European Athletics (EAA) – News – Radcliffe set to return to the roads in May

Great Britain’s world marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe, who has not competed for 15 months because of injuries and the birth of her son Raphael, will return to action in the Bupa Great Manchester Run on 15 May, organisers have announced.

The IAAF Gold Label Road Race will be Radcliffe’s first competitive outing since the 2009 New York City Marathon.

In the last two months she has been based at a high altitude training camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Her principal target for this year is achieving the qualifying standard for the 2012 Olympics Games in London and she is expected to contest an autumn marathon in order to try to achieve that time.

"Clearly she will need build up races beforehand and the Bupa Great Manchester Run over 10 kilometres offers a perfect step in that direction," said the race organiser Andy Caine.

Radcliffe is also the 10km world record holder on the roads with the time of 30:21 she set eight years ago in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Bupa Great Manchester Run course record of 31:07 was achieved by Ethiopia’s Berhane Adere in 2007.

"I've been speaking to Paula, plus her lead coach and husband Gary Lough, since before Christmas about her racing in Manchester, where of course she won the Commonwealth Games 5000 metres gold medal in 2002.

"Quite rightly they preferred not to make any premature decision about her 2011 racing schedule until they analysed how training was progressing in Albuquerque and obviously it has been a very good spell,” commented Caine.

"It will great to get back to racing after such a lengthy period away and I'm excited, particularly as it is finally happening on home soil,” added Radcliffe.

"The Bupa Great Manchester Run is a high profile event on the world road running circuit and I'm sure it will be a testing comeback for me, having seen the list of high profile past winners.

"I deliberately returned slowly to training after Raphael was born and everything, apart from being bitten by a dog whilst out training in Monaco at the beginning of the year, has gone pretty well.”

Radcliffe, 37, also hasn't ruled out competing on the track this summer at the 2011 IAAF World Championships in South Korea, most likely over 10,000m.

European Athletics (EAA) – News