After her phenomenal 25k World record at the BIG 25 Berlin, Mary Keitany is looking ahead to her next big goal, which will be her debut in the full marathon and possibly an attempt at that record too.
The 28-year-old Kenyan had become the first female to clock a sub 1:20 time in a 25k race, when she ran 1:19:53 on Sunday in the German capital.
In her first race at the distance Keitany smashed the world record on the Berlin roads, improving the mark by a staggering 2:20 minutes.
With this performance she has given another strong indication, that she is capable of becoming the world's next great marathon runner.
At the London Olympics in 2012 the classic race will be the event she hopes to win and an attempt to break Paula Radcliffe's legendary world marathon record may also be on the cards in future.
One of her elder sisters once motivated Mary Keitany to start running. While Mary Keitany was born in the Baringo District the daughter of a farmer's family grew up in the Koibatek District (both belong to the Rift Valley Province).
Keitany has three sisters and one brother. Her eldest sister started running at school. "I saw that she was talented and thought that I should try this as well," says Mary Keitany.
While her sister gave up despite running on national level at school Mary came through all the way to become the world's number one road runner.
At the BIG 25 Berlin race Mary Keitany was honoured with the AIMS/ASICS World Athlete of the Year Award.
Career leap
In 2009, she had dominated the World Half Marathon Championships and with a time of 66:36 minutes missed the world record by just eleven seconds.
Mary Keitany started running at school but it was not before the age of 18 that she trained more seriously. She was at secondary school at that time.
It was not before the end of 2006, when she appeared in Europe for the first time. She ran a half marathon and a road race in Spain at first. At that time Mary Keitany was coached by Philip Singoei, who won the Eindhoven Marathon in 2007 with 2:07:57.
"In April 2007 Gianni Demadonna opened a training camp in Iten, which is where Mary lives", explains her current coach Gabriele Nicola, who works for Demadonna's management.
Mary Keitany soon joined in and then step by step Gabriele Nicola took over as a coach.
"In Iten I train with boys. My manager pays them to help us in training," explains Mary Keitany, whose female training partners include Peninah Arusei, the winner of the BIG 25 Berlin in 2008 and 2009, and Helena Kirop, who won the Prague Marathon on Sunday.
In 2007 Mary Keitany won the silver medal in the World Half Marathon Championships, but then pregnancy interrupted her running career.
"My son Jared was born in June 2008," says Mary Keitany. She is married to Charles Koech, who has a 10k PB of 27:56 and has run a 61:27 half marathon.
"Sometimes we train together. And we have a nanny to look after our son."
"When Mary came back after giving birth we set some goals. The first one was to qualify for the World Half Marathon Championships 2009 and to run well. The next goal was to win the Abu Dhabi half marathon and then we set our sights on breaking the world 25k record in Berlin.
"All went very well and she has achieved more than we had expected," says Gabriele Nicola, who spends a lot of time overseeing the training of his runners in Iten.
"But we have a team of coaches and physios in Iten so that there is always someone there to help."
Marathon debut
The next step will now be the marathon. In autumn Mary Keitany plans to run her debut at the distance. But already now she is doing milages that suit a marahton runner.
"Of course it can vary a lot, but she has run between 180 and 200 kilometres in her recent training already", explains Gabriele Nicola, who intends to add some more kilometres to this during the preparations for the marathon.
"So far my longest training runs were 30 kilometres", says Mary Keitany.
Asked about her biggest goals she first mentions the Olympics in London in 2012. "It would be huge to win the Olympic gold medal in the marathon."
But there is also another major dream in the future: "May be one day I am able to attack the world marathon record," says Mary Keitany. But she very well knows how tough it will be to break Paula Radcliffe's 2:15:25 from London 2003.
"Right now we can not speak about the marathon world record. But Mary has the potential to go for it in the future. That does not mean that she will break it.
But there are not many runners who can even think of attacking this record," says Gabriele Nicola.
"Mary has great potential, we are lucky to have her. We will only get a Mary Keitany every 20 years."