Bronze medals for Milly and senior ladies at Basildon

Colchester Harriers’ ladies continued their run of success at the Essex County Cross Country Championships at a sunny Gloucester Park, Basildon.  Milly Presland led the way, running a strong race to secure the overall bronze medal in the U17 Women’s race whilst in the senior women’s race Laura Hubbard (14th) combined with Sarah Stradling (17th), Kat Rigby (an excellent 22nd on her club debut) and Denise Morley (23rd) to come away with the team bronze.  The ladies B team comprising Andrea James (26th), Ella Jeffries (40th), Becky Cooke (46th) and Tina Southgate (58th) placed an encouraging eighth.

Veteran Adrian Mussett was a fine seventh in the senior men’s race and as such qualified for the Essex inter-counties team and with Chris Sellens (33rd), Cameron Humphries (43rd), Dan Widdowson (50th), Dean Williamson (55th) and Keith Marley (58th) the A team placed sixth in the team competition.  The B team, made up of Paul Rodgers (60th), Jon Nears (65th), Sam Higgins (77th), Colin Ridley (83rd), Robert Smith (86th) and Michael Smith (87th) came home in eleventh position.

In local trail races, Malcolm Statham completed his 224th marathon battling the muddy, waterlogged conditions to complete the East Hanningfield trail race in 4 hours 32 minutes whilst Mel Dowell ran 58:37 to finish first lady in the 6.8 mile New Year’s Day Hair of the Dog event from Good Easter, with Allen and Fay Smalls clocking 1:25:20.

Highlights from the weekend parkrun action included Danny Millward finishing first at Colchester Castle in 18:03, with Jason Gunn second in 18:34 and junior Lyla Belshaw second female to finish in 21:15.  Paul Dobson ran 18:58 to finish second at Maldon whilst Tom Cresswell posted 18:29 to also finish second at Great Cornard.  Ross Livingstone was fourth in Andover in 19:09 whilst Kieran Callaghan completed a busy festive period of running by clocking 23:21 to finish first in his age group at Virginia Water in Ireland.