RUNNING: North Norfolk Beach Runners enjoyed a tremendous evening at the first race of the Great Yarmouth Five-Mile Series, taking the senior men's team prize with two runners placed in the first three.

Steve Jones ran a remarkable race to finish second in 27:48 to win the men's veteran prize by some distance.

But new member Robbie Britton, best known for his distance running, showed that he has tremendous speed as well by crossing the line just 18 seconds behind Jones to take third place.

Robbie Britton's run helped the Cromer club to a rare senior men's first prize as Quinton Brown and Darren Neale came in 16th and 28th respectively.

Not far behind, Chris Parker made his first appearance on the race circuit for some time and looked to be in good form with an excellent time of 31:08 for 32nd place.

The Wade brothers, Chris and Jamie, as usual finished not far apart in 74th and 77th place in just over 34 minutes. They may well go faster later in the season.

Simon Page ran a good race for a top-100 finish in 36:33.

Rob Osborne continued his steady improvement with a personal best of 38:18 and Caroline Dickens made a welcome return to racing as she beat Ian Jarvis to the line by just two seconds.

A big contingent of Beach Runners was completed by Andi Osborne, Shelly Burton, Jonathon Folkard, Claire Dunnet and Linda Holt. They all enjoyed the warm spring conditions on the Yarmouth seafront.

Earlier in the week, Robbie Britton had also been in action at the Chase the Train race, nine miles along the trail which follows the Bure Valley railway from Aylsham to Wroxham.

Robbie's finish time of 56:47 was good enough for eighth place in an unusually strong field.

A little further back, John Leach and Chris Wade both ran strongly for 23rd and 25th places respectively with Steve Newstead making a first appearance in the Beach Runners' blue and gold vest to finish 54th in 1-24:24.

A warm, spring afternoon and a gentle following wind made for pleasant conditions for the quintet of club runners who shepherded in the later finishers.

Andy Toogood and Emma Culley crossed the line together in 62nd and 63rd place, just a minute ahead of Mike Marshall and Trine Middleton – with Margaret Ison coming in just in time to catch the train back to Aylsham.