There was a big parkrun milestone in Stevenage and plenty more besides as running clubs continued their exertions.

The 5k, Saturday morning effort round Fairlands Valley Park recorded its 100,000th finisher since its inception in 2016.

Isabel Harada was the athlete to bring up six digits, finishing 250th out of the 515 to finish on Saturday.

Ellie Scott of North Herts Road Runners was three seconds and three places in front of the milestone while Fairlands Valley Spartans' Claire Emmerson was five places and eight seconds behind, one spot ahead of Neil Homewood of Stevenage Phoenix.

The race itself was won by Jamie Lynch of WA Marathon Club ahead of Spartans' Simon Jackson in second.

Fellow FVS runner Grant Ramsay was sixth.

The Comet: Some of the Stevenage Phoenix award winners. Picture: STEVENAGE PHOENIXSome of the Stevenage Phoenix award winners. Picture: STEVENAGE PHOENIX (Image: Stevenage Phoenix)

There had been celebrations one night earlier too for the Phoenix club as they held their second ever awards night.

There was 35 trophy winners picking up one or more of the club’s personal achievement awards.

The awards are given on merit, based on the results at a variety of race distances.

The club were involved in some ultra madness too.

Lewis Green was in North Norfolk for the Winter Poppyline 50 mile run.

Starting at 9am in Sheringham, he had to navigate a circular route through five checkpoints and covered the last three and a half hours of the run in the dark, finishing in 12 hours 20 minutes.

Chris Leigh meanwhile did the Punchbowl 30 mile event in Surrey.

This was a self navigation event following a circular route around the Devils Punchbowl near Hindhead.

He was using the run, which had to traverse a flooded bridleway at 20 miles, as preparation for the Hadrians Wall 70 mile ultra in June, carrying full mandatory kit this time.

He finished in 7:22.

Twelve Phoenicians made the trip to Welwyn Garden City for the Love Welwyn 10k and came with a string of PBs and a age group club record.

The latter belonged to Ken Hall who finished in 51:07.

Among the PBs was Bobby Buckley in 46:51, Conor O'Neill in 48:42 and George Bradshaw with 50:05.

James Woodcock was the second Phoenix athlete to finish, two seconds behind Buckle.

The first lady home was Emma Mead in 51:24  and she was followed by Phil Gover (1:02:17), Katka Laughton (1:02:24) and Simona Leadbetter (1:04:27).

Running her first 10k was Kelsee Watson, finishing in 1:04:44 thanks to the support of Tina Adams in 1:04:42.

Charlie Lewis also set a PB with 1:13:37.

The Comet: North Herts Road Runners take a selfie on the start line in Stamford. Picture: NHRRNorth Herts Road Runners take a selfie on the start line in Stamford. Picture: NHRR (Image: North Herts Road Runners)

North Herts Road Runners only had the one athlete taking part in WGC but his run still stood out.

Ben Sewell said the conditions were perfect but the course itself was muddy in parts and "rolling".

But at 8km he made a push for home to win overall in 35:09.

The Squirrels were also getting into the long-distance spirit as six of them travelled to the 30th anniversary running of the Valentines 30k in Stamford.

This was another undulating course but Laura Fairbanks managed to knock six minutes off her time from the previous year, finishing in 2:42:26.

Rachel Arnott (2:14:04), Oliver White (2:32:28), John Auld (2:36:19), Dave Braybrook (2:50:07) and Anna Gibson (3:02:30) were the others from NHRR.