The Watford Half Marathon was the main focus for St Albans Striders this weekeend.

Si Fraser was the first from the cub across the finish line, finishing in one hour 18 minutes and 43 seconds.

That was good enough for 27th overall out of more than 1,600 finishers.

The club’s first woman to complete the course was Claire Kremer, who ran it in 1:27:23; she was eighth female and third in her age category.

Ben Scott achieved a new course best of 1:32:59 while Deirdre Heydecker came second in the VW55 age category.

Kremer and Heydecker, along with Wendy Walsh, picked up Hertfordshire County Championship silver medals for their team efforts on the day.

Chris Davies saw a return to form with a time of 1:39:01 while Richard Olney achieved a new personal best of 1:42:28.

Robin Newby and Rachel Dixon both ran within 1 hour 44 minutes and Linda Cassidy felt the benefit of hill and cross country training with the club by knocking a whole eight minutes off her finish time last year, getting 2:19:41.

Blake Vivian was the outright winner of the Cancer Research UK Winter Run in central London when he crossed the finish line on Whitehall in 33:45.

A number of Striders followed him round the course amongst the 13,000 runners who completed the 10K race, among them Gemma Searle who finished in 57:17.

A small gang of Striders met up near Kingsbridge, Devon, to compete in the Endurance Life South Coast Half Marathon.

Mandy Attree and Lucy Stern finished the tough and technical but attractive course together in a time of two hours and 59 minutes. Becky Bates finished in 2:48:59, Jonathan Redshaw ran 2:02:16 and Andy Auld raced round in 1:44:11.

On Saturday Jen Conway was first female at Aldenham parkrun in a time of 21 minutes and 36 seconds.

Rob Spencer was first finisher at St Albans parkrun in a time of 17:21, fighting off fellow Strider Matt Hann who crossed the line just behind him in 17:25.

Magda Bobon was second female at Panshanger parkrun in Hertford.