Press Report 24th May 2016
Dagenham 5 Mile (ish)
The 2016 Elvis Race Series got off to a good start at Eastbrook End Country Park on Tuesday Evening when Dagenham 88 hosted the first of this years 7 summer races with their 5 mile ish event. The ‘ish’ purposely appears in the title courtesy of the host Club to announce that the measurement of the course is notoriously inaccurate. Past races have been anything from 4.7 – 5.3 miles but this year most runners garmins recorded around the 5 mile mark. Last years race fell on the hottest day for 16 years, and this years featured a magnificently moody sky and double rainbow.
After a lot of rain during the day it hadn’t really abated for the start of the race which set off both in thick grass and cold conditions. The course was remarkably complex, full of twists and turns in mud, grassland and trail paths which made it difficult for runners to overtake in many places, and passing the start half a dozen times which although good for spectators only served to confuse the runners.
[shashin type=”album” id=”172″ size=”medium” crop=”n” columns=”max” caption=”n” order=”date” position=”center”]Nevertheless the Ilford AC men’s squad put in a very good performance making a clean sweep of the male veteran categories with Robi McNelis (MV40). Steve Philcox (MV50) and Andy Catton (MV60) taking the respective honours. It was notable that the scoring team of Philcox, McNelis, Wotton, Crisp, Alexander, and Knightley were 2nd in the Elvis team competition despite all being veterans and with the 6 of them sharing a combined age of 297.
Mens results:-
5th Stephen Philcox 30:28 1st M50
9th Robin McNelis 31:35 1st M40
11th Kevin Wotton 31:51
13th Neil Crisp 31:57
27th Rohan Alexander 33:46
30th Terry Knightley 34:17
44th Andy Catton 35:43 1st M60
45th Bradley Brown 35:48
68th Declan Cullen 37:47
96th Billy Green 40:07
97th John Mackenzie 40:17
113th Ernest Forsyth 41:47
158th Peter Spelman 46:07
The ‘Ilford ladies’ squad also put in a great effort despite missing some of their ‘big hitters’ and some very good early season times were recorded with Nicola Hopkinson triumphing in the FV45 category. There was also a great debut performance from Nichola Fairbairn who combined with Nicola Hopkinson, Rachel Halpin, and Dianne Crisp to close the squad to 3rd in the Elvis team competition.
Ladies results:-
87th Nicola Hopkinson 39:24 1st F45
132nd Rachel Halpin 43:17
133rd Dianne Crisp 43:19
167th Nichola Fairbairn 46:58
171st Nicola Chester 47:16
185th Carol Muir 49:39
187th Doris ‘Lady’ Gaga 49:49
206th Julie Gillender 52:38
European masters road race championship
Friday 20th May
Monte Gordon Portugal
Ilford AC had two representatives in the British contingent in the 10km event at the European road racing championship stage in the small Portuguese town of Monte Gordon on the Algarve neat the Spanish border. Even though the race started at 7pm both Edward Skinner and Rob Sargent found the going tough with the temperature still above 27C. Skinner in his first international competition fared better of the duo to finish the two lap out and back course in 49 mins 09 secs to place 283rd out of the 356 finishers in the men’s race, giving him 42nd in the m60 age grouping and 8th British man in this group. Sargent finished in 56 mins 27 secs in 328th overall 53rd m60 and 11th Brit in this category. The competitors in the race represented ages from 35 to over 90.