Caryl Jones threw her name into the hat for Commonwealth Games marathon selection with a brilliant debut over the 26.2 mile distance in Amsterdam as she ran third fastest time ever recorded by a Welsh woman.
Her finishing time of 2:34.16 was well inside the ‘A’ standard for the Gold Coast of 2:37.00 and earned her 11th place in the women’s race in one of the fastest marathons of the year.
The men’s race was won by Kenya’s Lawrence Cherono in 2:05:09, while Ethiopia’s Tadelech Bekele took the women’s title in 2:21.53.
For Jones it was a step into the unknown, along similar lines to Swansea Harriers clubmate Josh Griffiths in London earlier in the year, and she not only hit the standard for the Gold Coast, but also dipped well-under the qualifying mark for consideration for the British team to go to the European Championships in Berlin next August.
The Cardiff University/Cardiff Half Marathon gave Jones the confidence she needed to go into the Amsterdam race in a positive frame of mind and all the hard work she had been putting in, with 100 miles per week in training, paid off.
Next up for a marathon debut will be Dewi Griffiths in Frankfurt on Sunday, 29 October, while Elinor Kirk will be hoping to emulate Jones’ Amsterdam heroics when she chases a ticket to the Gold Coast time in the Florence Marathon in Italy on 26 November.
Jones now sits proudly in third place on the Welsh all-time rankings behind Susan Tooby, who holds the Welsh record with her time of 2:31.33 set at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 and another Olympian, Tracey Morris, who finished fourth at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne with a time of 2:33.13.
She is now 44th on the all-time British list and currently the seventh fastest British athlete in 2017.