Press Report 2nd March 2020  

Mar 022020
 

South East England Schools XC
Sunday 1st March

Representing his school, Coopers, Jak Wright ran in the u19s race in the South East England Schools XC at Harrow School.
Over the testing 7k course, complete with mud, trail, water and hills, Jak managed to finish 8th in a time of 27:56.
Jak started conservatively with the chasing pack, before making the decisive move with a mile to go to close down some runners in front with a strong finish.
Jak feels this is a good indicator of his fitness for the impending championship races to close his XC season.

  Press Report 28th January 2020  

Jan 282020
 

South of England AA Championships
Parliament Hill
25th January 2020

Parliament Hill was the venue for last weekend’s South of England cross country championships.  The recent heavy rain meant that is was going to a real energy sapping mud fest, a few athletes were even seen finishing with only one shoe on. 

For some of Ilford younger athletes it was their first time being exposed to the full horrors of a muddy Parliament hill and the huge fields of the south of England championship.

First off were the Under 15 boys. Illness and train problems meant that Ilford only had two athletes in this race, but both Ryan Holeyman and Matthew Hick acquitted themselves well.  Matthew made a really fast start up the first hill, with Ryan a bit more conservative. However by the first mile they were running together and picking their way through the very large field. Ryan was the stronger over the latter stages and finished in 172nd place, with Matthew 235th, there were 317 finishers in the race.

The boys under 13 were next, Ilford had three athletes Joseph Grange, James Thake and Aaron Hick, as they reached the top of the hill all three were buried in the middle of the huge field. James and Aaron were gradually picking their way through the field, however Joseph was flying through the field. The finish of the race is downhill, and Joseph was still passing runners to finish a very good 21st, James was next to finish in 240th and despite taking a fall mid race Aaron finished 251st. There were 304 finishers. 

The Under 17’s were next, and Ilford had four runners in this race. Aaron Samuel who has been in fantastic form all winter, did not quite live up to his own high expectations, he never really got in contact with the leading group. He worked hard on the second part of the race and eventually finished 9th.  Jak Wright and Bradley Deacon have also been running very well this winter and both made positive starts to the race, they were well positioned in the middle of the pack and both working hard to move forward. Jak who admitted a dislike for Parliament hill finished 61st and Bradley close behind in 79th. It was an improvement of over 50 places for both of them on last year’s race. Farris Patel was the final member of the team, and despite hating the mud he continues to turn out for the team. He has putting the miles in recently and looked strong in finishing 164th. The team finished in 9th place, which is believed to be the highest position for an Ilford Under 17 team since the mid 1960’s 

Jordan Hinds was Ilford’s sole competitor in the U20 women’s race, and by this time the course was well and truly churned up. Jordan has been training hard since starting University this year and is looking much stronger in races. After a steady start she worked her way through the field and was taking runners all the way to the finish. Jordan’s finishing place was 56th, which is her best place ever in the South of England Championships. 

Once again in the Under 20 men Ilford only had one athlete, which was Mungo Prior. It was his first year in the U20 age category and it was therefore expected he would find the going tough, but Mungo defied expectations and had a great run. Again making a slow start he gradually moved his way through the field on each lap to finish with a very good 30th place. 

  Press Report 19th January 2020  

Jan 192020
 

Ilford AC athletes were out in action on Saturday at the Essex Schools XC Championships. In this race, the top 8 finishers are selected to run for Essex in the English Schools XC championship – with two discretionary places, and the top 20 finishers are selected to run in the South Eastern Inter-counties race.

First up was Joseph Grange representing Havering schools as a junior boy in his first ever Essex Schools race. After a conservative start, Joseph picked up many places to come an incredible 14th and qualify for South-easten Inter-counties. This is a great achievement as one of the youngest boys in the race.

Ryan Holeyman also ran in the Essex Schools for the first time, representing Havering. Ryan ran in the inter boy’s race. He was a bottom year runner and, unfortunately, didn’t run as well as he wanted. Ryan still managed to pick up 12 places on his second lap to come a respectable 33rd place.

In the final race of the day, Ilford AC had 4 athletes entered all running for different districts.

Aaron Samuel, for Mid-Essex, ran a good race and tucked in nicely early on behind Thurrock Harrier’s Leon Wheeler. The sprint finish was a close call but unfortunately Aaron lost his first place position in the last 20 metres of the race. Overall he performed well and is happy with a second place, but is looking to come back harder in the English Schools Championships.

