Hong Kong distance runner Virginia Lo Ying-chiu has targeted another personal best at Sunday’s Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon (SCHKM), carrying on from breaking her best times on several occasions last year.

“Both my training progress and physical condition feel good, and I hope to run faster than last year’s Hong Kong Marathon and also break the PB set at the National Games – if the weather and other conditions are favourable,” Lo said.

At the National Games in November, she improved that mark to 2:39:23 and had over the year lowered several other bests, including over 1,500m and 5,000m on the track, and in the half-marathon at the Gold Coast Marathon, where she ran 1:14:58.

Having run only her third full marathon last year and still feeling “fairly new” to the distance at that time, Lo said the recent results had boosted her confidence.

“Performing well at the National Games has boosted my confidence not just for the Hong Kong Marathon but for my marathon future as well,” Lo said. “To be honest, I still do not have much experience handling the full-marathon distance and a lot of the knowledge is still quite new to me. How to train and how to recover both need further exploration and study.”