Press Report 28th February 2017  

National Cross Country Championships
Wollaton Park Nottiingham 25th February

Ilford AC’s Malcolm Muir was the Club’s sole representative in the 2017 Saucony English National Cross Country Championships held at Wollaton Park, Nottingham last Saturday. Near on 1800 runners toed the line at the start of the senior men’s race with veteran Muir finishing in a fine 303rd place over 12k of the muddy and testing course. Muir’s time was 46 minutes 33 seconds. The men’s title went to Ben Connor of Derby in 39.35 with Jessica Judd of Chelmsford triumphant in a time of 29.07 over the 8k of a hard fought senior women’s race.

Lee Valley Veterans Inter Area Meeting
Sunday 26th February

Last Sunday Ilford veteran John Batchelor represented the SCVAC at an Inter-Area meeting at Lee Valley, where the results system broke down early on and when he left after 6 pm without seeing any of my results on the board. Batchelor ran in the M70 events as 10-year age brackets applied. At midday John kicked off with a 1500m (M60 & M70 combined) and was well beaten into second place in his age bracket by rival Peter Giles, three years younger than himself, but recorded on his own watch 5:47.1, his M75 best so far. Twenty minutes later, with legs still jellified, the Ilford man started in the 400m (M70 only), and acquitted himself well in third place though staggering a bit at the finish, but don’t know the time. Batchelor hopes to run much better in the BMAF Champs in two weeks time. After a couple of hours break John took charge from the start in the M70 800m and won in about 2:51.0, just under his M75 best. Finally at the end of the meeting he ran a leg in the M70 4x200m winning team (of two) and still managed to walk a mile to the station!

John now hopes to run four events over two days in the British Masters indoors – all subject to having two good legs on the day.

Roding Valley Half Marathon
Sunday 26 February

There were three runners from Ilford AC in the annual Roding valley Half Marathon held on the usual challenging road course around the busy roads of Woodford Green and Buckhurst Hill.First home for the club was Steve Philcox, who was slightly under par following a bout of the flu, in 40th spot in 1hr 28mins 05secs, while Bradley Brown put in a good performance for 70th in hr 32mins 22secs, his best time for 4 years. Completing the trio was Peter Spelman in 384th out of the 542 finishers with 2hrs 05mins 27secs