North Norfolk Beach Runners have been making good use of a brief gap in the weekend road race calendar to set some superb times at midweek races in the past fortnight.

Chris Merrylees, easily the Cromer Club's fastest runner this year, finished fifth in the Wroxham 5k with a personal best time of 16:06, just 14 seconds behind the race winner, Tim Topper.

With the marathon season behind him, Chris hopes to take a further slice off his best time later in the summer.

Paul Muffet made a welcome return to racing with a steady 24th place in 18:39 and Hugh Brown ran his first race in the club colours, showing a lot of promise as he clocked 19:20.

A little further back two Beach Runner ladies were in the prizes. Lucy Collyer ran an excellent race to finish in 70th place, winning first 40-49, whilst Andi Osborne clocked one of her best times for a while, crossing the line in 23:07 to be first in her age group as well.

Other Beach Runners enjoying the last of the unseasonably cold weather to record good times were Alison Swanson and Justin Ashford while Fish Sadler ran an inexplicably slow race to record 25:56, some four minutes outside his usual 5k time.

A week later and Norfolk running moved from winter into summer with a balmy evening on the Yarmouth seafront for the last in this year's Great Yarmouth 5 Mile Series.

John Christopher and David Nockels were well matched, just three seconds separating the two runners, John edging out his younger rival as he finished 26th in 31:22.

Andi Osborne picked up her second age group prize in eight days as she crossed the line in a highly creditable 37:24 to place 102nd. Further back Alec Fraser, Ian Jarvis, Shelley Burton and Jonathon Folkard all enjoyed good runs around the two lap circuit of the Yarmouth Promenade.

n On a perfect summer day the Coltishall Jaguars were out in force at the Alex Moore Relay, a 2.2 mile course which starts at the Goat at Skeyton.

The winning teams were Wayne's World, the men's senior team, who came home in a time of 1-21:02, the ladies' senior team All about Eve, (1-42:31), the men's masters team The Old Injured Crocks (1-28:33), and the ladies' masters team Orange Jam (1-43:27).

Anyone who might be interested in joining Colishall Jaguars can contact the club via the website http://www.coltishalljaguars.co.uk/ where there is information about the club or you can contact Mel on 01603 736717 or Brenda on 01692 538935.

On what was the hottest day of the year so far, a team of three runners from the Coltishall Jaguars Running Club won the prodigious Alex Moore Trophy on a hilly course at Skeyton.

This annual trophy was given by the Norfolk Gazelles for the fastest relay team running a total distance of about 17.6 miles. The Jaguars also won awards for the fastest senior ladies and the fastest veteran ladies.

This ever-growing young club entered 14 teams for this event and as usual had the largest crowd of supporters to encourage the runners.