We had a successful morning at the Ealing Eagles 10k in Gunnersbury Park on Sunday. Conditions were unseasonably warm, and few achieved personal best times, but the club scooped the men’s team trophy and won three individual awards.
Veteran Simon Shaw was in the leading pack from the outset, with Manish Kunwar, James Hughes and Nick Steel in hot pursuit (pictured below). In the early stages, West 4 Harriers looked to have the men’s team race sewn up but the heat took its toll and two of their runners dropped out while well placed. Simon finished third overall, just half a minute behind the winner. Manish, James and Nick remained locked in battle and were less than 70 metres apart as they went through the line in 6th, 7th and 8th. With three to score for the team award, Nick just missed out on the honours, but is showing great improvement at present and was one of the few to get close to his personal best.
For the other veterans, Steve Plummer showed good recovery from the London marathon to win the M50 award with a PB. The W35 award went to Grazina Narviliene who defied injury to finish the race, her legs buckling under her several times in the finish straight.
Other notable performances came from Malcolm Woolsey, Leanne Smith, Gary Collings, Simon Turrell and Stacey McManus, who all set PBs. Many of the squad were relatively inexperienced road runners, and it was the first official 10k for Alex Leslie, Marcus Cook, Sarah Harris and Sharon O’Neill (pictured below centre, with Stacey and Leanne).
It was great to have Ian Leslie’s son Alex join us for the race, along with new member Marcus Cook, though neither were in club vests and probably escaped the photos for that reason. It was also good to see the lesser-spotted Liz Mann turn out in club colours and to have Sharon O’Neill return to the fold unannounced.
We were joined by a few familiar faces from Northala Fields parkrun: Sughra and Iskander (Alex) Mohammedi, who’ve been joining our training sessions recently, Nilu Dewan, Sean Hill, Lindsay Donoghue, David Goodenough, various Michaels (Burnett, Charles, Harper)… and probably more besides that I didn’t spot or have forgotten to mention!
Thanks are due to injured cheerleaders Beata King, Catherine Gunnewicht, Claire King, Darren Halford and Martin Wilson, and to various other supporters who kept us going: coach Lynn Wilson, Philip Prince, ex-coach Janet Cole, Pat’s husband Roger and Steve’s wife Caroline. Commiserations to Kate Fraser who started well but wilted in the heat and didn’t finish – I think many of us had similar thoughts at the time.
The ESM results summary is below and a link to full results will follow. If you haven’t seen Lynn’s great photos on the Facebook page, you can find them here. Looking ahead on the road championship race calendar, we have the Stockley Park 10k this coming weekend. It’s an enjoyable off-road run and although advance entries have closed, it’s not too late to take part because they accept entries on the day. The weather forecast looks a lot more conducive to comfortable distance-running – honest!
ESM results summary:
Men: 3 Simon Shaw (M40-49) 35:48; 6 James Hughes 36:53; 7 Manish Kunwar 37:06; 8 Nick Steel 37:09; 17 Mark Kencroft (M40-49) 39:22; 18 Nick di Paolo 39:28; 23 Alex Leslie 40:10; 26 Santosh Rai 40:17; 28 Marcus Cook 40:35; 33 Steve Plummer (M50-59) 41:11; 36 Malcolm Woolsey 41:26; 52 Ian Leslie (M50-59) 43:27; 89 Krishna Garbuja 45:57; 116 Steve Curd 47:31; 130 Gary Collings 48:18; 134 Simon Turrell (M40-49) 48:40; 182 Gary Stringer (M50-59) 51:25; 216 James O’Neill (M50-59) 53:22; 218 John Falvey (M50-59) 53:20; 264 Ian McNally 55:45; 489 Laurence Messer (M60+) 69:34
Women: 61 Sarah Harris (F35-44) 44:11; 84 Grazina Narviliene (F35-44) 45:46; 99 Leanne Smith 46:29; 142 Jane Ruhland (F45-54) 48:59; 184 Katie di Paolo 51:17; 191 Fiona Kennedy (F55+) 51:57; 193 Beverley Packwood (F35-44) 51:54; 212 Stacey McManus 53:08; 225 Louise Prince (F45-54) 53:27; 233 Liz Mann (F45-54) 54:09; 294 Sharon O’Neill 57:32; 349 Annette Galloway (F45-54) 59:50; 558 Deborah Gorman (F45-54) 81:56
Full results here