Kate Vaughan Williams will be going back home on the penultimate Sunday in April.

And no, the 32-year-old is not going back home to her mum’s for a three-course lunch or anything like that.

Instead, her focus will be on just the one course, a course that has nothing to do with food.

That’s because Kate will be running the London Marathon, a course that covers 26.2 miles around some of the capital’s most famous streets.

“It’s quite exciting,” said Kate with some understatement. “I’ve got a ballot place but I’m running to raise money for charity too, I’m hoping to raise £1,000.

“I’m from The Docklands, I used to watch the London Marathon when I was younger, the course isn’t far from where I lived.”

Kate has always had an interest in running.

“My mum was a member of a club in London,” she said. “She used to run for Muswell Hill Runners, who are now called London Heathside. I’ve always done a bit of running on and off but I’ve never taken it too seriously.”

Kate describes herself as a “hobby level” runner – she and her mum Tamsin Vaughan Williams, who she describes as an “all-round legend”, regularly do parkruns together when she goes back to London – but it’s fair to say she’s been doing a lot more running since she joined Stroud Athletic Club in November 2021.

“We lived in Berlin for six years before we moved to Stroud,” said Kate, who is married to Laurence Jones.

“I used to do a few parkruns while we lived in Germany but nothing more than that.”

The couple live just outside Stroud, having moved to this part of the world in the summer of 2020.

Laurence, who works in marketing, is originally from Stroud and the one-time Marling School pupil is also a member of Stroud AC.

“I joined first,” laughed Kate. “We ran the Stroud Half Marathon in October 2021.

“I liked the race and I liked the way the club organised it, so I thought I’d join. 

“Laurence already knew a lot of people in the area and I thought it would be a way to make some new friends.”

And she was lucky enough to be put in the running group led by the club’s chairman Jim Adams, a wonderfully agreeable man who does so much for so many.

“We run a mile in about 10 minutes,” continued Kate, a civil servant. “I run at the back, it’s a nice chatty pace, it’s great.”

She admits that her husband is a bit quicker than her but she completed the Stroud Half in two hours, four or five minutes and is targeting four hours, 27 for the London Marathon on 23^rd April.

That was the time she recorded in the Brighton Marathon 12 months ago, the only previous time that she has run 26.2 miles. She also raised £1,296 for Save the Rhino.

“Brighton wasn’t as flat as I thought it would be,” she admitted. “London will be flatter although there will be a lot more people.

“I just want to enjoy it, I want to get round without crying!”

She said that after Brighton she’d never run another marathon but now says she wouldn’t mind running the Berlin Marathon, adding with a laugh: “It would be nice and flat.”

There aren’t too many flat courses in Gloucestershire, of course, something that Kate now knows only too well.

“I took part in the Cotswold Way Relay in July,” she said. “I ran 12.8 miles. The route took us up Cooper’s Hill, there were so many hills!”

The satisfaction comes from going the distance, of course, and Kate is happy to go the distance in a variety of events.

“I like 5K and I like parkruns,” she said. She has a PB of 23 minutes, 25 seconds for the parkrun but it’s not her favourite distance. “I think half-marathons are the best,” she continued. “They’re a challenge, they test your running skills and technique.”

And what about marathons?

“They are so tough,” she said. “They are so long, after 18 miles you’re just hanging on.”

At least there aren’t any big hills in London!

To support Kate’s charity run in London, visit https://www.tommys.org/. Tommy’s are the largest charity in the UK, carrying out research into the causes of miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth.