RUNNERS from North Yorkshire were among the thousands of people who had carried out months of training to complete a half marathon - only to be told at the start line it could not go ahead.

The Sheffield Half Marathon was due to take place today, but organisers cancelled it at the last minute because there was not enough water available to hand out to the 5,000 runners expected to take part.

Many decided to run the course anyway, including The Press’ Hannah Bryan, with local residents and members of local businesses lining the route to hand out bottles of water to those who chose to carry on.

South Yorkshire Police set up road blocks to try to prevent the runners from taking part in the cancelled race, but decided it was safer to let it go ahead.

Following the run, Hannah tweeted: “#rebelrunners took on the cancelled @SheffieldHalf anyway. HUGE thank you to people dishing out water, couldn’t have done it without them!!”