Claire Hallissey is a British

distance Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects, points, people, or ideas are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two co ...

runner. She competed for Britain at the

2009 World Half Marathon Championships The 2009 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships was held in Birmingham, United Kingdom on 11 October 2009. It was the final event of the International Association of Athletics Federations' 2009 World Athletics Series. Organisation The city of B ...

coming 25th. In 2010, she ran her first marathon, in New York and in 2011 ran the

Chicago Marathon The Chicago Marathon is a road marathon held in October in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the seven World Marathon Majors. Thus, it is also a World Athletics Label Road Race. The Chicago Marathon is one of the largest races by number of fini ...

. In 2012, she finished 11th in the

London Marathon The London Marathon (also known as the TCS London Marathon for sponsorship reasons) is an annual marathon held in London, England. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it is typically held in April, although it moved to Oct ...

. Hallissey was confirmed as a member of the Great Britain squad for the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women's marathon alongside compatriots

Paula Radcliffe Paula Jane Radcliffe Order of the British Empire, MBE (born 17 December 1973) is a British former long-distance runner. She is a three-time winner of the London Marathon (2002, 2003, 2005), three-time New York Marathon champion (2004, 2007, 200 ...

and

Mara Yamauchi Mara Rosalind Yamauchi (born Mara Myers 13 August 1973) is a British long-distance running, long-distance track and field, track and road running athlete. She currently holds the fifth fastest time by a British woman over the marathon, behind f ...

. She finished in 57th place in a time of 2:35:39.

Running career

Hallissey first began running at the age of 11. She made her first international appearance at the 2009

European Cup 10,000m The European 10,000m Cup is an annual 10,000 metres race for European athletes which was first held in 1997. The competition is organised by the European Athletics Association and first began as the European 10000 Metres Challenge (''European 1 ...

race. She made a gradual transition to longer-distance races, and finished in 24th overall at the

2009 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships The 2009 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships was held in Birmingham, United Kingdom on 11 October 2009. It was the final event of the International Association of Athletics Federations' 2009 World Athletics Series. Organisation The city of ...

. In 2010, she moved with her husband to

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county is located in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C., the nati ...

, and went on to win several road races in the

DC metropolitan area The Washington metropolitan area, also referred to as the National Capital Region, Greater Washington, or locally as the DMV (short for District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia), is the metropolitan area comprising Washington, D.C., the fed ...

. Upon moving to the United States, she was first coached by George Buckheit from

CAR A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

. She was still able to run internationally in the UK national singlet, as she qualified for the

2010 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships The 2010 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships was held in Nanning, China on 16 October 2010. The competition took place on the city streets, beginning and ending at Wuxiang Square, with a total prize purse of US$245,000 at stake. The Kenyan at ...

and placed 18th overall. She qualified for the marathon in the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

when she finished the

2012 London Marathon The 2012 London Marathon was the 32nd running of the annual marathon race in London, England, which took place on Sunday, 22 April. Both of the elite races were won by Kenyan athletes, and Ethiopia's Tsegaye Kebede was the only non-Kenyan to re ...

, held in April the same year, in a personal best time of 2:27:44. In 2014, she raced in the DCRRC singlet when she won the 2014 Maryland-D.C. Road Runners 10-Mile Club Championship.
Bill Blewett. The Baltimore Sun: ''Harford's RASAC is fifth overall in 10-mile Club Championship race''. February 27, 2014. Retrieved November 5, 2015.

References

External links

* * 1983 births Living people Sportspeople from Watford Alumni of Robinson College, Cambridge English female long-distance runners British female long-distance runners English female marathon runners British female marathon runners Olympic athletes for Great Britain Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Olympics 21st-century British sportswomen 21st-century English sportswomen {{England-longdistance-athletics-bio-stub