As a record-breaking cold snap settled over much of Scandinavia and spread its tentacles across much of northern Europe, Horwich’s veterans still came up with some sizzling performances at parkrun events.

Rob Jackson got his 2024 off to an almost literally flying start on a somewhat icy course at Alexandra Parkrun, in Moss Side, Manchester. He came in as first M55 in a time of 18mins 36secs - one he said could have been a bit faster if the conditions had permitted.

Lindsey Brindle came home as the first woman on Bolton’s notoriously hilly and slippery route in a cracking 21:41, while Sean McMyler also came in first in his age group at another parkrun, taking first M60 at Heaton Park in 20:52.

Maria Lowe also ran 21:30 in this event, while another golden veteran, Tony Hesketh, came away with first M75 at Pennington Flash, covering the 5K in 29:14. Richard Pollitt took second M45 at Worsley Woods and an excellent seventh place overall in 19:24.

Cross-country runners are a particularly hardy bunch who do not care much if the weather does not play ball, and a small team of Harriers tackled a typically awkward January course on a cold day at Witton Park, in Blackburn.

Luke Foley stormed around the 9.2km course in a fine time of 33:44. Alistair Murray continued his comeback and came in under 40 minutes, while Mark Walsh took second position in the M55 category. Janet Rashleigh also took part in the slightly shorter women’s race, coming home ninth out of 44 veterans, and unsurprisingly winning the F60 category in the process.

Suzanne Budgett produced a pair of fine results over the last two weekends. The Nine Standards race was back on New Year’s Day but the results were only recently confirmed and she took advantage of that rare phenomenon, namely a tailwind when running uphill, and found the mildly boggy terrain very much to her liking to come in as first F60.

She then repeated the trick last weekend at the Helm Hill Winter League at Scout Scar in frosty, hard conditions.

Increasingly, some Harriers are finding racing abroad is just as much fun as running locally or in the Lakes.

The Middletons ran together in wonderful Copenhagen, taking on the long-established Amager Strandpark Parkrun. Toby won it in a rapid 18:50 and was two minutes ahead of second place, while Jason and Janet enjoyed clocking up another country on their parkrun travels, having already successfully completed runs in the Netherlands, Norway and Canada among others.

Another traveller, Steve Thomasson, started out his 2024 calendar with the Polar Night half-marathon in Tromsø, Norway.

Almost 200 of the 900 registered runners did not even start the race due to the cold wind and snow forecast - or indeed the temperatures of minus 30 Celsius on the Swedish side of the border in the days before.

Thomasson ran a steady 1:52:10 in comparatively tropical conditions of around minus-nine in the wind on a largely snowbound and wind-blasted course, but the Northern Lights did not make an appearance.