Mungo Prior, for Redbridge, also qualified for the English Schools with an amazing 4th place. Mungo left the chasing group with about 2 kilometres to go, and extended his lead over the remainder of the race. This was Mungo’s final Essex schools race, and he is pleased with his result.

Jak Wright, representing Havering, bagged a discretionary place for the English Schools coming through in 8th place. His place in the Essex team depends on his performance at the South-easten Intercounties race. Jak is pleased with his performance, being a bottom year runner in this age group.

Bradley Deacon was Ilfords 4th finisher inside the top 10, coming in 10th place for Barking and Dagenham. Bradley started the race tucked into the chasing pack but lost contact with them on the second lap. However, he managed to pull back a couple runners before losing a position to a sprint finish duel.

 

  Press Report 13th January 2020  

Jan 132020
 

Deacon storms to 2nd place

Essex Cross Country league
Colchester
January 11th 2019

In the 4th Essex X Country league, held at Colchester, Ilford AC had 8 youngsters perform to a very high level.

Star of the show was Bradley Deacon, in the u17s Men. Bradley was Ilfords only representative in the u17s race but he proved his fitness and his recent improvements to battle round a tough course and come a very impressive 2nd place.This hopefully gives Bradley the confidence to do well in the up and coming Essex Schools and Southern Counties champs.

In the U13s Boys race, Ilford had 3 representatives.Joseph Grange also battled round the tough course to come 9th position. Aaron Hick and Lucas Emeagi both showed their speed at the end of the race where they both passed many athletes in the last 200m to come 28th and 47th respectively

In the u15s Boys, Ryan Holeyman ran outstandingly to come 9th position, his best ever position in the league. Ryan is showing really good signs in training and now is bringing that into his races and expect much more during the rest of the X Country season.
Matthew Hick has missed a lot of training but still proves he can compete at this level with a very good 25th position and Oliver Blainey ,in his 2nd ever x country race battled round in 39th place.

In the u20s Women race Jordan Hinds, has competed in all the league races thus far and this was her best position to date  coming 14th. However, each age group has a scoring across the season for athletes taking part in 4 of the 5 league races and Jordan is in 2nd place, with one race to go

 

 

 

 

  Press Report 5th January 2020  

Jan 062020
 

Essex Cross Country Champs
Basildon
4th January 2020

After the excess of Christmas ,Ilford Youngsters  found themselves at the start of a busy January, which will contain 5 races including 3 championships. The first of which was the Essex Clubs Championships at Basildon last weekend. 

First race was the U17 over 5k, where Ilford had 4 runners, with the boys and girls combined in a field of around 60 began the first race.
After the initial charge a group of about 20 quickly broke clear, which contained all the Ilford Athletes.  The team had hatched a plan to try and keep the pace fairly slow and keep away from the front. As they approached the hill for the first time, Aaron Samuels was just behind the leaders, closely followed by Jak Wright and Bradley Deacon, with Farris Patel in his first race of the season ,hanging in at the back of the group. 

The athletes disappear from spectators for long parts of the race and when they re-emerged near the finish, Aaron once again was in first place and went on to win by 14 seconds, from Joel Doye of Woodford.
Jak was having his personal battle for the bronze medal and cheered on by the Ilford supporters he held on to take his first individual cross country medal. Bradley was also having a great run and came in 7th place which was his highest county finishing, but just missed out on automatic selection for the Essex team. 
With three runners in 7, it all rested on final scorer Farris, who despite his dislike of the mud, always gives 100% and he produced his usual great sprint finish to finish 16th.  With 27 points Ilford retained the team trophy, and have now won the Essex title 4 years on the trot (twice as U15’s and now twice as U17’s) 

 

Mungo Prior and Jordan Hinds were both in the U20’s race, with again the men and ladies being run together, due to new equalisation rules this meant the ladies had to run almost 5 miles.  Mungo made a positive start in the men’s race and was actually leading for the first mile or so, but after the first lap he had dropped back to 3rd place. As the hill section approached he was still hanging in there, but gradually lost a few places on the second half of the race to finish 7th. 

Jordan has been training well all through the winter and also made a good start, and was looking strong early on, but the field split up very quickly and this meant she had to run most of the race on her own, unperturbed she stuck to the task and finished in 8th place, which is her best ever finish in the Essex Cross country. 

 

It is hoped that Bradley, Mungo and Jordan, will join Aaron and Jak in being selected for the Essex team for the Inter counties championships in March.