Helene Woodham has run marathons in London, New York, Berlin, Chicago and Tokyo which is pretty good going in anyone’s book.

But the 47-year-old Stroud Athletic Club member isn’t satisfied because she really wants to run the Boston Marathon to complete what is the Grand Slam of marathons.

But getting a place at Boston isn’t easy because Woodham needs a qualifying time of three hours, 50 minutes.

Despite her best efforts that time has eluded her – so far – but Woodham isn’t one for giving up and she is heading to Manchester next month for that city’s marathon in determined mood, even though she has yet to break the four-hour barrier over 26.2 miles.

She’s been pretty close, mind you – she's run four hours, two minutes – and she’s certainly not lacking in motivation.

Woodham, a school staff instructor at Wycliffe College in Stonehouse, has so far run 11 marathons, the first in 2003, finishing the London in five hours, four minutes.

“It was really hot,” she recalled. “I just wanted to finish, the time wasn’t important. The aim was just to get to the start line and get round, it was hard work!”

She did rather better in London six years later, going round in four hours, 27, and Woodham, who joined Stroud AC in January 2017 just a few months after starting work at Wycliffe, said: “I felt quite proud of myself after that run, I trained much harder.”

Three years later she ran the Paris Marathon in four hours, 11, during a 14-month period which she calls “a little bit mad”.

And that’s something of an understatement because she ran Berlin and New York in 2011 and Chicago in 2012.

She liked the Paris Marathon and said: “It’s a shame it isn’t a ‘major’, it’s just as big as the others and has got the same atmosphere.”

Still, it’s another good one to have on the CV and she remembers thinking at the end of 2012 that she needed just one more major for marathon’s Grand Slam… or so she thought.

“Then Tokyo became a major,” she said, half laughing. “I thought, ‘You’re kidding me!’”

She eventually ran Tokyo in 2018 and even though she had a problem with her Achilles when she was in Japan, she said it’s her favourite marathon.

“It’s a really nice course,” she said. “It loops back on itself so you can see a lot of the other runners, you feel part of it.”

It’s possible that Manchester will become her favourite marathon for a different reason if she breaks three hours, 50, but even if she doesn’t she’s going to keep on going.

“The first target is to get a time of three hours, something,” said Woodham, who has run the Stroud Half in one hour, 53. “But I won’t give up. There’s the Abingdon Marathon in October...”

And there’s another reason for optimism because when she gets to the age of 50 her qualifying time for Boston is extended to three hours, 55!

So, what would it mean to Woodham to qualify for Boston?

“It would mean a lot,” she said. “It is hard and it is frustrating. I’m a completer-finisher, I know I can do it.”

That time of four hours, two minutes was completed during lockdown so she is undoubtedly getting faster.

“It was a Virtual Marathon,” said Woodham, who lives in Woodchester. “I chose the course, it started in Cainscross car park and went out to Frampton before coming back along the canal, back into Stroud, down to the taxi rank before finishing at Marling School.”

She was pleased with that but nothing compares to how she’ll feel in Manchester on Sunday 16^th April if she qualifies for the Boston Marathon!