Ilford AC Press Report Week Ending Sunday 8 December 2013  

Essex cross-Country League Match 3
Hylands Park, Chelmsford 7 December 2013.

The third match of this years Essex Cross-Country league was held at Hylands
Park, Chelmsford last Saturday on a firm, fast grassland course in good
conditions. Ilford Ac fielded teams in both mens and ladies matches, who
produced their best results of the season so far, but the best performance
of the day came from Usamah Patel in the boys u/15 race where he had a
superb run to come home 2nd in 12mins 40secs for the 4km course, just 5
seconds behind the winner.

The ladies raced held over 6.4km saw the Ilford team pack well. Bree Nordin
led the way in 35th, and 1st in the F55 category, in 29m 20s. Mel Jones was
next over the line 12 seconds behind to take 36th, and 4th in the F45
grouping, while Dianne crisp finished 38th with 29m 54s (5th in the F45
category). the team was closed by Jenni Sheehan one place and 4 seconds
behind her Mother. Nicola Hopkinson gave her normal battling performance for
47th in the 92 strong field in 30m 55s. Overall the club finished 9th in the
match in the 21 team league.

The men were boosted by the first appearance in the Essex League this year
of Malcolm Muir who came home 14th in 27m 37s for the 8km race. Spencer
Hempstead continued his excellent form over the country finishing in 20th
with 27m 50s [1st V40], while Tom Gardner finished 27th in 28m 07s. Next
home was the in form Kevin Newell in 51st and a good time of 29m 33s and
Neil Crisp was a creditable 81st (5th in M50 group) with 31m 23s. Bradley
Brown closed the scoring 6 in 116th and 33m 24s. Also in action were Darren
Bottrill (135th 35.02) and Steve Cheal (196th 41m 55s). There were 206
finishers in the race and the Ilford squad placed a season high in the match
of 8th.

At the half way point of the season the Ilford teams are place: men 9th and
ladies 10th

Report by Hank in the Bushes

picture courtesy of Jenni Sheehan

Indoor Middle Distance Meeting
Lee Valley Wednesday 4 December 2013

At the indoor track at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre a series on middle
distance races was held on the banked 200m track.

The first event of the evening was the 1000m where Ilford AC’s Krystle
Balogun handled the track well on her first indoor outing to finish 4th and
1st lady in heat 2 in a time of 3 mins 19.19 secs.

In the 3000m there were 5 men from the endurance squads at Ilford on the
entry list. In heat 1 Tom Gardner finished 9m 13.42 secs, while there was an
impressive performance from 15 year old Usamah Patel in heat 2. He came home
3rd in a new best time for the distance of 9m 26.19s. Also in this heat were
Kevin Newell, who also improved his best time for the event to 9m 29.14s, in
5th and Sam Rahman 9th with 10m 07.35s. Steve Philcox ran a well judged race
in heat 3 to take the victory with a time of 9m 52.96s.

Report by Warrior Dog

Brixton 10k

Brockwell park Sunday 8 December 2013

Nicola Chester and Carol Muir made the short journey to South London to take
part in a very hilly and tough event. Nicola Chester ran well clocking 55:26
for a new PB. Carol Muir finished in 61:02.

Report by Carol Muir

Malaga International Marathon

Malaga Sunday 8 December 2013

In the Malagar International Marathon Sunday morning (8th Dec) on a nice
part waterfronted course lined with happy weekend holiday Spaniards, Helen
Hooper (v45) running barefoot was well satisfied with her time of 5hours
01min 04s knocking off some 19 minutes from her previous best time set in
London.

Report by Gerry Pells

Southwark Park Run

Saturday 7 December 2013

Dad and I missed last week’s run as he made some excuse about having sore
muscles. Personally I think it was either because it was Southwark Park’s
run number 13 or possibly because there was a very fast VM55 visiting from
Exeter and Dad didn’t want to look like a slug. This runner looked
remarkably like Andy Catton, but when I suggested that it was him in
disguise checking up on us, Dad said that it couldn’t possibly be, as Andy
is a VM60!

After the last run, we talked tactics. I suggested that we fit rotating
blades to the buggy axles to stop runners overtaking us, but Dad thought
that this was un-sportsman like and said that I had to stay awake instead. I
agreed and so promised not to nod off this time. Dad also had promised after
last week to ‘practise’ before this race, so he didn’t have sore muscles
again. He said that he had done 46 miles running over the last week. This
must have been right as story times were really short and Dad was snoring
long before I was asleep most nights.

Dad started really strongly this time and I kept guard on runners trying to
sneak past us. We actually managed to pass a couple of runners as the
‘practise’ seemed to have worked. We steamed round the course at a great
rate of knots, but on lap 3, I succumbed to the smile of the lady behind and
let her pass us. I don’t think Dad minded this one slip. He kept strong
until the end and we finished 17th in 22:13, which was 44 seconds up on last
time. I said to Dad that if he kept this up, we would have the World Record
in the bag by summer. He wasn’t convinced.

Report by Lukas Togwell (Aged 10 months)