St Albans Striders were out in force again at the third and final round of the Hatfield 5k Series.

Callum Bond was the first Strider home in third place overall, clocking 16 minutes 23 seconds.

Jonathan Scott was seventh in 16:28 while Euan Turner, representing AC, just behind in 16:42.

It was a very tight finish in the female race with Lucy Waterlow just pipped into second place based on gun time, although she shared a chip time of 18:39 with the winner.

She was closely followed by Lily Seach in 18:44 and third with Kate Dixon in eighth.

That made up the winning female team for the evening and the trio won the team event for the overall series based on their cumulative time for the best two out of three races.

Waterlow and Seach also secured first and second in the overall series and Bond, Scott, Andrew McKillop and Andy Jordan finished runner up in the team event with the latter three also placing in the top three for their age categories.

Other notable performances included Nicky Laitner (21:33) and Wendy Walsh (20:10) who were first and second in their age categories.

Nearly 100 Striders turned up for the club handicap, an event which was originally set up almost 40 years ago in 1985.

Run over a four-mile course, this fun and friendly event gives everybody a fair chance of crossing the finish line first by staggering the start time based on each individual’s latest 5k performance.

Helen Giffen was the first to break through the tape.

Steve Buckle comfortably took overall victory at the Leighton Buzzard 10k in 34:15 with a lead of well over a minute.

Patrick Hayes finished second place at the Spitfire 10K at the RAF Museum in Hendon in a time of 38:23, spurred on by his young son who was absolutely delighted with his dad’s prize of an Airfix kit of a Spitfire.

Further north Rose McGinness, Laura Astley and Shanti Johnson completed the Humber Coastal Half marathon, working as a team and passing through the finish line together in a time of 2:02:28.