TAVISTOCK Athletic Club member Andrew Alcock returned to the UK this week after representing the club at the Stockholm Marathon.

Andrew joined 15,680 athletes from 81 nations around the world on June 1 for Stockholm's 35th marathon. The race comprised two scenic laps of the beautiful medieval city, with a glorious finish inside Stockholm's classic 1912 Olympic stadium, packed with thousands of enthusiastic supporters.

After months of hard training, Andrew arrived at the start line in good shape to take on the rigours of a full overseas marathon. The race went well and Andrew achieved a personal best time of 4 hours 16 minutes 18 seconds.

'It was a wonderful atmosphere and the Swedish organisers put on a fantastic event.' said Andrew, 'Weather conditions unfortunately were far from ideal and the only weather we didn't see on the race was snow.'

Andrew maintained a steady 30mins/5km pace for the entire 26.2-miles despite the worsening weather, and in an effort to achieve to achieve his target marathon time, put on a sprint finish during the final two kilometres of the race. Andrew secured his first club bronze award race time of 2013.

Having enjoyed seeing most of Stockholm on his two laps of the city, Andrew's most vivid memory was entering the Olympic Stadium and seeing a massive video screen portraying each athlete with their race times as they crossed the finish line.