It wasn’t until she was 20 that Jenny Spink took running seriously. Trampolining and netball were her main sports.

She ran for fitness and occasionally competed in races. However, that changed when she went to Cambridge University and achieved a noteworthy performance in a cross country race.

“This spurred me on to train with the athletics squad and to start racing more seriously. I met my former coach a couple of years after university, on a warm weather marathon training camp, and he said that I had potential to go far with my running.”

The coach was Mike Gratton, the third man to win the London Marathon. His words of encouragement gave Spink the belief that she could achieve more as a runner.

Gratton is still a good friend, but Spink is now coached by British running legend Bruce Tulloh.

She prefers to race distances from 5K upwards, and lists her best performances as tenth place in the 2015 Toronto Waterfront Marathon, where she ran a time of 2:35:57. She is also proud of her 1:13:01 in the Cardiff Half-Marathon, where she was second in the English Championships, and a setting a 10K personal best of 33:34 two months ago in Leeds.

On Saturday, she will compete in the 10K. “I’m in marathon training at the moment, but have come into this block of training being faster than before at the shorter distances. This will hopefully transfer over the longer distances. Bermuda will be a chance to show the hard training is paying off.”

Beyond this weekend, she is aiming to qualify for the marathon at the World Athletics Championships in London this summer, and to earn a place at next year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia.