TWO of Tavistock Athletic Club’s ‘elder statesmen’ were flying the flag in Wales and Birmingham over the weekend of the July 25 and 26 by competing in British Masters Athletics Federation national championship events. Both came home with medals!

The Alexander Stadium in Birmingham was the setting for the BMAF Track and Field championships with more than 900 athletes from every corner of the nation competing in the various masters’ age groups.

TAC’s Allan Herdman competed on both days in his male 60 age category. On Saturday he raced the 400 metres and came away with a bronze medal, completing the one lap sprint in a season best time of 60.78 seconds.

On Sunday, in damper and decidedly cooler conditions, Allan focused on the main event which he has been training all summer for, the 800m. Here, he was favourite coming into the championships with the fastest time this year in his age category for the two lapper. Improving in each race he has completed so far this summer, he hit the top of the UK rankings at the recent Devon Open Series meeting in Plymouth with a personal best time of 2 minutes 18.61 seconds.

Unfortunately, he could not manage a repeat of that and was just edged out on the line in the Birming-ham Championship race by Bristol and West athlete David Bedwell.

Allan had to settle for the silver medal running two seconds slower than his personal best. Disappointed at not taking gold, his consolation was that he remains in the current number one spot in the 2015 rankings. 

Also on the Sunday were the 10km Road Race Championships at the village of Undy near Magor in South Wales, run on a pancake flat course. However, heavy rain and strong winds put paid to any chance of fast times. It was to be a race that was not for the faint hearted.

TAC’s Martin Exley-Deane, despite carrying an injury, returned with a bronze medal in the male 55 category. Going into the race he was ranked in 43rd place in the UK.

Despite this he took the race out hard and finished just 23 seconds down on the silver medallist Colin Bishop in 37.02 — a good performance in the terrible conditions. Martin also beat UK fourth ranked Alex Rowe by eight seconds in the process and improved his ranking, to move up to 24th in the UK.