Press Report 09/06/2014  

Orion Forest Five
Saturday 7th June 2014
Three Ilford runners contested the first of Orion’s Forest 5mile three race series held in torrential rain on a very wet and waterlogged multi terrain course at Chingford on Saturday morning. Steve Philcox produced a excellent run to break 30 minutes with his 29.53 being good enough for 7th place and runner up in the veteran 40 category. Billy Green, racing over both days of the weekend, chipped in with a fine 40.09 for 66th out of a field of 131 runners.
Pam Jones was the club’s sole lady representative running producing what was probably the best age graded performance of the day clocking 49.20 for 122nd place. Billericay’s Crispian Bloomfield headed the field in 27.42.

Southend Half Marathon
Sunday 8th June 2014
The sweltering heat of Sunday morning was not conducive to fast times yet there were still some excellent performances from a strong contingent of Ilford runners who travelled to Shoeburyness for the Southend half marathon.
First home for the club was Sam Rahman who filled 10th place overall in an excellent time of 1hr 20.33. Kevin Newell finished within 2 minutes of him recording 1hr 22.16 for 18th. Next home was Bradley Brown in 1.34.36 (138th) just ahead of Rohan Alexander 1.37.29 (186th).[shashin type=”album” id=”135″ size=”medium” crop=”n” columns=”max” caption=”n” order=”date” position=”center”]
Bree Nordin led the women’s squad with a classy 1.37.26 to easily win her category being over 20 minutes clear of her nearest rival in the female veteran 55 category and 12th lady overall. She was ably supported by Rachel Allen who was pleased to dip under the 2 hour mark with 1.58.05 and Nicola Chester 2.20 30.
Other athletes who battled through the energy sapping conditions were Declan Cullen 1.50.15, Satha Alaga 1.52.98, Peter Spelman 1.54.28, Billy Green 2.09.08 and racewalker Steve Allen 2.09.50.
The race was won by Southend’s Paul Whittaker in 71.10 with over 2100 runners completing the distance.