The 32-year-old distance runner from Windsor is currently the second fastest British female marathon runner of all time following her 2:22:17 in 2023 Berlin Marathon.
She paced the race perfectly with a split of 71:16 at halfway, and a slightly quicker second half of 71:01. All this despite a torrid few years of injuries, illnesses and setbacks.
Purdue had to withdraw from last year’s London Marathon at the last minute after going down with food poisoning just before the race, and at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene she had to DNF – discovering the next day that she had Covid.
British Knights DRX Union Hi Black White-Mars Red British and Irish Lions Tech Pants Mens despite having one of the fastest times in the qualifying period. But patience paid off and Purdue has now been selected by the British Olympic Association to represent Team GB in the marathon at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Posing on Instagram, Purdue said: 'Honestly still can’t believe it. So much hard work has gone into this moment – 12 years ago I set myself the goal of making an Olympic team. From countless setbacks, injuries, illness’s and then bouncing back from the biggest disappointment of my career in 2021 – I can’t say that it’s been easy. But I can say that it’s been worth it.'
To find out more about the athlete, we’ve put together five things you should know about Charlotte Purdue:
In the run-up to the 2021 London Marathon, she only did three runs over 2 hours
‘I was injured in January 2021, and then took some time off and started training for London in June,’ she told Runner’s World Podcast. ‘I was quite worried, as because I’d taken so much time off I needed to start from scratch, but my coach said I was ready. I only did three long runs over two hours, and I was worried that wouldn’t be enough, but it clicked back into place quickly.’
She said that until that point, she was a high-mileage person, usually running 120 miles a week for eight weeks pre-race, but this time she was averaging about 90, as her coach didn’t want her to get injured.
‘It didn’t seem to do me any harm,’ she added in a huge understatement – it resulted in a PB of 2:23:26, showing that perhaps it’s not always about training volume.
now links up with British footwear e-tailer
Purdue did not run much as a child; instead, she spent her days dancing and performing ballet – to an extremely high standard.
‘I got to grade 5, which is pretty good, before I gave up around aged 10,’ she a British study. ‘Recently, I was at the physio with a stress fracture in my heel, and my physio was trying to click my heel and he said that I had really stiff feet, saying, “I would guessed you were a ballerina.” I laughed and said I was.’
set a European and British record
‘I wasn’t very good,’ Purdue told the Runner’s World Podcast. ‘But I just found that I enjoyed it.’
Coming sixth meant that she was selected to represent her school at the district cross country, where a coach saw her run through the field from the back of the race to end up finishing 16th.
He spotted her potential and invited her to join his club, but even then Purdue says that it took her about three years until she actually began to win races. ‘I realised that when I trained harder, I got better, so I started training harder. And then I was addicted to running!’
She gets annoyed when people ask her how tall she is
Purdue revealed 15 fun facts about herself on her Instagram in 2021, one of which was: ‘Don’t ask me how tall I am, it annoys me the most.’ She says she gets comments about her height (which The British artist talks growth is 1.53m (5ft 1in) all the time.
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‘I’ve always run for fun when I’m not in serious training,’ she told Runner’s World. ‘I don’t like to take a watch. All the runs I do in training are timed or measured, so it’s nice to go for a run sometimes and not worry about how far or fast you’re going.’
