Press Report 28th September 2021
Essex League
Hockley
Saturday 27 September
The Essex Cross Country League for this winter made an early start last Saturday at Hockley. Ilford Ac were well represented and had another good afternoon of racing. Due to a lack of available officials no times were recorded. The course was on grassland land and trials with a challenging hill complex of three climbs on each lap.
The ladies race was over2 laps and 6km and the Ilford team were led home by Carlie Qirem, who is in good form ahead of the Manchester Marathon in two weeks, in 19th with Gaye Young who will be action in the London Marathon next weekend, next home in 27th and 3rd in the F50 category.
Alison Sale came home 32nd and placed 2nd in the F55 grouping. Hannah Sheikh in 35th and Frieda Keane in 66th completed the ladies team. Combined their performance was the 3rd best on the day, with the team topping the Div 2 table.
The senior men raced over 8.5km with 2 laps and a loop which missed out the hills with Gary Coombes leading the way for the Ilford side in 13th spot and 2nd in the M45 age group. The ever-reliable Malcolm Muir was next over the line in 30th with Seb Parris 44th and Danny Holeyman 48th. Terry Knightley put in a good performance to lead the M60 category in 65th. Steve Crane completed the scorers for the club placing 87th. The team started the season in 5th place in the first division.
Supporting the scoring 6 with good performances were: Dennis Briggs 90th Adam Coals 91st Steve Cheal 134th and Rob Sargent 140th
Ilford also had several junior athletes in action. In the Boy under 15 4.5km race Samuel Crane placed 20th while in the boys under 17 6km event Ryan Holeyman came home 15th and Ronan Edwards was 16th.
Valentines Park 5km (ELvIS)
Ilford
Sunday 28 September
The concluding race of the 2021 ELvis series was held on a flat fast course in Ilford’s Valentines park. With the Essex League the previous day and the league positions already decided Ilford fielded a smaller team than normal.
Malcolm Muir was in action again with a gutsy run placing 5th in 17mins 47 secs taking the M4 category trophy with Steve Philcox one place behind in 17m 58s which won him the M50 category trophy. Next home and completing a trio of category winners was Terry Knightley with a M60 age group victory, which completed a clean sweep of winning the M60 title in all 7 ELVIS races this season, in 12th spot in 19mins 14 secs.
Dennis Briggs, another who was racing twice in 2 days was 33rd in 20m 42s. and Tony Young recorded 22mins 12 secs in 51st with Phil Davies finishing 56th in 22m 16s.
On the day the men’s team placed 3rd.
Sameena Ahmed led the Ilford ladies in 3rd place with 19m 52s. Jordan Hinds recorded a personal best of 20m 05s in 5th and Anna Crawley was the third member of the team in the top 10 with 21m 16s for 9th. Bree Nordin came home 14th lady in 22m 37s with Alison Sale 23rd with 24m 36s. Closing the team was Carol Muir with 27m 41s for 41st female. In this match the ladies were second but won the season long league with the men second in their competition.
Other Ilford runners in action: Bradley Brown (91 24.55) Pathrose Louis (118 26.24) Frieda Keane (147 28.18) Julie Gillender (179 33.20) Raj Katechia (172 31.45) Kim Baxter (189 37.00)
Open Meeting
Bromley
Wednesday 22nd September
Competing in her last track race of the season last Wednesday, Jordan Hinds produced a fantastic pb over 800m. Jordan’s recent races had suggested a pb was on the cards, she was in the second heat at Bromley, and was well positioned at the bell reached in 66/67. Along the back straight she moved into the lead and pushed for home, a fast finishing Blackheath athlete just pipped her on the line, but her reward was a time of 2.17.58, a pb by nearly 3 seconds
Hackney Half / Lee Valley Half
Ilford also had 3 runners competing in Half Marathons at the weekend, all putting in very good performances.
Zuzana Sinalova traveled back from Slovakia where she is now living after many years as an Ilford runner to run 1:42:28 in the Hackney Half Marathon. Also running at Hackney was Mandy Reid who ran a PB for the distance in 2:16:21, whilst at the Lee Valley Velo Park Josnara Uddin ran the Half Marathon in a time of 2:27:55
Also at Hackney, as part of the running festival a 5k race was held. Amin Koikai of Ilford, ran a very impressive 16:14 to place in 3rd position and is in tremendous form for next week’s London Marathon.
