THIS weekend's marathons included the Manchester Marathon and the iconic Boston marathon with Tavistock Athletic Club having runners at the top of their sport in each.

Sunday's Manchester marathon is UK's second biggest marathon contested by 40,000 runners. For this event, Tavistock Athletic Club's life member Adam Holland donned an England shirt to compete in the Marathon Age Group Masters event.

Adam was selected to compete for the first time in the Vet 35 category as a result of finishing third in the qualification event, last year's Chester marathon.

In spite of running in the gruelling Dartmoor marathon just seven days previously, Adam took advantage of perfect weather conditions to smash his 3-hour target, finishing 77th overall and 10th in his Vet 35 category, in a great time of 2hr 36min 43s - his fastest marathon in four years.

The famous Boston marathon is one of the six World Marathon Majors.

This year two TAC athletes, each at the top of their sport, made the trip to achieve long held ambitions and to create long-lasting memories. The course is an unusual one - a point-to-point route rather than the more usual loops, and substantially downhill apart from notorious hills between miles 17 and 21 of the 26.2-mile course.

Ben Neale had run the race once before, ten years ago, when he struggled - particularly on those hills. This time, he ran a superb and consistent race, finishing strongly in 2:41:15, in 1,315th place overall (amongst 30,000 runners) and 118th in his M40 age category. Ben aims to return in time to take part in the London marathon just six days later - a real test of fitness and recovery.

Also there, for the first time, was TAC's Nikki Bond, one of the club's top female athletes.

Nikki too ran a superbly controlled race, achieving a stunning time of 2:49:05, more significantly gaining 97th place out of 5,715 in the Senior Female age category. She also broke the TAC club record for the distance.

Closer to home, on Wednesday it was the first race in the Run Exe 5k races - a series of six fast and flat races over consecutive months, each ideal for those aiming to set personal best time over a challenging distance for most runners.

TAC fielded a strong team of 13 athletes and achieved some astonishing results - amongst a total of 171 runners, TAC took six of the top nine places. Their junior runners showed the quality of their training - with U16 runners taking three of the top seven places.

Ben Neale was first home in third place overall, with his time of 15:46 breaking the club's M40 5k record.

He was followed by the three MU16 juniors - Freddie Whybrow, Eldon Young and Luke Scott-Tucker finishing in 15:49, 16:07 and 16:15 respectively. Adam Holland, mixing his distances between two marathons, was next to finish in 16:18, chased hard by clubmate Sam Larkham who finished next in 16:20.

The other TAC results were as follows: Arthur Norton (MU16), 18:56; Archie Neale (MU16), 18:59; Oliver Neale (MU14), 20:32; Nicola Noble (F35), 20:56; Oscar Norton (MU12), 21:28; Nicky Maguire (F50), 25:11 and Hazel Walker (F50), 29:29.

This Sunday, Tavistock Athletic Club looks forward to cheering on 10 runners at the London marathon.

Pictured- Adam Holland at the Manchester marathon.