Marathon world record-holder to return to the roads at Sunday’s event

Paula Radcliffe will return to road race action at the Worcester City 10k on Sunday as she works towards her goal of running next year’s London Marathon.

The marathon world record-holder has battled back from career-threatening injury, having last raced competitively at the Vienna Half-Marathon in 2012. After that she was forced to withdraw from the London Olympic marathon and later required surgery on her left foot.

Radcliffe also world record-holder over 10km – has the ambition of enjoying one final hurrah over 26.2 miles, with Sunday’s event an important stepping stone towards next April’s Virgin Money London Marathon – the event at which she ran her world record 11 years ago.

“I’m really looking forward to running in Worcester,” she said earlier this year. “My goal is to run the London Marathon next year and the Worcester City 10k will give me a great chance to see how my fitness is developing.”

The new event is organised by Radcliffe s fellow BBC commentator Steve Cram and features a flat and scenic course that starts and finishes at Worcester Racecourse.

With it being her first race back post-injury, she recently told the Guardian how she does not “expect fireworks”, but the athlete with a 30:21 PB says she would like to go sub-35 minutes.

In the summer she told AW how she had built back up to being able to do around 95 miles a week when in Kenya earlier on in the year. More recently she told the Guardian how she has been alternating weeks of around 70 miles with harder ones of between 90 and 105 miles.

“It is not painful and it s not getting worse,” she said of her foot. “In fact it s getting better.”

Radcliffe will be joined in running Sunday’s inaugural Worcester City 10k by Anthony Whiteman, who steps up after having run a world over-40 800m record this summer, while Radcliffe’s daughter Isla is among those hoping to compete in the event’s young athlete s mile run.

See www.worcestercityrun.com for further details on the event

The post Paula Radcliffe to resume road career at Worcester City 10k appeared first on Athletics Weekly.