Essex Road Relay Championship – Chelmsford plus BMAF Cross Country Championship 16th March 2013  

ESSEX ROAD RELAY CHAMPIONSHIP – CHELMSFORD

The Essex County Road Relay Championship was held on a very wet Saturday afternoon on a rural course from the Chelmsford track. Ilford AC entered 2 mens and a ladies team in the event. The men’s A team were led off by Tom Gardner who ran the 3.7 mile course in 19m 40s, followed by Steve Philcox (21m 26s) and Sam Rahman (21m 41s). Team captain Malcolm Muir took over on the anchor leg in 8th and moved up to 6th during his leg of 19m 40s. The B team consisted Tony Nixon (24m 11s) Tom King (22m 50s) Peter Clinch (20m 45s) and Andy Catton (24m 02s) and they finished 16th. Steve Cheal also completed a leg for the C team.

Mel Jones led off for the club in the ladies 3 leg event and passed on to Jenni Sheehan in 16th place after her run of 27m 27s. Sheehan moved the team upto 13th with a leg of 27m 07s before Breege Nordin ran the anchor in 26m 12s to place the team 10th overall.

Report by Hank in the Bushes

BMAF CROSS-COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIP – SUNDERLAND

A small squad from Ilford AC travelled north for the British Masters Cross-Country Championship held at Herringto Country park just outside Sunderland. the weather conditions were much better than down south, cool,dry with sunny spells. The race was over a 2km lap on soggy, energy sapping grassland.

The first race was the men o-65 and ladies and consisted of 3 laps. Both Ilford ladies were racing in the F50 category and both started slowly and moved steadily up the field. Dianne Crisp, in her first race since November following a foot injury, came home 9th in 31m 04s, while Nicola Hopkinson put in a gritty performance and finished just 6 seconds and 2 places behind her.

The mens team was weakened by the withdrawal of Neil Crisp and Kevin Newell with injuries,although they did make the trip to support their teammates. The two Ilford runners both found the going tough with Steve Parker finished 128th in the overall placing in the 4 lap M35-64 mens race in 40m 23s.and 25th in the M55 category. Rob Sargent came home in 43m 10s for 138th overall and 31st in the M55 age grouping

Report by Geordie Jim