Press Report 20th Nov 2006
Ilford AC continued their recent resurgence with a good club turnout and some more excellent personal bests at the Chelmsford 10k on Sunday afternoon. The race which also doubles as the Essex 10k road championships produced some very fast times with club captain Malcolm Muir once again leading the squad home in 9^th position in 33mins 10 seconds. With the race limit of 600 runners reached , Billericay’s Jamie Nunn emerged triumphant inflicting a rare road defeat on his clubmate Crispian Bloomfield.
 Terry Knightley fought a great battle with fellow veteran Johnny Wallis finally overhauling the man sporting the green and white hoops of Woodford Green at the gates of the Melbourne Park track. It was only at the prizegiving that the significance of the duel was revealed as it meant Knightley took the Essex male 40 bronze, the gold being claimed by Colchester’s Pete West. Knightley later informed the statisticians that it is his 42^nd Essex medal in his quest to reach the half century before his 50^th birthday in 4 years time.
Club triathlete Matthew Herbert who continues to improve with every outing managed to lower his best time for the distance to 36mins and 59 seconds. Hot on his heels Matt Maple breezed in with 37mins 9 seconds with youngster Iain Macdonald in close attendance for most of the race. MacDonald  at 17 years of age ran well out of his comfort zone to record yet another personal best of 38.31 showing great promise for the future. Veteran Neil Crisp with most of his training confined to the bike these days was another to dip under the 40 min watershed weighing in with a dependable 39.34.
The tide of blue and white vests continued to flow as Abdi Berleen came in with 40.14, closely followed by Martin Clarke 40.34. Bree Nordin having led her great rival Julie Palmer in the over 45s for nearly two thirds of the race finally had to settle for Essex silver with 41.30 just half a minute adrift of the elusive gold.  Duncan Turner, now using satellite technology to curb his natural over exuberance at the start, ran an excellent controlled race recording negative splits and was rewarded with yet another personal best of 42.15 Similarly his partner. Keelie Brookes returned the compliment for the women with a 43.56 clocking
Not to be outdone Henry Ricketts also ran his best time for the distance with 45.46 . Sally Gillam also had a good run clocking 47.57 and Dianne Crisp closed the women’s team finishing in 50.24.