Marathon: Mum's the word on elite female favourite

Katherine Morgan.

It's fair to say Ruby Muir will set the pace for the elite female athletes in tomorrow's HB International Marathon.

The 24-year-old Napier Harriers Club member comes up trump simply because she has a beaten track in the 42.2km, not to mention the mind-boggling 100km ultra-marathons.

The 2015 Wellington Marathon champion, whose partner Kristian Day is a favourite as well among the blokes, could not be reached yesterday so let's hear it from a female rival, Katherine Morgan, of Auckland.

The 34-year-old is suitably qualified to make deductions after finishing third in the Wellington Marathon.

"I'm completely in the deep end on who's coming although I've seen the start sheet but there are no PBs," says Morgan who'll be running for the first time in the Bay. "Ruby was very fast in the Wellington Marathon."

She hopes to run under three hours and her resume suggests she's speaking an acceptable dialect.

The stay-at-home mother of two girls finished 32nd in the 2014 London Marathon, clocking 2h 55m in a field of 12,000 females.

On March 25, she won the Dual Motatapu Trail Marathon in Wanaka in a time of 4h 19m.

"It was an offroad track and there 1100m of elevation," she impresses to put her time in perspective.

She took to marathons in 2008 but had five years off for motherhood, something she believes has made her stronger considering her time before that was 3:10 but after childbirth it dropped to 2:55.

Morgan started with duathlons as a teenager before catching the marathon bug.

"I was 18 and it was quite addictive so I wanted to go longer and faster," she says, revealing her husband, Ben Morgan, will run the half marathon.

Perhaps the wildcard will be New South Welshwoman Leah Fitzgerald.

The 33-year-old Aussie won the Coffs Harbour Half Marathon last year before adding the bragging rights to the 2015 Big Island International Marathon in the United States.