Steady Helen Decker wants Delhi delight

Decker helped GB's women to team European bronze

Suffolk's Helen Decker says she would be thrilled to put in a repeat performance of her Barcelona marathon run at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The 30-year-old finished 21st at the European Championships and feels she is in good shape to represent England at the Commonwealth's in October.

She told BBC Radio Suffolk: "To do the same at Delhi would be great.

"I'm going to struggle to build on fitness but what I can do is maintain it. I have got the marathon strength."

Decker won her place in the England squad for Delhi thanks to a personal best run in the London Marathon in April, finishing with a time of 2 hours 36 minutes and 56 seconds.

The Ipswich JAFFA runner then helped the GB women to a team bronze medal at Barcelona in July, coming 21st individually, and hopes to cap her most successful year yet in India.

It was a progression from 2008 of upping the training, reducing the other things in my life like work and focusing more and more on running

Helen Decker

"Three marathons in a year is a very big ask," she said.

"Going into 2010 we identified there was a window of opportunity. We knew I was capable of running a 2.38 which was the qualification time."

Four years ago Decker had made little impact on the international scene, but in that period she has reduced her marathon time by an impressive 20 minutes.

Despite being a late bloomer in the sport, she is trying to squeeze out every extra second she can from her times.

"It's really hard to say, you just don't know when it's going to run out or where it's going to stop," she continued.

"It was a progression from 2008 of upping the training, reducing the other things in my life like work and focusing more and more on running.

"I am lucky to have a steady curve of upward improvement in the last three or four years."

Decker, Britain's third best female marathon runner this year, has been undergoing tests in Loughborough to determine how much she can expect to shed off her times.

"It indicates, roughly, what your marathon potential is and potentially there's another four or five minutes to come off," she said.

"There's still a lot of things I haven't yet done. I only tried altitude training for the first time in the build up to Barcelona."