you goes to race directors Bernadette and Robin Newby for organising such a fantastic, fun and memorable event.

"Recognition also goes to the marshals and other park users who were amazing with their encouragement to runners as well as the catering volunteers who kept the runners properly fuelled during the day.

"A percentage of the revenue and all the donations received for the catering goes to a local charity which for this year is The Hertfordshire Children’s Trust."

There were 30 from the club taking part in the first of three races in the Hatfield 5k Series.

And with the race incorporating the senior county championship, there was a win for the ladies in the team competition.

Megan Walker, Hannah Burkhardt and Seach came third fourth and sixth individually to lift the combined gold.

The men's team of Jonny Pennell, Adam Yorwerth, Barnaby Walker and Callum Bond were third.

There was a strong turnout at the Big Half in London with 20 from either the Striders or sister club AC.

Matt Cooper led the team home, finishing in 55th from more than half of the 15,000 runners.

He clocked 1:11:40 and was followed by Jonathan Yeates (1:14:28) and Scott Saunders (1:20:30).

Leading the females was Hannah Carruthers (1:35:04), followed by Emily Hickey-Baird (1:40:10) and Stacy Harris (1:43:53).