In the last eight days, North Norfolk Beach Runners have raced at eight different venues as far afield as Jersey and Northumberland and at distances ranging from 5km right up to 62 miles.

Six runners travelled to Steve Cram's scenic Kielder Marathon where Colin Stark led home the sextet with a brilliant 27th place in a time of 3-12:01, followed by Andy Kett in 34th place, just a couple of minutes behind.

Darren Neale and Andy Maclaren both ran comfortably under the 4 hour mark and Tony Money and Merle Riseborough ran round the tough, undulating course together to finish in 4 hours 17 minutes.

Lucy Collyer finished the popular Jersey Marathon in a personal best time of 3-49:50 for a creditable 181st place.

Also running marathons were the long distance trio of Vinnie Purdy, Carmine de Grandis and John Leach who took on the tough Flower of Suffolk trail marathon and finished within a minute of each other just outside four and a half hours.

A week later and Carmine de Grandis was back on the trail again with an excellent completion of East Anglia's toughest race, the 62 mile Norfolk Coastal Ultra, finishing the gruelling run from Kelling Heath to Brancaster and back in just 12 hours and 18 minutes.

Super veteran Malcolm Ball made his second visit to the Lake District in a month for the 11 mile Coniston Trail Race and came away with yet another age group first, romping round the hilly course in 1-49:14 to finish first O70 by more than 4 minutes.

Nearer home and over the distance of 5k, North Norfolk Beach Runners had a good turn-out at the first race of Ryston Runners Cross Country Series. Fastest over the woodland course was John Christopher finishing third Over 45 in an impressive time of 18:41.

Chris Wade also looked to be in good form clocking 19:02 and brother Jamie was not far behind him. Jeremy Bolam and Ian Wade enjoyed the dry, cool conditions and Jenny de Grandis, watched by her exhausted husband, Carmine, fought off a recent injury to clock 25:52.

At the increasingly popular Marriot's Way 10k, five senior members of the Cromer club ran the old railway line from Aylsham to Reepham. Despite some difficulties with the chip timing system, Jim Hayes beat his time from last year by two minutes but was still only second in the O60 age group.

Tony Heath, Noel Spruce and Alec Fraser all went well and Michael O'Connor made a welcome return to the race circuit after nearly two years.