NOT content with running the May 24 Derby race, Carol Griffith jetted off to Canada to run the Ottawa Marathon just three days later.It’s not the first time she has tagged a full marathon so close to the main Bermuda race. This was her third time she has taken part in the ING Ottawa Marathon, and she turned in a respectable performance of four hours and five minutes for the full 26.2-mile race.

By doing so Griffith chalked up her 13th marathon and was 445th out of 1,145 women in the 3,600 race field and 54th in her age group.

She was joined by friend Sherline Senior-Lowe, and the pair took part in a 5K walk the day before Griffith ran the marathon. Their walk time was 43:46.

It is the third time the two friends have travelled to Canada for the National Capital Race Weekend.

Griffith ran a 2:06 in this year’s May 24 Half-Marathon Derby and felt good running a full marathon so soon afterwards. In fact her half-marathon split in the Canadian capital was 1:57.

Amazingly she has no specific training regime for completing a half-marathon and marathon so close together. Like many others she followed a training schedule for her first marathon but after that relied on her own intuition and regular runs with training partners — including long runs of around three-and-a-half hours — to build up stamina.

Her best time for a marathon, a 3:56, was set after she found herself under the training wing of British expat Duncan Newby a number of years ago.

“I wanted to break four hours. The training was hard. I didn’t like the speed work and the repeats,” Griffith recalls.

Finishing times have never been the motivating factor for Griffith. She enjoys the commaraderie of training with others and travelling abroad to take part in races in Atlanta, Washington, Paris, Barbados, Ottawa and elsewhere.

“I like to see how far my body can go. It also helps to build focus and gain strength and when you are running you can reflect on life and things and thank God for having the ability to be able to run,” she said.

“I like the feeling you get when you finish a marathon and meeting all kinds of people, all shapes and sizes at the races. Everyone you meet has a story.”

And that bond of friendship is also an important factor in the long training runs in Bermuda with the likes of Elvin Thomas, Edward Harvey, Cal Steede and Glenis Butterfield.

Having run the Bermuda International Race Weekend Marathon in January and now Ottawa, Griffith has completed her “two marathons a year” for 2007.

She is already now planning for 2008.