The fourth Ryston Runners Cross country grand prix of the season was held in the woods of Shouldham Warren on Sunday.

Braving the cold and muddy course with snow flurries were 11 Dereham junior runners who were joined by 12 senior club members and a couple of future juniors running for their primary schools.

Along with the tough weather conditions for all the juniors was a change in the course route due to fallen trees from the recent storms. Only a couple of personal bests were gained by the junior team but they had nine top 10 finishes across the age groups.

In the U9 boys (800m) Daniel Adcock finished 24th with a time of 4 minutes 25 seconds

In the U11 girls (2k) Megan Skipper came 16th with 12:41, Eliza Adcock finished in 14th in 12:11 and a good run from Ellen Symonds saw her finish in third place with a time of 9:48.

The U11 boys race had Zachary Pollard run a time of 9:59 to come 13th.

In the U13 boys (3k) Luke Gilding was fifth in 12:48, Louis Preston seventh in 14:02 and Jacob Last 10th in 14:55.

The U15 boys (3k) saw Ryan Lingwood knock 56 seconds off his personal best to come in second place with a time of 10:54 and another best was achieved by Sam Anderton, coming fourth with 12:41. In the girls' race Erin McNulty was second place with a time of 12:43.

In the U17 girls sisters Ellie and Abi Foster battled out a very close race with Ellie coming first in 22:32 and Abi a stride behind in second in 22:34.

The previous weekend two juniors entered the Reepham cross country at the Whitwell Station, the one lap 5k race consisting of a river to cross and plenty of mud to wade through. In this gruelling event Louis Preston finished 18th in a time of 28:48.4 and just behind was Jacob Last in 28:48.6.

The same weekend in a much drier and warmer environment saw Kai Wiseman competing in the Norfolk Sports Hall Championships at Norwich Sportspark. He ran the two lap hurdles race in 26.2 to come third in his heat and was fourth in the final in 26.2. In the turbo javelin he finished 10th with 13.50m. In the two lap sprint race he finished third in the heats with 25.1 and was third in the final in 25.4 while in the triple jump Kai had his best result of the day with a jump of 5.73m good enough to win.