After starting as an orienteering enthusiast Isabellah Andersson is today Sweden's best bet in the marathon.

One of Sweden's hopes for a marathon medal, Isabellah Andersson, hails from Kenya but learnt her running in Sweden when she travelled there with the intention of learning all about the predominantly Nordic sport of orienteering.

Now 29, she started to run in Kenya just for fun in 2000 with a few friends . But then came a chance meeting in Kenya in 2004 with some Swedish students and the interest in orienteering started. A visit in 2005 took her to an orienteering high school in Blekinge where the man who was to become her coach and husband, Lars Andersson, was a teacher.

Orienteering took a back-seat as more conventional athletics training took over at the age of 26: “That was when I started to train properly,” says Andersson. “Up until that time I had not had a goal, I just ran to feel good.”

By 2007 she was good enough to win the Stockholm half marathon. One year on, she added the Stockholm marathon title in 2:34.14. After two years in the country she was eligible for Swedish citizenship and a few months later she collected the national 10000m title, already four months pregnant. One month later she stopped running and took up walking. Her daughter, Beyoncé, named after the singer, was born in January of the following year.

Five weeks after the birth, Andersson resumed training back home in Kenya where she and Lars had set up a training camp in Eldoret at 2,100m altitude. In 2009, she repeated her win in the Stockholm race in a new best of 2:33:52, but in January of this year came the big breakthrough in Dubai when she slashed seven minutes off that time with an excellent 2:26:52. Two months later came a PB in the half marathon of 70:02.

Most of Andersson's training is done in the morning: a 19km run before breakfast then a two-hour rest followed by another 20km session. “I like to get training out of the way so give myself time for other things in the afternoon,” she says.

So what does she think of her chances in the marathon on the 31st of July? “You never know with the marathon,” she says. I've trained right and I'm confident and I know the heat has never been a problem for me. But I don't want to talk about medals.”