HEAVY rain, flooded country lanes and cross winds greeted Thurrock’s 12 competitors who turned up for the Billericay 10K on Sunday. Nearly 600 finished the race despite the horrendous conditions.
These conditions affected the times adversely. Nonetheless everybody in the group turned in a good effort.
Top performance for the second road race running came from Toni Noble. She was 3rd in the women’s race with a time of 42m30s. Toni’s style is always to battle through in the later stages and this time it took a strong last 2 miles to get into the medal position. Victoria Peacock ran well to finish 5th in her age group with a time of 46m34s whilst Silvia Bogdanarova-Meredith overcame illness to get round in 47m53s to finish 8th in her age group.
Mick Bumstead got the better of his arch rival, Peter Binns from Southend, for the first time since returning from injury and so took the trophy for the 1st 60+ to finish. Mick will now have his eye on the County 10k Championships held at Chelmsford later this month although runners from Harlow and Colchester will be eyeing the same prize.
Another great run came from David Johnson, who was the Club’s top finisher in 10th place with a time of 37m33s. An eye catching performance also came from Anthony Tobin in 20th place in a time of 39m16s which was only 14 seconds outside his best. In the conditions a top class effort.
Thurrock’s other finishers were: Jason Syrett 44th 41m04s, Rob Russell 54th 41m44s, Nick Trencher 64th 42m21s, John Arthur 78th 43m07s, Bernie Johnson 105th 44m42s and Gary Rowlett 120th 45m04s.
This weekend sees the second round of the Essex Cross Country League. Hopefully the Club will turn out strong teams in most of the age categories. The senior men’s team will be looking to built on their excellent 3rd place in the first match.
