SUSAN Partridge is nursing herself towards the Commonwealth Games marathon start line a fortnight tomorrow, hardly daring to contemplate the possibility that even the top step of the podium is within her compass.

Tenth at the world marathon championship in Moscow last year, she was second Commonwealth finisher behind the Kenyan winner Edna Kiplagat. And Kiplagat is not selected for Glasgow.

"I suppose I am in the best shape of my life," admitted Partridge. "But I don't want to put too much pressure on myself. Although I have been pretty open that I'd like to get on the podium, there's a big difference between saying that and getting there. There's a big group of girls around 2:30, and it could be anyone's day out there.

"A few Kenyans are better on paper, but the Games is probably not their primary focus this year. Just because they have run low 2:20s doesn't mean they'll necessarily bring it out for the Games. I'd certainly show them every respect but I would not be surprised if they are in the mix a little bit more, rather than just running off up the road. I may be wrong but given the shape I'm in, it would be stupid not to be thinking podium."

The Glasgow University mechanical engineering graduate, brought up in East Kilbride and Benderloch in the Highlands, but now based in Leeds, returned last weekend from a month in Colorado with her Welsh coach Steve Jones, the former marathon world record-holder.

Tomorrow she runs the Bupa Great North 10k on the banks of the Tyne at Gateshead. It will be Partridge's final competitive test before she races in the first athletics event of Glasgow 2014.

Several of her rivals will be on the line tomorrow, including England's Alyson Dixon. Dixon will have run 14 miles before she gets to the 10k start tomorrow - her final long run - so Partridge will not be drawing too much from the final placings. "It would be nice to try to get as close to her as possible," said Dixon, whose 10k best of 32:35 is 43 seconds ahead of the Scot.

But Partridge has her measure at the marathon by 25 seconds, and at the half by seven seconds, although Dixon beat her by 22 places in setting a personal best at the world championships this year. However, European cross-county silver medallist Gemma Steel will start as favourite. Partridge is treating tomorrow as an all-out race.

"I'd like to run quick. It's difficult coming back from altitude, jet-lagged, and going straight into work but I'm going to race this one properly and hope for a good result as a confidence boost," she said. "If I'm fit for a marathon I should run a good 10k as well. The truth is I am in PB shape, and I'd like to get one. That would really boost confidence, to get on the start line for Glasgow without any doubts."

Partridge is bullish about the month she spent in Boulder but what excites her most is Jones's enthusiasm for the Games, the climax to the two years he has coached her.

"Steve has been a huge influence," she says. "The fact that I know he is looking forward to the Games so much means he has seen something these last four weeks. He is very switched on to when someone is going well."

Jones does not allow his athletes wear watches, GPS, or heart-rate monitors. "That way you learn to run as you feel," Partridge says. "Everything is much more instinctive. We run minute reps, not set distances . . . five-minute reps. He does not want me timing and measuring. He makes people throw away the watch and learn to run from the gut. If you do that in training you get a better feel for how you're going in races."

Partridge's scientific background she says, has put paid to any superstitions. "But I have not tempted fate by getting a ticket for the Sunday afternoon athletics session. That's when the marathon medals are presented."

What about her parents? "Yes," she admits. "They've bought them."

A reunion of middle- and long-distance athletes from the 1950s to the 1980s is being held at Fettes College, Edinburgh, on July 26.

The Commonwealth gold medallists Lachie Stewart and Jim Alder, and Olympians Don McGregor, Gareth Bryan-Jones, Fergus Murray, Partridge's coach Steve Jones, and Allan Rushmer are among those on a lengthy celebrity guest list.

Club and elite runners are all welcome. Contact alistair@arcadearchitects.com