Ilford AC’S men’s team took the gold medal in the Essex AAA’s Five-mile road Championships, held at the village of Wix, near Harwich on Sunday.

The scoring team of Tom Gardner (26 minutes 17 seconds), Malcolm Muir (26.18) and Iain Campbell (26.24) finished in formation, with their third, fourth and fifth places respectively beating off the challenge of Colchester Harriers.

Not to be outdone, the ladies’ squad of Bree Nordin (34.48), Dianne Crisp (36.55) and Nicola Hopkinson (36.59) also came away with bronze.

Ilford’s performance of the day came from super veteran Tony Nixon (pictured right), who took gold in the over-60s category in a time of 32.06 for his first ever individual Essex gold on either the road or country.

Other medal winning performances came from Campbell, with gold in the over-50s, Nordin, with silver in the women’s over-45s and Pam Jones, who won gold in the women’s over-65 category.

Terry Knightley’s run of 28.17 placed him fourth in the county and fifth overall. Iain Macdonald’s 27.40 was a personal best and gave him 15th place overall.

Macdonald was joined by Mike Gardner (28.05), and Neil Crisp (30.12) in the Ilford B squad who just missed out on the team medals themselves with fourth place.

Another performance of note came from Meredith Floate, who sliced two and a half minutes from her personal best to record 47.27.

Other Ilford runners were Kevin Newell (31.31), Gary Floate (32.04), Sally Gillam (37.52), Jones (42.31), Robin Davis (44.44) and Carol Muir (53.55).

Ilford AC had two other athletes competing on Sunday. Declan Cullen ran the Cardiff half-marathon, finishing in a time of one hour, 54 minutes and 49 seconds.

Also in action was Steve Allen who clocked 39.46 in the Cancer Research Victoria Park 10 kilometre run.