Angie Sadler has been running for fun pretty much all her life.

And remarkably, the 59-year-old has just completed her 200th marathon after clocking a time of three hours, 43 minutes in Sunday’s Gloucester Marathon.

And while that is obviously some achievement, scratch below the surface and it soon becomes apparent that what she has done is even more impressive.

Firstly, Sadler is an athlete, a proper athlete. Pretty much all of those 200 runs will have been completed in a very competitive time. For Sadler, just finishing isn’t enough.

“I can still do a marathon in under four hours and at nearly 60 that is very satisfying,” she said.

And secondly, a large number of those races that gained her access to the 200 club were in fact ultra marathons, some of which are over 100-plus miles.

“I’ve run 76 or 78 ultra marathons,” she said. “I did one was that was 128 miles, but it still only counted as one marathon,” before adding with a chuckle, “it’s wicked, it’s horrible.”

If you broke down her ultra marathons into marathons – so for argument’s sake the 128-miler would become five marathons – it’s quite possible that’s she’s actually run the equivalent of 350 marathons down the years.

Not that that was on her mind when she was competing in Gloucester.

“I just wanted to enjoy every mile,” she said. “I wanted to take it all in. I ran all the way with Nigel Tillett, who is chairman of Tewkesbury Running Club. We crossed the line together in our Tewkesbury Running Club vests.

“He stayed with me for the whole race, he was an absolute brick. He kept me going. I stayed strong and I really, really enjoyed it.”

The original plan had been for Sadler to run with her close friend Ingrid Harris, but the Almost Athletes runner broke a rib five weeks ago which meant she took part in the half marathon rather than the marathon on Sunday.

“We do a lot of running together,” explained Sadler. “I ran with Ingrid for her 100th marathon, we support each other on these big events.”

Sadler’s best time for a marathon is just outside three hours but her time on Sunday was still good enough to see her home as first lady vet 50.

She has won many trophies over the years and has also run for Great Britain.

She learned to run at Manor School in Eastcombe – it’s now known as Thomas Keble School – when she lived on a small farm in Chalford with her family.

“I learned to do cross-country there,” she said. “We used to walk to school – it was about one and-a-half miles – and we’d run in the snow so we learned the hard way.”

But those days clearly put in her good stead for what she has gone on to achieve over the past four decades and more.

These days she lives in Forthampton and is about to become grandmother for the first time, so there is plenty going on in her life outside her running.

She says she’s going to cut back on her running over the next couple of months so that she can help daughter Kaylee and her baby.

“I’ll run a few half marathons,” she said, before adding with a laugh, “but I’m going to have to up my pace a bit. I’ve been trying to keep up with the top men at the club on Wednesday nights!”

But she will be concentrating on the shorter distances only for a couple of months.

“I want to run the Stroud Trail Marathon in May,” added Sadler, who is married to Phil. “I’ve also entered the Dartmoor Discovery at the beginning of June. That’s an ultra marathon over 31 miles. I was first in age category last year but it’s a very difficult event.”

And that’s not all she’s targeting this year.

“I want to run the Snowdonia Marathon in October,” she continued. “It’s very hard but it’s one of my favourites, the tougher the challenge the better. I like running up hills, I’m light so I’m very good on hills.”

There’s a little bit more to running marathons than that of course. As Sadler says: “Anything can happen on a 26-miler. A lot of people don’t finish, you have to be very strong.”

Angie Sadler is certainly very, very strong. She’s also a delight to talk to and there will be many, many people around Gloucestershire and beyond who are very happy that she has joined the 200-marathon club.