Veteran athlete selected for England (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Veteran athlete selected for England

AGE need be no barrier to international sporting aspirations - just ask Fairford cross country runner, Wendy Jones.

The 36-year-old Cirencester Athletic Club member is in her prime, as evidenced by her selection for the England team that competed in November's home countries veterans cross country international in Dublin.

Coming third in the over-35s event, behind two Irish internationals, Wendy beat all her England team-mates.

She now aims to represent Great Britain, not as a veteran but in the younger age category of senior, at next year's World Cross Country Championships in Kenya.

This would see her taking on the world's top competitors, many several years her junior.

Having said that, as Wendy points out, many of Britain's top female runners are veterans nowadays.

" I don't think age is any barrier," said Wendy who has a four-year-old daughter, Poppy, by partner Justin Nicholls, Cirencester's male cross-country champion.

"I was always told by my first coach, when I was about 13 or 14, that when I had my first baby my running would really take off and it has.

"There's a couple of women, in Britain, who're running quicker than me and who've just turned 40, like Lucy Elliott.

"She's been picked for the Britain senior team this year.

"She went to the European cross country championships and I beat her the other week, so that's what I've got planned for the next few years: to get a GB vest.

"In your younger days, you have more distractions.

"Life's more settled now.

"I'm content with my family.

"I don't need to go out and party.

"I've been there, done it.

"I'm just purely focused on my running now."

Wendy lives, with Justin and Poppy, at the farm on Fairford's outskirts where she was born and raised by her farm-worker father and postal employee-mother.

She recalls: "When I was a little girl, I was really active and always wanted to run up and down the garden and be timed."

After attending Fairford Primary School, she moved to the town's Farmor's senior school.

Inspired by television pictures of the legendary Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe winning Olympic Gold medals, she accumulated more than 20 Gloucestershire/Wiltshire-county cross country medals and competed in six English Schools track and cross country championships before leaving Farmor's for Swindon Art College.

Wendy, who has worked for Cotswold District Council since graduating in 1989 and now runs its repro-graphics department, joined Swindon Athletic Club when aged 12.

She competed for Swindon until 1991, when she joined Cirencester Athletic Club.

Wendy rates her ninth place in last month's National Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships as her best performance so far.

She said: "It's the best run I've ever had.

"I beat some internationals and girls that I've never got close to before."

Wendy finished second in this year's Bourton-on-the-Water 10k-road race behind teenage sensation, Emily Pidgeon, who is tipped for glory at London's 2012 Olympics.

She beat the previous course record, her time being the country's second fastest for veterans and 14th-fastest for all-comers.

Wendy, also runner-up in the National Veterans Cross Country Championships, attributes her success to David Wright, the fellow Cirencester Athletic Club-member who has been her coach since November.

He set her a schedule, under which she trains six days a week.

She averages 50-55 miles per week, although she has run more than 72. Wendy will compete in this Sunday's Reading Half-Marathon, hoping to knock three or four minutes off her personal best time of 79.15.

"I just like the feeling of running, the feeling it gives you of being fit and healthy," said Wendy, who eventually hopes to become a triathlete and has already competed in one triathlon.

"I love racing.

"I like knowing that I'm going to do well in a competition.

"I'm a competitive animal."

It seems age - or anything else for that matter - will have trouble keeping up with Wendy Jones.