Inverness Harriers athlete to put in marathon effort in Commonwealth Games bid for Birmingham 2022
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MHAIRI Maclennan says she is aiming to compete for Scotland at the 2022 Commonwealth Games marathon, despite never racing at that distance before.
The 25-year-old, from Kirkhill, is one of seven athletes that has been chosen by the Scottish Athletics Marathon Project.
The initiative is designed to increase the marathon squad for the Commonwealth Games scheduled to take place in Birmingham next year.
It is a big step for Maclennan, who has competed for Great Britain at the World Cross Country Championship and European 10,000 metres.
She has not even competed at half of the 26.2 mile distance in an official race.
However, she believes now is the time to make the change and aim to compete for Scotland at the Games next year.
“It is pretty exciting,” said the Inverness Harrier athlete.
“I have always had it in my mind that I wanted to move up to marathon since I was younger.
“I have achieved more than I thought I would ever do over cross country and track. I am looking to improve myself and marathon seems the natural step up.
“It is exciting for something like that to look forward to and have that down on paper, especially when there is such uncertainty at the moment.”
Maclennan, who works a Spanish lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, reclaimed the Scottish National Cross-Country title last February, winning it for the second time, and is confident she can handle the longer distance.
“I actually haven’t done a half marathon as an official race distance,” she said.
“I have only competed up to a 10-mile race, although I do a half marathon distance in every Sunday.
“With the training there will be more road reps but I think there are a lot of parallels between marathon and cross country.”
