A final cross-country and a festival of running kept athletes at a number of clubs busy.

The delayed final round of the Sunday Cross-country League took place on Therfield Heath in Royston.

The hilly course was its usual testing self and while team results and overall standings are still being calculated, individual results are in.

The Comet: Fairlands Valley Spartans at Royston. Picture: CALLIE CHAPMAN/FVSFairlands Valley Spartans at Royston. Picture: CALLIE CHAPMAN/FVS (Image: Callie Chapman/FVS)

Fairlands Valley Spartans had a squad of 21 take part out of a field of 226 and returned with the race winner in Andrew Patterson.

He ran the 9k course in 34 minutes 37 seconds and was followed in by Simon Jackson in 10th and Adrian Busolini in 19th.

The five others who made up the men's A team were Nick Gill, Adrian Donnelly, Danny Scanlon, Thomas Sauka and Michael O'Keefe.

Nick Kleanthous, Jon Sypula, Mark Freeman, Andy Jay and Jim Brown made up the five-strong B team.

Kelly McHale led in the Spartans women, finishing 112th overall and 19th woman.

The others in the women's team were Claire Emmerson, Penny Schenkel, Sharon Crowley and Jane Wadey.

Stevenage Striders had a good group make the journey as well with Ben Ward the first of them to finish in 96th position, ahead of Martin Scales (101st) and Stuart Cuzner (126th).

Steve Moore, Clarence Phillips, Russ Andrews, Marc Hagland, Remy Knowles, Chrissie Thomas, Angie Brewer-Hayes, Lina Tzompova and David Phillips were the others involved.

The other big event was the Milton Keynes Festival of Running with various distances on offer.

The Striders had Peter Bampton-Clare (3:36:02), Paula Heyes (4:07:23) and Hannah Manton (4:07:23) in the 20-mile event while Alun Watkins managed 2:12:27 in the half marathon.  

Six from FVS took part with Simon Fraser the star, coming 16th out of 595 finishers in the 20-mile race with a time of 2:06:24.

Vicky Archer (3:19:18), Wendy Tharani (3:49:42) and Barry King (3:58:47) also ran the same distance.

Harriet Smith took on the half marathon, finishing in 1:49:36, while Matt Tutton clocked 57:35 in the 10k.

Stevenage Phoenix were also in Buckinghamshire with 11 of their athletes taking part.

In the 5k race Chris Leigh came very close to a personal best with a time of 23:36, finishing 30th overall and setting a new club record in his age category.

In the 10k race Greg Bradbury was the first Phoenician home in 46:14, followed by Jodie Kantas (51:00, new club record) and Emma Mead (56:44).

Laura Luhman was running in her first 10k race and was joined by Sue Leigh, both finishing in 1:07:17. Leigh picked up the club record in her age category.

A week after their 20-mile race at Oundle, Dawn Loynes and Sue Bryson took on the half marathon as part of their Brighton Marathon preparation.

They finished in 2:29:54 and 2:19:35 with the latter picking up the club record in her age category.

There were three from Phoenix in the 20, again using it as part of marathon training.

Lewis Green clocked a club record of 3:02:42 in the process, finishing ahead of Andrew Liddle in 3:06:07 and Ashley Bates, who suffered with foot pain as he clocked 3:50:44.