Press Report 31st October 2023
ESSEX CROSS-COUNTRY LEAGUE
Gloucester Park, Basildon
Round 2 of the Essex League was held over a challenging course in Gloucester Park, Basildon featuring a tough series of climbs on the hills in the Park.
Ilford Ac fielded full teams in both the senior men and ladies races.
The men raced over 9km and ran the hill complex 3 times with Tom Gardner leading the way in 18th spot in a large field in 31 mins 40 secs, followed home by Malcolm Muir in 45th with 34 mins 09 secs. Josh Alder is improving race by race and finished 63rd with 35 mins 31 secs and Steve Philcox was one place behind and was the first in the M55 age category. Dylan Harrod ran 35 mins 42 secs for 70th and Dan Holeyman completed the scorers in 125th. The Ilford team came 9th in the division 1 match and are 8th in the league.
Neil Crisp finished 4th in M60 grouping
Also running were: Bradley Brown (165th) Steve Crane (197th) Tarik Qirem (228th) Tony Young (252nd) Sean Costello (261st ) and Rob Sargent (272nd)
The ladies event was over 7 km but still included the hills three hills. Ilford were led home by Jordan Hinds in 21st with 32 mins 44 secs with the in-form Carlie Qirem 56th with 36 mins 28 secs. Anna Crawley recorded 37 mins 19 secs in 65th and completing the scoring team was Alison Sale in 74th with 38 mins 55 secs. the team finished, like the men, 9th in the match and are currently 9th in division 1.
Other Ilford ladies in action were: Pauline Tester (105th) Dianne Crisp (137th) and Frieda Keane (149th)
Essex XC League JUNIORS
Ilford sent a team a 12 youngsters to the 2nd cross country match of the season in Basildon
Fist up was Arnav Rathi in the u11 race. He started strongly and held his position to come home in 19th place.
In the u13 race over 3k we had a team of 3 boys. Barney Perkins continued his recent improvement finishing in 18th place closely followed by teammate Khalif Ali in 20th only 4 seconds behind. Elias Furreedan showed grit and determination to keep running up the difficult hills when many competitors around him were walking and finished a very creditable 47th.
Ilford had a team of five boys in the U15 race over 4k the highlight of the day for the squad came with Sam Horsley’s first league win. Sam had a slow start but showed his strength to come through the field and now looks towards county and area qualification in future races. He was followed in by Aron Berhe (17th) and Ryder Islam (18th) after a great sprint finish between the two. Luke Thake (29th) and Jayden Kyle McDermott (31st) showed their improvement this season both with strong races over a difficult course.
Finally in the u17s all 3 boys struggled over 5th and 6th hill of the course on lap 3 but kept going to score in the team race. Samuel Crane was 9th, Aaron Hick 17th and James Thake 35th.
Leigh-On-Sea 10k
The Leigh-On-Sea 10k is an after dark event combined to coincide with Halloween, where participants are encouraged to wear headlights.
Over 500 runners set off from The Carpark at Leigh-On-Sea and spectators were treated to a carnival of lights and even some Halloween outfits as runners raced round two tree island country park, along Marine Parade and through Old Leigh town before heading back to the station car park for a finishing line glass of prosecco.
Representing the club this year were Billy Green and Rachel Halpin.
Billy finished 241st in 1:00:06 with Rachel just 2 places and 10 seconds later.
Chingford League
Dagenham
Ilfords AC had 6 youngsters competing in the Junior event at last weekend’s Chingford League match in Dagenham.
In the U11/U13 Mixed race held over a 2k course Barney Perkins finished 2nd in 6m 55s with Khalif Ali just one place and 2 seconds behind him.
Saif Crane also put in an excellent performance finishing 59th in 9m 28s
We also had 3 youngsters competing in the U15/U17 race held over 4.5k. Jayden McDermott led the way in 21st place in 18m 13s, followed by Luke Thake 23rd 18m 29s and Mya Ward 31st 24m 19s