A sure sign that winter is on the way is when the first Sunday Cross-county League fixture looms large on the calendar.

Garden City Runners will head to Barclay Park in Hoddesdon on Sunday for the first of five rounds, all of which ends on February 16 in Watford.

To warm up for it, there were a number of events catching the attention of the Welwyn Garden City-based running club.

The Standalone 10k in Letchworth is always a popular attraction and this year saw a good squad travel up the A1.

Peter Harvey was first GCR home, finishing in 37 minutes 59 seconds for sixth in the MV50 age group.

Chris Eland also came inside the top 10 for the 50-somethings, 38:22 giving him ninth.

Rob Cartwright ran a new PB of 49:50 while Maggie Wright was first of the GCR ladies in 56:39.

Another over the same distance was the Herts 10k, this year taking place at the county showground in Redbourn.

Daniel Follon said there were "a few tough inclines" in the two-lap race but he was still able to finish in 52:51, 63rd out of 349 runners.

He was also in parkrun action in his old stomping ground of Hull, clocking a PB of 22:10.

Parkrun was celebrated its 20th birthday this weekend with three GCRs heading to Germany to mark that and German Unity Day.

The latter took place on Thursday, October 3, with the trio of Michael Scutt, Lucy Iles and Stuart Wonfor tackling the Rheinpark Parkrun in Colonge.

They were part of a record field of 224 completing the one-lap along the Rhine riverbank.

Iles finished as third lady in 23:59, with Scutt and Wonfor coming in together at 28:07.

Two days later they were at the Aachener Weiher Parkrun in the centre of the city.

The three were all slower this time, Iles in 28:32, Wonfor in 28:37 and Scutt in 29:39.

Also on foreign travels were Andy Henderson and wife Rebz who ran the the Tsurumi Ryokuchi parkrun in Osaka, Japan, while on holiday.

Closer to home, Jas Newington completed her 400th Parkrun at Panshanger, one of 25 locations included in the milestone, the furthest being in North Carolina.

Among the significant results, Martin Mitchell was second at Westmill and Chris Jones second at Stevenage.

The latter also saw Jamie Rose sixth.

Katharine Farrell was third lady at Southwick County with Andrew Knight fifth at Gunpowder, Sean Bowen eighth at Bartley Park in Southampton and Richard Somerset 10th at Thames Park.

Other runs saw Nick Genever complete the Maverick South Downs Marathon in Hampshire, finihsing in 4:11.

Matt Baker conquered the Loch Ness Marathon in 3:21:20 while Andrew Newbury took on the Bruges Half Marathon in 2:06.