Press Report 25th May 2021
TRACK
A number of Ilford Ac athletes ran across 3 venues on Saturday and all of them achieved Personal Bests.
At Bromley both Farris Patel and Dylan Harrod ran an 800m.
Farris hadn’t ran on the track for over a year and was against some high quality athletes. The leaders actually went through the bell in 52 seconds and Farris ended up 4th in a massive personal best of 1.53.56. Not only does this rank Farris in the top 15 U20 800m runners in the UK, but the time he ran makes him the second fastest U20 800M runner of all time at Ilford and in the top 10 of Ilfords all time 800m athletes
Dylan Harrod, who recently joined Ilford ,has trained really well over the last winter and we have high hopes for him over 800m. In another high quality race Dylan came 5th and also improved his PB considerably with an outstanding time of 2.02.91. I am sure he can achieve an aim of breaking 2 mins by the end of the season
At Woodford, Ilford had 5 youngsters competing, 2 of them for the first time on a track for Ilford.
In the first 300m of the day,both Oliver Blainey and Jacob Emeagi, who are both first year u17B, raced against some quality senior athletes.Oliver, in his first race, ran an outstanding 39.33 to come 4th and Jacob came 6th in an impressive 41.35. Both will look to improve these times over the next few months
Next up was Jacob’s Brother Lucas. Lucas ,u15 ,started extremely fast and maintained his form to run 41.00,showing how much potential he has
In the 600m race Aaron Hick, U15B started really quickly and went through the first 400 in 70 seconds and maintained his form to win the race very impressively , with a large PB of 1.46.
In the 1500m Eva Whalley, was running her first ever race on the track .Her aim was to run under 6 mins and easily achieved her target by running 5.49 and coming 7th place. With her first race out of the way we expect Eva to improve her times considerably
Ilford Ac also had 2 senior athletes competing at Woodford. In the 300m Krystle Balogun, ran 42.71 to come 3rd and in the First 1500m race , recently joined Fabrizio Stefanoni ran an excellent 4.35 for 4th place
Over at Milton Keynes, Ahmed Abdulla competed in the Soar Mk 3000m Pb special on the track. In this graded meeting Ahmed Abdulla was seeded in the A race, finishing with a excellent Pb of 8:14:84 for 10th place
ROAD
VAC 5km
Tuesday 18 May
Battersea Park
Three athletes from Ilford Ac traveled up to Battersea Park for the first VAC race of the summer in Battersea Park. A heavy shower just before the start did not dampen the spirit of the 90 plus runners as they set off on the fast flat 2 lap course.
Alison Sale was the first Ilford runner home in a new personal best time of 23 mins 37 secs in 49th place, 6th in the F55 age category.
Two of the club’s older athletes also performed well with Ed Skinner recording his best time for 3 years with 24m 40s for 56th, with Rob Sargent two places back in 25m 23sec, his best for 5 years. They finished 4th and 5th respectively in the M65 age group.
The same venue also hosted a 5k race walk which saw two of Ilfords finest, Stuart Bennett and Lesley Morris, competing.
Stuart finished 6th in a time of 32:19 with Lesley finishing 9th in a time of 34:11
The Little Bromley 10k
Manningtree
Sunday 23rd May
On Sunday Two intrepid Ilford AC members travelled to Manningtree in West Essex to Run the new country lane course of The Little Bromley 10K Road Race organised by Harwich Runners. The One Lap course in windy conditions provided some fast times for the athletes.
With the usual Covid safe wave start For the 326 runners competing, Terry Knightley ran well to finish in 39 Minutes and 46 seconds for 46th position overall and 2nd Male Veteran Over 60.
His time was good enough to put him in 2nd place in the All Time Male Over 60 Ilford AC Club Records for 10K.
Following him home was Kim Baxter, still recovering from an ankle injury, in 73 Minutes and 48 seconds and 12th Female Veteran Over 60.
All Finishers received a quality Harwich Runners Back Pack and Cloth Snood/Face Mask
