No less than 17 athletes competed for Ilford AC in the Essex XC Relay Championships held at Abbey Fields surrounding the Garrison track at Colchester on Sunday. On a benign and grassy 2 lap course of just over 2 and a half miles the senior men's A team held 4th position early on in the race with Iain Campbell running just over 15 minutes to get the club off to a fine start. Rob Nixon took over on leg 2 before clocking 15.23 handing over to club Captain Malcolm Muir who ran an almost identical time to Campbell 15.01. John Macdonald was up against it on leg 4 losing 1 place and running 16.20. Matt Maple closed the team in 6th place with a time of 16.41.

 

The Men's B team saw Iain Macdonald blasting away on lap 1 with 18.05, before handing over to Martin Clarke, 18.30 . Lap 3 saw the return of old faithful Terry Knightley who returned 17.41. Ray Rawlinson ,22.30,  and Henry Ricketts ,19.46, completed the scorers.

 

The women's race had Bree Nordin on leg 1 ,19.20, handing over to Keelie Brooks ,19.40, and Nicola Hopkinson ,20.07, on the third leg. Lyndsay Barker returned from a lay-off to anchor the squad with 20.43. The B squad fielded an incomplete team of 3 consisting of Claire Thake, Sally Gillam and Pam Jones