"It's my time," says Kiplagat

World Cross Country champion Lornah Kiplagat is brimming with confidence ahead of her Flora London Marathon debut on Sunday (April 22).

The Kenyan-born Dutchwoman, who produced a devastating performance to clinch her first world cross country title in the searing heat of Mombasa last month, believes her time has come to be a major marathon force.

Kiplagat is a hugely experienced marathon runner – she won the Los Angeles marathon as long ago as 1997 – and has raced at three of the World Marathon Majors venues, Boston, Chicago and New York, no fewer than nine times over the last 10 years finishing as high as second in Chicago in 2000 and third in New York in 2003.

But she has never won one of the big five and admits that her personal best of 2:22:22, set in Osaka in 2003, is modest by the highest world standards established over the last few years.

"I realise my best marathon time needs some work on it," admitted the 33-year-old. "But everything comes at the right time. I still have something to achieve in this event, and I believe it is my time now at the marathon."

Victory on Sunday would be particularly sweet for Kiplagat for she has her own personal reason to make it a special day.

"It would be nice to win the London Marathon as10 years ago I was here as a pacemaker," she said. "One of my main memories of that time is that it was the first time I met my husband. So it gives me a good feeling to be back here. That already seems to me the right mood to come into the race on Sunday."

The man Kiplagat met that day was Dutchman Pieter Langerhorst. Five years later they were married, in July 2003 she became a Dutch citizen, and Langerhorst is now her manager and coach. "We are a good team," she said of her husband.

Indeed, 'Team Kiplagat' has certainly been in fine form recently for, despite her lack of big city wins, Kiplagat comes to London as one of the favourites in a field widely acclaimed as one of the best ever assembled for a major marathon.

There's good reason for her hot status as her world cross victory in March crowned a brilliant few months during which she won the World 20km Road Running championships, smashing Paula Radcliffe's world record in the process, and tasted victory in the Dam to Damloop 10 mile race in her home city of Amsterdam. Her time there, 50:50, was four seconds inside the previous world best.

What's more, Kiplagat insists her highly impressive win in Mombasa came in the middle of intensive marathon training targeted directly at London.

"I didn't specifically train for the world cross," she said. "All my training was focused on London. It was such a great and overwhelming feeling to have run so well on Mombasa that I really had to try hard to put my head down and get training again for the marathon.

"Just eight days after the world cross country championships I was back into marathon training. I immediately went back to my training camp at altitude and was there until two weeks ago when I went to Amsterdam to be close to the London course."

While there are five women in the field who have faster times than her, Kiplagat – nicknamed Simba, meaning lion in Swahili – is clearly in no mood to be intimidated, despite the presence of the Asian Games champion, Zhou Chunxiu from China, and the Ethiopian pair who won last year's races in Chicago and Berlin–Berhane Adere and Gete Wami.

"On Sunday I will just run my own race," she said. "I don't know what speed the rest will run but I plan to compete in my own race. I don't want to take too much of a risk, either by going too slowly or too quickly. It's very important to run my own race.

"I am excited about running here on such a fast course," she added. "When I ran 2:22 that sort of time was in fashion but I know I will have to go under that on Sunday to have a chance."

Kiplagat also revealed that her marathon career has been hampered by asthma, a condition she has now learned to cope with.

"When the doctors told me I had it I didn't want to believe what they were saying," she said. "Running a 10k it was OK but on long runs I would my feel my chest blocking up and I couldn't breathe well.

"I sometimes still feel it when I'm running, but it depends if the humidity is high, or if it's misty, or dusty, or the pollen is high. In the last two years we have got it under control using an inhaler."

Although already regarded as one of the greatest road racers in history, Kiplagat continues to find motivation, partly thanks to her recent results – "they make me realise there is more in store," she says – and partly because of her work supporting young people in Kenya.

Kiplagat uses her prize money to help fund a high altitude training centre for young athletes near Iten in Kenya and other schools for Kenyan children.

"I started it in 1999 because I felt it was my duty to do something for the community," she explained. "Doing that project motivated me. Now my sister is doing a lot of the work and I go back there just to support and visit them."

As for what comes next, she says much depends on what happens on Sunday.

"At the moment I am quite open for everything," she says. "Depending on how it goes for me in the coming year, especially how it goes on Sunday, I will then decide what I am going to in the next couple of years. Running a marathon in Osaka will not be in my schedule, but hopefully I will be there for the Olympics.

"I have to run out my fear in the marathon and get the confidence back I had four years ago when I ran my PB. That was a good feeling but since then I have had problems running marathons and I haven't achieved what I have trained to do."

By midday on Sunday, she hopes, that will be a thing of the past.