ON a weekend that should have been full of racing for Okehampton Running Club members, the mini ‘Beast From The East’ blew in.

The freezing weather front caused much disruption to races scheduled for Sunday.

While the calendar tells us it is the middle of March, the weather seems stuck in mid- January and despite organisers leaving decisions on cancellations until the last minute, most fixtures were abandoned in the end.

Without these races to take part in most runners resorted to doing some local miles to keep up the training, but a few ORCs actually managed to race on Saturday morning before the snow set in.

Rob Kelly took part in the 5kool 5k in Tavistock, which is a monthly race that starts and finishes with a circuit of the athletics track, with the runners going out to the Meadows and back in between. Record numbers took part in this month’s run with all proceeds going to Sport Relief. Rob had a great run, finishing in under 18 minutes for the first time to set a new personal best of 17 minutes 40 seconds, and taking third place.

ORCs Geoff Hill and Gill Spinney also slotted in a race at the Tamar Lakes parkrun on Saturday morning in Bude, where, despite neither of them running their best times they came in first male and first lady.