• Press Report 13th October 2008

    Ilford Athletic Club opened their 2008/9 season cross country campaign with the 1st round of the Essex League in some gloriously warm weather at Loughton on Saturday.
    In the under 13s George Hadler excelled himself with a brilliant 19th place despite admitting he has never been a lover of the discipline. In the under 15s Alex Richards ran well working his way through the field to 23rd place, exactly the same position as Liam Leddy achieved in the under 17 men.
    Large fields characterised both the senior women and senior mens race which meant that the restricted narrow bridge crossing the River Roding presented a serious and dangerous bottleneck with more than one casualty as runners came off the bridge onto some hard ground and exposed tree roots.
    Nevertheless the Cricklefields based club were well represented in both races with Malcolm Muir leading the men home in 17th place. Next home for lford was youngster Iain Macdonald in 45th who had another superb race once again managing to get the better of Darren Bottrill back in 65nth. Neil Crisp battled well in 76th, with Andy Catton 92nd and Abdi Berleen 121st closing the 6 man team to 10th place out of 24 competing teams.
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    In the womens race the Ilford lead women packed extremely well with Bree Nordin 23rd leading home from Lindsey Barker 29th Nicola Hopkinson 32nd and Dianne Crisp 36thth. Dianne did exceptionally well after recovering from a tumble in the woods and turning her ankle to close the womens squad to 7th out of 18 competing teams.
    Other Ilford runners on duty included Matt Maple 132nd, John Mackenzie 145th, Henry Ricketts 149th, Steve Cheal 151st, Martin Clarke 153rd, Robin Davis 176th, Paul Cheal 177th, Vanessa Apps 52nd, Pam Jones 56th, Sally Gillam 70th, and Carol Muir 81st.
    Afterwards there was a short presentation for the clubs winter trophy held over 10 races and concluding with last weeks Southend 10k. President John Mackenzie presented the prizes which went to Men: 1st Neil Crisp , 2nd Malcolm Muir 3rd Iain Macdonald, Women 1st Bree Nordin 2nd Nicola Hopkinson 3rd Dianne Crisp. Club captain Neil Crisp then thanked Sally Gillam and Martin Clarke for all their hard work they had put in as competition organisers.
     
    The following day both Malcolm Muir and Bree Nordin were back in action at the Tiptree 10 mile race in North Essex. Muir proved he still had enough in his legs to record 3rd place in a time of 57.26 behind Billericays Criapian Bloomfield (54.30) and Springfields Gary Chandler ( 56.05). Nordin similarly had a good run to finish as top W50 of the day and 6th woman home overall with 70.16 just a little behind clubmate Keith Ennis (69.35).  
     
    Elsewhere Iain Burdin ran in the Royal Parks Half and completed the course in 1:41:06, a pleasing time considering the conditions were tough in the heat. It was a very scenic course starting off around Hyde Park, out along the river to St Pauls and back through Green Park and then ending up back at Hyde Park via Kensington Gardens.