In her final tune-up for the Amsterdam marathon next month, Catherina McKiernan had a comfortable victory in a low-key 10 km road race in Liverpool yesterday

Her time of 32 minutes 53 seconds was just over a minute inside the old course record, even though she was up against limited competition.

"I felt very good throughout and the race went as well as I hoped," said McKiernan afterwards. "There was a strong gusting wind, which didn't help things, but it did provide the blow-out sort of race that I was looking for."

There was nobody of McKiernan's class in the women's section, although it was run as a mixed race, so she did have male runners to provide some sort of competition. The distance was well short of the full marathon but all the indications are that McKiernan is well on course for her world record attempt in Amsterdam on November 1st.

"At this stage the bulk of the work has been done and from here on I'll be easing off on the training, with only a few longer runs between now and Amsterdam," she said. "All the preparations have gone according to plan and hopefully things will go well in three weeks' time."