Colchester Harriers enjoyed a successful morning at the Ingatestone 5 Mile Road Race – this year’s Essex 5 Mile Championships – with some fine individual performances contributing to excellent team results.

Roanna Vickers was again in imperious form as she came home first in the women’s race, making light of the undulating course to record a time of 30:08 and successfully defend her Essex title.  Roanna was well backed up with strong runs from Lucy Davies (5^th in 31:31), Emma Burgess (7^th in 31:45) and Charlotte Barnard (8^th in 31:48) as the girls in green also took the team prize,  There were also excellent individual performances from Annette Oakman (33:54, VF 50 Gold), Emily Worboys (34:43) and Ellie Cumner (35:03) as Colchester’s women filled six of the top fifteen places.

The men had a good day too with James Morley continuing his fine run of form to take overall Essex silver in 25:25 – and with the evergreen Adrian Mussett clocking a sprightly 25:47 (7^th overall, VM50 Gold) and Chris Ryan coming home in 27:34 to finish 13^th, Harriers took team silver just behind Ilford AC.  Jerry Walder took home his second Essex medal in the last two weeks, posting 30:14 to take VM50 silver, Simon Colclough ran 32:22, Paul Dellar 32:34 and Chris Stevenson 32:54 to take the VM65 Gold Medal.

Meanwhile Paul Mingay continues to enjoy his  time at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, following up a bronze medal in the 5000M (17:47:67) with a silver in Sunday’s 10K, finishing in a time of 37:20.