Meadows ahead of schedule on road to London

By George Scott, Sportsbeat

JENNY Meadows admits she has surpassed even her own expectations this year - and revealed she is 18 months ahead of schedule on her road to 2012.

 PERFECT TIMING: Jenny Meadows produced a stunning sprint finish to grab bronze at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin

Meadows captured her first major championship medal with 800m bronze in Berlin while Caster Semenya grabbed the headlines.

And the 28-year-old has developed a penchant for third place finishes, completing the podium in Gateshead before clocking 2:00.41 at Sunday's World Athletics Final in Greece.

But Meadows admits she has surprised herself in 2009 and will now have to plot a more ambitious path for the next three years.  

"I thought I would run 1:58 but to dip in 1:57 was territory I probably wasn't looking at for another 12 months," said Meadows.

"That's if everything went right and if it didn't go right then I thought I might be looking at another year and a half.

"The thing that I was most impressed with was the time because I knew when I crossed that I had won a medal.

"It took me ages to celebrate but as soon as I saw 1:57 - I didn't even see what the decimal was - I thought it was just fantastic.

"That was the thing that surprised me more than a medal."

Meadows will go head-to-head with fellow Brit and 1500m silver medallist Lisa Dobriskey over one mile at Saturday's inaugural Great North CityGames.

The inaugural event - a match between athletes from England and Australia - will also see Christine Ohuruogu race over 150m as athletics takes to the streets of Newcastle.

And Meadows revealed the race will a useful learning curve as she looks to work on her endurance base over the winter. 

"There's still a lot I can work on and in training I didn't notice my times were coming down this year," added Meadows.

"In May and June I was just flying but the times just weren't going anywhere.

"Athletics is strange like that, you don't necessarily run the times when you think you are, but there's plenty I can improve on, particularly my 1500m base.

"It's all looking good towards London 2012 which is obviously my goal.

"There's a long way to go but it's something that I'm always working towards and am really looking forward to."