Marathon runner Claire Grima became Hercules Wimbledon's best-ever women's marathon runner when she smashed both her personal best and the club record in running in Sunday's Flora London Marathon.

Grima, 31, ran a steady race throughout the 26 miles 385 yards course from Blackheath to The Mall and reached the finish in 2 hours 52 minutes 56 seconds to finish a superb 10th in the women's race.

Her time erased the previous club record of 2:55:04 set by Sarah Massey in the London race in 1994. It also improved on her own previous best of 2:55:36 in finishing 43rd in last year's London race.

Not far behind Grima came Zoe Pike who set a club veterans record in finishing a fine 20th in 2:56:25 slicing just one second off her previous best time for the distance set last year but bettering the previous club veterans record of 3:04:06 set in the 1994 London race by Mel Jones.

A third Hercules Wimbledon finisher in the women's race was Francesca Clarke who, running with husband Dave, finished 520th in the women's race in 3:30:21.

Fastest Hercules Wimbledon runner on Sunday was Mike Halman who was making his marathon debut. He finished 85th in the men's race in 2:33:57 just ahead of clubmate Hussein Ahmed ( 89th in 2:34:19) with James Trapmore 111th in 2:36:00. Other leading Hercules Wimbledon finishers were Jon Fairs was 138th in 2:37:47 and Stuart Fraser 585th in 2:54:19.

Belal Aly was 1090th out of more than 35000 finishers in 3:02:47, David Grima 1627th in 3:10:56 and Dave Clarke, three times English cross country champion two decades ago when he was also a top marathon runner, jogged round with his wife, Francesca to finish 3658th in 3:30:08.

Over 60 veteran Dennis Williams who has completed all but one of the 29 London Marathons was 21617th in 5:27:53.

Hercules Wimbledon had a record 30 runners in the Adidas mini-marathon over the final three miles of the full marathon course.

Highest-placed Hercules Wimbledon runner was Eleanor Smith-Hahn who was third in the girls under 13 race in 19:17 just ahead of Emma Headley (19:30) who led the Wandsworth team to third place.

Andrew Penney led the Merton team to third place in the senior boys race in finishing sixth out of more than 230 runners in 15:30. He finished just two seconds ahead of Liam White who was seventh with Joe Tooney 19th in 16:16, Ed Saywell 42nd in 16:53 and Charlie Carrington 54th in 17:11. Tim Livingstone and Joe Clark were 59th and 99th in the intermediate boys race in 18:23 and 19:18, Ali Borthwick, Caroline Hicks and Katie Buchanan 56th, 75th and 76th in the senior girls race in 21:09 and 21:56, and Maire Gilmartin, Ella Dobson and Constance Rose 41st, 47th and 69th in the intermediate girls race in 20:52, 21:05 and 21:43.

Emily Martin won her 200m race and was runner-up in the shot and third in the javelin in Hercules Wimbledon's opening Southern Women's League match at Wimbledon Park on Saturday. Caroline Hicks was second in her 3000m race with Hannah Long winning the B race.

Olivia Hogan and Olivia Wilson had a busy time in the under 15 events. Hogan was second in the 75m hurdles and third in the 200m and javelin and Wilson won the hurdles B race and was second in the 200m B and third in the javelin B event.

This weekend, the newly promoted Hercules Wimbledon Southern Men's League team open their Division One programme with a home match at Kingsmeadow Stadium on Saturday starting at 1pm. On Sunday, the club's National Young Athletes team travels to Crawley for their opening match of the season.

Hercules Wimbledon have cancelled Bank Holiday Monday's Barry Jones five miles road race because of lack of entries. Organiser Pete Mulholland said: "Entries are down because of a clash with another road race over 10km in the same area. We will hope to stage the race in the future."

*Hercules Wimbledon's track and field training sessions take place at Wimbledon Park athletics stadium on Tuesday and Thursday evenings starting at 6.30pm and Sunday morning at 10.30am. Further details from coaching coordinator Maurice Sharp on 020 8337 8707.

*Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club hold mid-week road running training sessions for marathon, cross country and road runners from Lauriston Cottage, 6a Southside, Wimbledon Common, at the junction with Lauriston Road, every Wednesday evening from 7pm. Contact Pete Mulholland on 020 8761 4308 for more details.