FOURTEEN Thurrock Harriers braved extremely wet conditions at the Chelmsford 10k on Sunday.

Parts of the course, which is renowned as being one of the quickest in Essex, were under water for the race but that didn’t stop the Harriers from paddling to personal bests (PBs) and medal-winning performances.

First Harrier home was Keith Willett in 54th place in a PB of 38m10s.

His fellow V40, Nick Trencher, was 60th in 38m 49s equalling his PB. Horndon’s 15-year-old, Oliver Mann, chased them all the way to finish 79th in 39m 44s.

Other excellent PBs came from Iain Scott (116th, 42m31s) and Paul Mitchell (134th, 43m04s) while Rob Doyle continued his great come back with a 41m 17s performance.

Jodie Farrell, who has missed most of the year with a painful injury, took a silver medal in the FV45 section – her first individual county medal.

In contrast, Mick Bumstead and Pat Dobbs earned their unpteenth county medals.

Bumstead took the silver in the MV60 section despite an Achilles’ heel problem which struck him at 3k and led to him limping along for the remaining 7k.

Dobbs was the gold medallist in the MV70’s category.

Grays-based Chris Weyman, running for Morgan Stanley, battled to 16th place in a time of 35m 00s.

Other Harriers times: Jason Syrett 40m, Gary Cahill 40m21s, Bernie Johnson 43m14s, Victoria Peacock 45m52s, Pat Dobbs 57m00s.

* ThurrockHarrier Don Lawless has always had the ambition of running for Scotland – the land of his father.

In his heyday, he just missed out qualifying for their cross country team for the world championships. On Saturday he was reserve for their V50 team in the home countries international held in Nottingham. His run in the open race, where he finished 26th.

Lawless will lead Thurrock’s challenge in Saturday’s Essex Veteran’s Cross Country Championship.

The club have two teams in the MV40 race and strong teams in the ladies and MV50 section. In the latter race much depends on the regained fitness of Eamonn Shelley and Mick Bumstead.