Scenery, history and a perfectly-timed sprint for the line made a marathon the perfect day out for one Garden City Runner.

Fredi Giliberti ran the Venice Marathon, his second 26.2 mile effort on Italian soil after completing the Rome event earlier in the year.

He said: "Venice closed my racing season. It had been raining for two weeks solid prior to race day and I was not looking forward to facing a sodden few hours.

"But the weather on race day stayed dry with temperatures definitely warmer than expected at around 18 degrees.

"The pancake race started at a town called Stra, and snaked along the River Brenta towards the city, passing a number of famous villas and sleepy towns.

"As the skies cleared, we crossed the Ponte della Liberta, a dreary 5k straight causeway connecting Venice to the mainland, where I hit the wall and had to alternate running with walking.

"With a few kilometres to go, I somehow recovered and found the stamina to run the 14 ramps and one massive temporary bridge across the Grand Canal.

"The short loop in St Mark's Square was the loudest section of the race and with some help from the crowd I sprinted to the finish in a handful of seconds inside five hours.”

Much closer to home, the main focus for the majority of the club this week was the Knebworth 10k and Hertfordshire Half.

Michael Scutt said: "I ran the 10k and was pleased with my time of 58:16.

"There were a few other GCRs there too. It was a good well organised event and the weather was ideal."

Daniel Fallon was also pleased with his run over the same distance.

He said: "My time was 47:59, finishing 73rd out of 842 runners and ninth in my category.

"I'm pleased with that, it is only the second time I’ve run under 48 minutes and when I did it last year, my time was 51:56, so a big improvement."

Other GCRs opted for the half-marathon option and did Hertfordshire Half.

Dave Goosetree finished the race with a chip time of 2:06:28, which "wasn't a PB but still a good race."

Nadine and Aiden Dwyer were off to yet another adventure run and it had to be Halloween-themed.

Nadine said: "Aiden and I headed to Staines to run a half-marathon called The Exorcise-ist Run, organised by Saturn Running.

"This was another timed event where you can run as many of the 7k loops as you like - all on a nice flat course along a beautiful stretch of the Thames towpath."

Peter Watts completed a 12-hour challenge on the track at Ware.

He said: "We began at 9am and my race started well. By halfway I was up on last year’s mark.

"It fell apart in the second six hours, where I only achieved another 75 laps.

"With my quads hurting from around 30k I was pleased with the final total but also disappointed I could not have done better."

The Wendover Woods Marathon saw Nick Genever bag his 14th marathon or ultra in 16 weekends, taking him up to a total of 249 marathons.

He finished in 4:01.

In parkruns, Zoe Stephens was first lady at Stevenage, Sharon Threlfall third at Vaaksyn Kanava in Finland, Lauren Potter fourth at Pymmes and Alex Faulkner the fifth lady at Harlow, where Jamie Rose took third overall.

Thomas Buzzard took second at Henlow Bridge Lakes.

The club's home run at Panshanger saw Joe Ansbro take the win with Graeme McSorley fourth.

Jessica Timmins was fourth lady, Hannah Frank seventh and Rebbeca Barden 10th.