Press Report 9th December 2019
South of England inter-counties Cross Country Champs
Horspath, Oxford
Saturday 7th December
Aaron Samuel and Jak Wright of Ilford AC travelled up to Horspath on Saturday 7th December to compete in the South of England Inter-counties Championships. Both athletes battled through a tough course, plagued with mud and hills. Aaron and Jak positioned 2nd and 33rd respectively after being selected to represent Essex for coming top 8 in one of the league races.
Aaron stuck with the front pack from the start, where not far into the race a group of 4 athletes, including himself broke away. It was a tough battle with fast uphills and even faster downhills. About halfway through the race, Aaron and a Middlesex athlete broke away from the other two athletes and were battling it out for about a kilometre and a half. But from 1 kilometre to go first place also started to break away from Aaron the Ilford athlete did his best to maintain his position for the rest of the race and managed to secure an impressive second individual place.
Jak delivered another solid performance this season, coming home as the 4th Essex scorer. After a conservative start, Jak gained plenty of places during the hilly and muddy sections of the course. Showcasing his strength, he managed to pick up a multitude of positions during the last kilometre of the course. Jak was pleased with his position, with this being the first time he has represented the county for cross country.
Overall, the Essex team scored 5th out of the 11 counties in the South of England that competed. Both Ilford AC athletes had been training extremely hard for this race and are looking to extend their success to the remainder of the season.
Telford 10k
Sunday 8th December
The Telford 10k is one of the seasons most competitive, attracting elite club runners from all over the country. The best of these go off in the first wave of the day, and is for runners expected to finish in under 40 minutes. One of these elite runners was Ilfords own Ahmed Abdulle who despite the bleak wet and windy conditions on the day managed to smash his 10k Pb finishing 43rd in a field of over 1200 runners in a time of 30 minutes 32 seconds, securing him 7th place in the U23 category.
The race was won by Adam Craig of Inverclyde in 28 minutes 32 seconds
