Athletes from Ilford AC vwere out in force on a busy week leading up to Easter.

 

John Batchelor, 65 years young, ran a very impressive time of 18.56 on Wednesday night in a Vets AC meeting held at the Battersea track.

 

Matt Maple recorded  2mins 05.4 secs for 800 metres in a warm-up meeting held at Herts Phoenix on Good Friday which bodes well for the forthcoming track and field season.  

 

10 Ilford Runners took to the roads of Chigwell Row on Saturday to decide the club's road championships which was also the concluding race in the winter trophy grand prix event. Matt Maple set the early pace hoping to use his track speed to burn off the challenge of pre race favourite, Malcom Muir. However his bold tactic was always doomed to failure with the more experienced Muir catching and overhauling Maple at the 2 mile mark. Super veteran Andy Catton benefited from his recent training holiday in Cyprus showing strength on the hills to beat off the challenge of fellow veteran Martin Clarke

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Mel Jones returning to competetion after a plethora of injuries took the gold in the women's race from a spirited performance by Sally Gillam. Final results and times were:-

1 Malcolm Muir 24.28, 2  Matthew Maple 26.24,  3 Andrew Catton 28.52,  4 Martin Clarke 29.24, 5 Neil Crisp 29.26, 6 Alan Lattimore  30.52, 7 Peter Spelman 32.51, 8 Melinda Jones 33.18,  9 Henry Ricketts  34.30, 10 Sally Gillam 35.05. 

 

The Essex Pb 5 mile Road Race was held on Bank Holiday Monday at Gloucester Park Basildon with  Ilford AC members present in both races, Lyndsey Barker continues her comeback with a 36.02 clocking in the womens race. Sally Gillam 39.04 and Pam Jones 40.25 completed the scorers.

The men's race saw a welcome return for Owen Phipps who set a cautious target of a sub 40 min clocking in what was his first outing for a year. Martin Clarke paced the former 2.38 marathon man home in a respectable 37.50 over 2 mins in front of his target. Phil Postings also ran to complete the course in 45.35.

 
In the junior section of the club Ilford had 3 young athletes compete in the open warm up meeting at Chelmsford on Saturday. The performance of the day goes to Alex Richards in the 1500m beating his PB by 10 secs to record a sub 5 minutes for the first time finishing in 4m 58.1s also in the same distance was Lydia Hall who showed good early season form and getting back to the times she is capable of finishing in a time of 5m 27.5s and in the High Jump she cleared 1m 35, finally Liam Leddy ran the 800m his first completive race at this age group in a time of 2m 42.3s.

 

Many of the Ilford's athletes will be contesting next week's Flora London Marathon where the club man a water station at the 19 mile point at Canary Wharf.