Young Athletes Report 14th June 2016  

Woodford Open Graded Meeting
Ilford Youngsters Make the Grade

Ilford’s young athletes had a great night at the recent open graded meeting at Woodford. The late afternoon thunderstorms had finished and it was a perfect night for running, with for the first time in living memory, no gale force wind at a Woodford Open meeting.
First up was new member Temi Adeoshun, who despite getting lost on route and only turning up 15 minutes before the start, ran a great 100m in a time of 12.12. Next up in 100m was Ellie Wright who achieved a personal best time of 13.98 in placing 2nd in the 100m, followed up less than an hour later with another personal best of 29.23 for 3rd place in the 200m. Ayeshah Lawrence was competing in her first ever race and although she was nervous before the race, she ran really well in the 200 to place 5th in a time of 31.27.
All the other athletes competed in the 800m.In the first race Isabella Hick pre race intention was to run 2.40 as she set off exactly on schedule and was even leading the race, but between 400m and 600m, she began to tire and fell 2 seconds off schedule. With 200m to go, she suddenly picked up and produced a great finish to cross the line in 2.40.17 an improvement of 4 seconds. Also in this race was Keshan Beckett Edwards, who was returning to racing after a knee injury, he looked good the whole way and finished strongly to record a personal best of 2.48.51.
Jordan Hinds continued her assault on her 800m personal best knocking another 2 seconds off her best in taking 3rd place in a time of 2.26.70, she has already improved by 18 seconds already this season, and is ranked in the top 200 in the country for her age group.
The final race of the night involved both Mungo Prior and Farris Patel , the pace was fast from the start and both the Ilford athletes were up with the pace. Farris made a move along the back straight, before kicking off the final bend to not only win the race, but set another personal best of 2.09.78. Mungo also knocked 5 seconds off his best in setting a time of 2.12.78
Gary Floate had a night off from coaching to take part in the Self Transcendence 5K at Battersea Park last Monday and clocked 20.38 for 74th place.