TWO years ago in her first attempt at the distance, Bathurst runner Shannon Short completed the 21.1 kilometre CSU Half Marathon course in 91 minutes and 50 seconds, narrowly missing the podium in the women’s division.

Since then a lot has happened – including the birth of her second son Lucas late in 2011 – but after her extended lay-off, Short will return to the same race on Sunday albeit as a 10 km runner on something of a comeback trail.

“I had my baby at the end of last year and have probably been back into it for about four months or so,” Short explained.

“I started out without any plans of running the 10 kilometres or another half marathon or anything like that, but I just wanted to see how I’d go.

“About a month ago I felt like I was running pretty well and started to think that I’d be able to do it.”

Short has had to combine parenthood and her work at Cityfit with her return to training and as such, has been restricted effectively to one long run per week along with the occasional session on the treadmill.

That won’t stop her producing a strong result on Sunday though if she can stay true to her recent form against the clock.

“I’m not really sure what sort of time would be needed to win or do well, but I ran a 46 [minutes] over 10km last Sunday and that was on a course with a few hills. This course is a very flat one,” she said.

“I think I could probably drop that to 45 minutes or thereabouts.”

If she could manage that, she would be running a time quick enough to get her into third in 2011, the race last year taken out by 14-year-old prodigy Nicola Torley in a little over 40 minutes.

Whatever the outcome this weekend, Short knows that it is a long road figuratively and literally to the sort of form she had two years ago, but she is determined to regain that sort of fitness.

“I definitely want to get back to where I was, I ran under 30 minutes in the Edgell Jog a few years ago and I wanted to get around 90 minutes for the half-marathon and I did that,” she said.

“So far so good, I’m pretty happy with my leg-speed since I’ve been running again. There are no races in mind at this stage though I will definitely do the Edgell Jog again this year.

“I’d like to do the City to Surf, but I might wait until Lucas is a bit older and target it next year instead.”