Clear skies and a blustery wind greeted our 36 runners for this opening fixture of the new season. The athletes had a fine start to the season with two sets of gold medals, a silver and bronze plus four other teams in the top six. Overall it was an excellent turnout from other clubs across Essex. The course, around 3.2k, was fairly flat albeit a little soft in places following rain the previous week.

Firstly I want to sincerely thank the team managers who gave out numbers, chips and pins to the athletes, as well as sorting out the running order for the athletes. Big well done to Laura Millward, Lesley Maeda, Karen Adams, James Geller, Steve Cody plus Nick Sloan.

Results

U13 Champs: Abigail, Emily and Rosemary (photo: Abigail Richards)

Under 13 Girls

Under the unusually warm sun for an early autumnal Sunday, a strong field contested the Essex Half Marathon Championships at Pleshey, on Sunday 15th September. First man home was the familiar face of James Connor, having resided in Essex for some time now and moving first claim to Havering. He often leads out Essex Championship races and this one would be no different, coming home in a time of 68.30. Our very own Tom Beedell was first Woodford man home, finishing just outside the individual medals in 4th spot in a time of 72.12. Tom and Connor were separated by two Springfield Striders who pushed each other for much of the race, managing to hold a gap that Tom couldn’t quite close down. Second man home was Darren Southcott in 8th spot with a time of 73.38. Trying to run much of the race with Tom, Darren succumbed to the heat as the undulating roads proved too much as he approached the last 5 miles. Completing the Woodford team was Josh Entwistle, who unfortunately picked up a hip problem after 4 miles and finished in 20th position. All credit goes to Josh for battling his way round for the team as he was clearly in some discomfort and very frustrated to have put ‘junk miles’ in his 4% shoes as they only have 100 miles shelf-life. In the team event, Springfield took the spoils, with 3 finishers in the top 5 as we took some hard-earned silver medals ahead of Braintree in the bronze medal position.

Below: Tom Beedell (left) and Darren Southcott (Right)