THE WOMAN who won the ladies club championship at the London Marathon on Sunday has put her success down to taking part in a local park run in Woodley.
Anna Boniface, who turns 26 this week, won the 18-39 women’s category with a time of 2:37:07 at the world-famous Virgin Money London Marathon on Sunday, having only run the course once before.
Speaking to The Wokingham Paper on Monday, an elated Anna said she owes her success to Woodley Park Run, a 5km volunteer-led community run held in Woodford Park every Saturday morning. On April 15, she became the first woman to win the Woodley course in a time of 17:31, beating her own record by 13 seconds.
Anna, who runs for Reading Athletics, said: “It was tough, I’m more of a long-distance runner which is more disciplined and you have to set yourself a pace. I was aiming for a six-minute mile pace which I was keeping pretty well, but by halfway people started telling me that I was the fastest woman, which I really wasn’t expecting.
“By mile 20 I was really starting to hurt but I was determined to push through and get the time that I wanted. I broke it down into 5km stretches, and the first 5km I think I did in about 17:50.
“One of the volunteers from Woodley Park Run was in the crowd at mile 23 so I knew I only had 5km – the equivalent of a park run – left to do. That really spurred me on and gave me the motivation I needed to finish.
“I started to forget about pace and started seeing it as a race, which is probably why I got such a good time.”
Anna, who lives in Twyford, endured a gruelling training regime in the run-up to the marathon, running twice a day and clocking up around 112 miles a week.
She said: “I’ve got such a great group of people around me at Reading Athletics, they really kept me going throughout training. It can be quite tough getting up at 6am for a run, and then coming home from work and going on another run but their support kept me going.
“I’m still quite new to this, I’ve only run two marathons before, and I’ve run Reading half marathon every year for the last five years, but I used to be a fairly standard, middle-of-the-pack runner.
“I think my turning point came on the Christmas Day park run in 2014 when I broke the 20 minute barrier. From then, everything just seemed to go up a gear and I started taking my running seriously. So Woodley Park Run does hold a lot of significance for me.”
Now, Anna is hanging up her running shoes for a while and is planning a relaxing trip to Paris to celebrate her birthday.
She said: “The marathon always falls around my birthday, it hasn’t fallen on it yet but I thought this year, being 26, running 26 miles seemed quite appropriate!
“I’m not going to run for a while now, but I am thinking about another marathon in the autumn and then maybe going for the Elite Women for next year. Last year I ran it in 2:45, so to run 2:37 this year is a really good progression.
“But for now I will be back at Woodley Park Run on Saturday, but as a volunteer!
“My advice to anyone, if they are getting into running or any other sport or just looking to lose weight and get fit, whatever the goal is just find an activity that you really enjoy and just focus on that. The hard work will pay off and the goal will come.”
At the time of going to press Anna had raised £680 for the Thames Valley Air Ambulance, to donate visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Anna-Boniface3.
To find out more about Woodley Park Run visit www.parkrun.org.uk/woodley.
