NORTH Ayrshire Athletic Club insist they WILL be back with a different version of their famous 10K festival this year.

The club, based in Saltcoats, announced that they’d taken the ‘difficult decision’ to cancel their normal 10k event, held each year since 2015.

Now the club have set a date of around September 3 for their members and other participants to pencil in their calendar as they prepare to put on a ‘fun celebration for all of the family’.

The club wrote: “We have delayed opening entries and making a decision as long as is practically possible, but tonight (July 1) the decision was made that we can’t go ahead with our normal festival of running.

“However, we are hoping to hold a return to running festival around September 3. We don’t have all the details firmed up yet, but it WON’T be time and it won’t be a race.

“You won’t have to log your result – it will be a fun celebration for all of the family.

“You set the course, you set the distance, you run at your own pace and time, if you want to do it for charity or for a personal best.”

Race director Blair Pettigrew was taken aback by the volume of people who registered an interest.

He added: “We don’t have enough time to put on the event the way we’d want to even if restrictions allowed us by that point.

“I think within an hour of our post going up over 100 people have said they’d be keen to take part. It’s certainly given us a clear mandate that people are willing to do something.

“I saw something that said running numbers have increased 30 per cent during lockdown, so there may be a whole new demographic looking for this sort of event.

“Hopefully by September we can celebrate coming out the other side of it (COVID-19) and it is a return to some sort of normality. We think this is ideally situated as a celebration after the tough times we’ve endured.

“We wouldn’t be able to run this without the continued support of our sponsors Specsavers and the Rivergate in Irvine.

For more information visit the club’s Facebook page.