Press Report

Ilford AC’s Malcolm Muir continued his rich vein of form when he took a superb Essex silver medal in the County 10 mile road championships held at Stebbing, near Dunmow, on Sunday Morning. Muir bettered his best ever 10 mile time clocking 54mins 11 seconds to place 3^rd overall in the race won by Billericay’s Crispian Bloomfield with a new course record of 52mins 52 seconds. Muir was delighted with his performance stating that it is now 10 years since he last ran a personal best for this distance.

In fact PB’s were very much the order of the day with Matt Maple 62mins 21 seconds (33^rd) , Matt Herbert 62mins 37 seconds (48^th) and Duncan Turner 71mins 38 seconds (142^nd) all recording their best ever times for 10 miles on the road. Terry Knightley also proved he is by no means over the hill with an excellent time of 60 mins 21 seconds which placed him 5^th in the male vet 40 category. It was an even more poignant result for Knightley as it placed him third overall in the Grange Farm Trotters Grand Prix. The series which comprises the Tilty 5, the Felstead 10k and the Stebbing 10 saw Knightley easily take the 1^st veteran award from local rival Dave Brock of Orion in a total time of 2hrs 6mins and 51 seconds for the 3 events.

Similarly in the women’s race Bree Nordin went under 70 minutes for the first time to finish in 69 mins 40 seconds, a performance to deservedly win her an Essex Bronze behind Benfleet’s Julie Palmer and Havering’s Sue Spong. As with the men’s race the course record fell to Sarah Straddling from Colchester who just dipped under the magic hour mark with 59.50. Nordin is flying at the moment and promises a lot more to come now she has adapted her training to a more structured regime. Nicola Hopkinson (77.41) and sally Gillam (78.46) closed the scorers for the women’s team.

The previous week veteran Neil Crisp treated his family to another day out at the Billericay 10k. Crisp continued his steady improvement to post an extremely good time of 38 minutes 54 seconds whilst his daughter Jenni and better half Dianne clocked 49.43 and 51.29 respectively. Phil Postings also completed the course in 58.23.