"I've always been an outdoor person since I met Roy over 30 years ago. We started out mountaineering, and completed all the Monroes in Scotland in 1985.

About ten years ago, we were looking for another challenge. My son started running at school then and at about the same time, someone at work made some comment about women not being any good at running, so we had a run-off - and I beat him! So, living in the north east of England, we decided to do the Great North Run.

When we moved to north Wales we joined the Bro Dysynni Athletics Club and my running has continued to develop since then. After years of mountaineering, I'm a fell runner at heart, though I'm responsible for the ladies cross country team at Bro Dysynni. I have done four marathons, but I'm not so keen on road running.

My husband is a runner as well and he's nearly 75, though he's not as competitive as I am!

Even though I'm English, I was asked to run for Wales and was happy to run for Wales. It's great when we go to the cross country internationals against England, Scotland and Ireland and we all gang up together and cheer loudly for the minor nations against England (even though I'm English!) We've chosen to live here in Wales, so Wales is our adopted home and we love it here.

I've got about 23 Welsh gold medals for my age category and four British gold medals for road, cross country and fell running.

As a medal winner, I've been given the Gold Card for Gwynedd so now I can use all the leisure facilities for free. I was nominated for Sports Personality of the Year for Meirionydd, which was a great accolade.

It does really annoy me when some athletics magazines don't bother to print the results for senior ladies races. They give the men's results for over 40, 50 and 60 etc but sometimes when I've won I'm not even mentioned and that isn't right.

Often there's not many ladies competing in the over-60s category, but I would really encourage people to get running.

We started a ladies running group at our local leisure centre and after the formal training had come to an end I carried on running with them because the encouragement is really important. If there's no one to run with you, it can all fall by the wayside and it's difficult for women to go running by themselves.

Running and being outdoors a lot has definitely kept me fitter and healthier. Having a race in prospect makes you keep up the training.

There are lots of places to go running here - you can go up into the hills from Llanelltyd up to Y Garn. If we want a flatter run, we go along the Mawddach Trail, beside the Mawddach estuary - we trained for the London Marathon along there. I also run from home up to Precipice Walk near Dolgellau, which is about 10 miles in all. It gives a variety of road and cross country."