Sixty-four club members joined the field of over 4000 at this year’s Ealing Half Marathon, which has developed into a well-supported community event.
Once again Jon Ellis led the team home with his first top-ten finish at this event, trimming another minute from his personal best time. It was a great show from the club’s men, with Mukhtar Farah and Mo Hashi finishing right behind him in eighth and ninth on their half marathon debut. From the way they breezed round, they had a lot more in the tank! We were by far the strongest men’s team, but unusually there are no team awards at this race.
Ealing-based Chris Dettmar of Headington Roadrunners runs on the track for ESM and it was good to see him finish eleventh.
Nick Steel ran his best time over the course and was just seconds outside his personal best. New member Claudio Picco was next to show, (albeit running unofficially), with marathon-bound Mark Delahunty – our first veteran – a few seconds behind in 1:22. Manish Kunwar continued his injury comeback with a measured debut at this distance, setting off with the 1:30 pace group before growing in confidence and picking up the pace considerably to finish in 1:24. Nick Di Paolo, Santosh Rai, Jez Etherington, Rob Brown and James Steel also dipped under the 90-minute mark, with PBs for Santosh and Jez. Andy Price will no doubt do the same on his next half, with an improvement of three minutes on his PB, while Sean Hill chopped 17 minutes from his debut time. Krishna Garbuja, Gary Collings, Zachary Prince and Alex Mohammedi all completed their first half marathon, while Simon Turrell and Andrew Neary were the only other men to clock a PB.
For the club’s women, new member Lucy Ellis was first to show with 18th place in the women’s field. Although she professed disappointment at her time, it was only her second attempt at the distance and a three-minute improvement. Most of us would be happy with that! Within another two minutes, Sarah Gerrie and Sarah Harris had also crossed the line with PBs. Olivia Howes Smith could not quite match her form of last year but Sabina Lima sliced nearly 10 minutes from her PB and Kate Fraser took 3 minutes from hers. Leanne Smith and Catherine Gunnewicht both lined up with injuries and were pleased to complete the course, Leanne coaxed round by new second-claim member Michael Hellyer. Further down the field, there were PBs also for Sarah Holroyd, Danielle Mercey and Bridgette Job. Jennie Connelly was the fastest of the female debutantes, followed by Sughra Mohammedi, Sangnuma Rai, Debbie Gorman and Maria Lancaster. Debbie and Maria dedicated their efforts to their local parkrun at Northala Fields and have raised an amazing £1,000 in donations, much of which will be used to help acquire a defibrillator for the park.
In the Mini Mile event for 6-16 year olds, Maxi Steel won the 10-12 boys’ race, while Harvey Williams was second in the 6-9 year race. Zoe Crown was second in the 13-16 year girls’ race.
ESM results summary
Mini mile:
Boys 6-9 yrs: 2 Harvey Williams 6:30; Boys 10-12 yrs: 1 Maxi Steel 6:07, 2 Otto Lawrence 6:15; Girls 6-9 yrs: 38 Mirabelle Steel 9:14; Girls 10-12 yrs: 8 Sadie Lawrence 7:16; Girls 13-16 yrs: 2 Zoe Crown 6:43
Half marathon (chip times):
Men: 7 Jon Ellis 1:14:55; 8 Mukhtar Farah 1:15:00; 9 Mohamed Hashi 1:15:10; 11 Chris Dettmar (V45) 75:35; 27 Nick Steel 1:19:09; 43 Claudio Picco 1:21:57; 44 Mark Delahunty (V40) 1:22:03; 83 Manish Kunwar 1:24:41; 91 Nick Di Paolo 1:25:35; 100 Santosh Rai 1:25:49; 172 Jez Etherington (V40) 1:28:24; 180 Rob Brown (V50) 1:29:08; 183 James Steel (V40) 1:29:25; 238 Andy Price 1:31:17; 253 Ian Leslie (V50) 1:32:24; 321 Nar Garbuja 1:33:52; 338 Alex Perrin (V40) 1:33:56; 492 Sean Hill 1:36:51; 653 Steve Curd 1:40:14; 747 Keith Freegard (V50) 1:41:55; 749 Philip York (V50) 1:42:16; 814 Javaher Sondh 1:42:12; 1112 Simon Turrell (V40) 1:47:09; 1125 Gary Collings 1:45:55; 1171 Zachary Prince 1:45:43; 1225 Tony Hursey (V40) 1:48:24; 1329 Paul Tavener 1:50:17; 1402 Dan Noraika (V50) 1:48:28; 1431 Michael Hellyer 1:51:27; 1466 Robert Rispin 1:46:08; 1508 Christopher Brown (V50) 1:51:46; 1550 Iskandar Mohammedi (V40) 1:52:10; 1616 Stephen Cliff (V40) 1:53:02; 1632 Darren Halford (V45) 1:53:59; 1633 Gary Stringer (V50) 1:51:58; 1805 Davinder Sohal (V50) 1:54:32; 2081 Andrew Neary 1:55:17
Women: 18 Lucy Ellis 1:34:09; 19 Sarah Gerrie 1:35:04; 23 Sarah Harris (V35) 1:35:51; 30 Olivia Howes Smith (V35) 1:43:31; 31 Sabina Lima (V35) 1:43:11; 204 Leanne Smith 1:51:28; 226 Kate Fraser 1:51:05; 249 Catherine Gunnewicht (V45) 1:52:39; 256 Alex Hewett 1:53:02; 395 Louise Prince (V45) 1:57:08; 438 Katie Di Paolo 1:57:30; 449 Sarah Holroyd (V45) 1:57:46; 505 Danielle Mercey (V55) 1:57:51; 620 Sharon O’Neill 2:02:16; 630 Jennie Connelly 2:02:22; 651 Annette Galloway (V45) 2:05:06; 739 Martha Hayward 2:06:33; 868 Kristina Wilton (V35) 2:10:33; 925 Stacey McManus (V35) 2:13:54; 988 Jennifer Jones (V45) 2:13:07; 1335 Pavandeep Sohal 2:27:39; 1347 Sughra Mohammedi 2:29:48; 1438 Sangnuma Rai 2:33:24; 1452 Claire King (V35) 2:43:16; 1454 Deborah Gorman (V45) 2:43:17; 1474 Nirmal Sohal (V55) 2:37:42; 1530 Maria Lancaster (V45) 2:52:34; 1541 Bridgette Job (V45) 2:45:21
Full results here